With the advent of programming languages and technologies, vast number of software packages are being developed and released day by day. Software plays a fundamental role in all platforms.

The diverse types of packages available are free software, freeware and shareware and paid software. Free software grants the user with unrestricted access and they can be copied and modified without any conditions. Freeware allows for the use of software without any bucks and is restricted for being edited or modified and distributed.

Shareware offers only restricted access to the product and they cannot be redistributed or edited. It was not long before that the software products were not available free of cost, due to less user access and limited network connectivity. In the modern scenario, the world is being prototyped and hence the needs of software have dramatically enlarged and more free versions are being released. There are several pros and cons in downloading free software. There are many flaws in free software, as they are open source and freely available. Intruders use them as a medium to spread malicious content. Free software must be downloaded from authentic websites in a secure network environment.

Many sites avail free software with malware content. When such products are downloaded, the entire system corrupts. There are various alternatives for the system to be alert on using web content in downloading free software. It includes antivirus, firewall, phishing filter. A genuine antivirus must be installed with complete online protection. Their databases must be up-to date and should never be obsolete.

Virus scans should be done after the free software has been downloaded. Phishing filter should be available in the network. Malicious software when installed makes changes in the registry, so it is important that we back up our registry before installing any new product. So in order to improve the computer security, it is important that we download software from authorized sites.