Anyone here put shareware/freeware on line before?

[monoman]

Has anyone here ever put their own program up on a freeware or shareware site?

I went over to tucows and can't find any bleeding instructions anyway :confused: (even after registering as an author).

What i'm looking for is a site that'll host my program for free and allow users to download it. Included in the help file will be a part asking for a small voluntary donation via paypal. I have a paypal account that accepts credit cards but, again, I can't find any info on the paypal site that informs me how to inform a potential doner how to donate if they're not registered with paypal.

Thanks in advance

[webfusion]

To send money through PayPal, any donor will need to have an open account with them.
This is because they are sorta like a bank -- and as we all know, a bank wants cash in hand first, before it authorizes any transfer of that cash to some third party.

So, to recap the basic rules for paying someone with PayPal:
Step #1 -- Register (provide PayPal with a valid, verifiable source of funds), and then, Step #2 --- initiate a "Send Money" transaction...

As for posting your software:
http://www.freewarehome.com/

easy as easy can be.
(#1 hit on google for 'freeware')

[Diabolos]

To send money through PayPal, any donor will need to have an open account with them.
This is because they are sorta like a bank -- and as we all know, a bank wants cash in hand first, before it authorizes any transfer of that cash to some third party.

So, to recap the basic rules for paying someone with PayPal:
Step #1 -- Register (provide PayPal with a valid, verifiable source of funds), and then, Step #2 --- initiate a "Send Money" transaction...

Not so! For quite a while now Paypal have not needed payers to create an account, and provide the option to pay directly using a credit card.

[monoman]

To send money through PayPal, any donor will need to have an open account with them.
This is because they are sorta like a bank -- and as we all know, a bank wants cash in hand first, before it authorizes any transfer of that cash to some third party.

So, to recap the basic rules for paying someone with PayPal:
Step #1 -- Register (provide PayPal with a valid, verifiable source of funds), and then, Step #2 --- initiate a "Send Money" transaction...

As for posting your software:
http://www.freewarehome.com/

easy as easy can be.
(#1 hit on google for 'freeware')

Thanks for the link, i'll check that out.

[monoman]

Not so! For quite a while now Paypal have not needed payers to create an account, and provide the option to pay directly using a credit card.

So how would I provide that service to a user without them knowing anything about paypal? Do I send them to a particular part of the paypal website? Sorry for the questions but if you can point me towards the pertinent part of the paypal site i'd be happy to read it.

Cheers

[Diabolos]

So how would I provide that service to a user without them knowing anything about paypal? Do I send them to a particular part of the paypal website? Sorry for the questions but if you can point me towards the pertinent part of the paypal site i'd be happy to read it.
Obviously you need a Paypal account first, so assuming you have then insert the following code into the appropriate HTML page:

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick" />
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="MY_PAYPAL_EMAIL" />
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="MY_PRODUCT_NAME" />
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="10.00" />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Donate" />
</form>

You need to substitute MY_PAYPAL_EMAIL and MY_PRODUCT_NAME with your particular values, and the "amount" can be anything you like - or leave out that line to prompt the user to enter any amount of their choosing. You can also tweak the "submit" line to use one of their button images - see manual.

For lots more details and to download a PDF manual, see: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/donate-manual-outside

[monoman]

Thanks for that Diabolos, I found the part on the site for accepting donations, customising the button etc.

The only crappy thing is that when you click the donation button and go to the paypal website, you're not presented with either a paypal button or a visa button. It took me a while to realise that I had to click "Don't have a PayPal account? Click here" underneath the paypal login section, and not the continue button, to pay by Visa.


I can explain this in some instructions anyway.

Thanks all again.

[Diabolos]

Thanks for that Diabolos, I found the part on the site for accepting donations, customising the button etc.

The only crappy thing is that when you click the donation button and go to the paypal website, you're not presented with either a paypal button or a visa button. It took me a while to realise that I had to click "Don't have a PayPal account? Click here" underneath the paypal login section, and not the continue button, to pay by Visa.


I can explain this in some instructions anyway.

Thanks all again.
Are you using Firefox? Because for some daft reason Paypal presents a different screen compared to Internet Explorer, which seems more intuitive.

[monoman]

Are you using Firefox? Because for some daft reason Paypal presents a different screen compared to Internet Explorer, which seems more intuitive.

Ah, thanks for that. I'm glad you told me this because ie users wouldn't have known what the hell I was talking about in my help! I am using firefox, I'll have a look at in ie aswell.

