Shareware is a way of selling computer programs, especially from small companies or even one person working at home. You can put the program on your computer and use it for a while — free, or very cheap. After that, if you still want it, you are asked to pay. If you do not pay, it may stop working, keep nagging you, or leave the extra parts locked. The name is share + ware. Ware is the same piece you hear in software and hardware: this kind of computer stuff. Share is because the old idea was: pass the program to friends, let them try it, and honest people send the maker a little money. A man called Bob Wallace made the word well known. Though actually, people now say shareware for almost any cheap download, even when nobody is really asking you to try it first. And it is not the same as freeware. Freeware you may keep without paying. A lot of software today is an app store or a monthly fee, so shareware sounds a bit old-fashioned — but you still meet it on older programs and in talk about how software used to be sold.

共享軟體（台灣說「軟體」；跟完全不用錢的「免費軟體」不一樣：這個是先試用，再決定要不要買）