[monoman]

I see what you mean, it's far more intuitive in ie. Looks like i'll have to do two versions of the help and hope that all the browsers out there show either the firefox page or the ie page :rolleyes:

[webfusion]

Not so! For quite a while now Paypal have not needed payers to create an account, and provide the option to pay directly using a credit card.


A payer still needs to REGISTER as a new account and even using a Credit Card is considered a "valid, verifiable source of funds" as I indicated ---- so my posting is correct, Not So?

Here's the details directly from the link you provided to monoman from the PayPal Donation process:
When a buyer clicks the Donate button, he will be taken to a secure PayPal payment page, where he can log in to an existing PayPal account or sign up for a new one, and quickly complete the transaction.

Glad to see you are getting monoman up to speed with the codes and all...

When he has it all sorted, I'm sure he'll let us know what the program is, and why it's worth sending him a 'donation' for.

[monoman]

A payer still needs to REGISTER as a new account and even using a Credit Card is considered a "valid, verifiable source of funds" as I indicated ---- so my posting is correct, Not So?

Here's the details directly from the link you provided to monoman from the PayPal Donation process:
When a buyer clicks the Donate button, he will be taken to a secure PayPal payment page, where he can log in to an existing PayPal account or sign up for a new one, and quickly complete the transaction.

Glad to see you are getting monoman up to speed with the codes and all...

When he has it all sorted, I'm sure he'll let us know what the program is, and why it's worth sending him a 'donation' for.

A few details of the program are here http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=65285 in forum community.

It's not going to be a widely used program because it's an aid for Cubase SX users.

You can donate anyway though :D

[Almo]

I did. Took payments through Kagi. That was a long time ago, though.

[kevin]

Has anyone here ever put their own program up on a freeware or shareware site?

Only through my own site.

http://www.superfantasmoworld.com/modules/wfdownloads/viewcat.php?op=&cid=3

Asking for donations is pretty easy, you can just a button to your app that jumps them to the paypal site with the appropriate info filled in (i think paypal has instructions on how to do this.) Of course I say it's easy, but then I haven't actually done it. I've coded up a e-commerce site in perl that handed off info to paypal for payment but that was a long time ago.

[webfusion]

It's not going to be a widely used program because it's an aid for Cubase SX users.

Add the letter "E" and you've got something.

[Diabolos]

A payer still needs to REGISTER as a new account and even using a Credit Card is considered a "valid, verifiable source of funds" as I indicated ---- so my posting is correct, Not So?

Here's the details directly from the link you provided to monoman from the PayPal Donation process:
When a buyer clicks the Donate button, he will be taken to a secure PayPal payment page, where he can log in to an existing PayPal account or sign up for a new one, and quickly complete the transaction.
What you (the seller) needs do is login to your Paypal account, select the option "Website Payment Preferences" and then select the option to make "Paypal Account Optional". This changes the workflow for buyers to allow them to pay without registering (although they still can if they want).

[monoman]

Add the letter "E" and you've got something.

:confused: You've confused me there. You mean on "aid"?

[El Greco]

He means SE instead of SX

[monoman]

He means SE instead of SX

Oh, that's a good point, it probably works with SE as well.

[Crispy Duck]

I have a few little shareware programs online - see http://www.oview.co.uk. There are loads of freeware/shareware directory sites - see also download.com, 1000files.com, etc. I take payment via the RegNow site, www.regnow.com. That lets users pay by credit card, and you can also supply a registration-code-generating algorithm so that RegNow will instantly send users a registration code when they pay. RegNow takes a commission, but I've found it a good system.

Most of the directory sites now accept submissions via PAD files - see http://www.asp-shareware.org/pad/.

Good luck!

[monoman]

I have a few little shareware programs online - see http://www.oview.co.uk. There are loads of freeware/shareware directory sites - see also download.com, 1000files.com, etc. I take payment via the RegNow site, www.regnow.com (http://www.regnow.com). That lets users pay by credit card, and you can also supply a registration-code-generating algorithm so that RegNow will instantly send users a registration code when they pay. RegNow takes a commission, but I've found it a good system.

Most of the directory sites now accept submissions via PAD files - see http://www.asp-shareware.org/pad/.

Good luck!

Cheers for the info. I've set up a PAD file which I then thought i'd have to submit to each shareware site from my harddrive. However, it seems that I need to host the PAD file on my website. Unfortunately, my website is actually a blog, on blogger.com. Do I need to set up a web page (say on google pages) just to host the PAD file?

I'm a bit confused with these PAD files :confused:

Thanks again