Freeware is software , most often proprietary , that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user . There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license , or EULA that defines freeware unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the freeware it offers. For instance, modification , redistribution by third parties, and reverse engineering are permitted by some publishers but prohibited by others. Unlike with free and open-source software , which are also often distributed free of charge, the source code for freeware is typically not made available. Freeware may be intended to benefit its producer by, for example, encouraging sales of a more capable version, as in the freemium and shareware business models .
36-517: CPU-Z is a freeware system profiling and monitoring application for Microsoft Windows and Android that detects the central processing unit , RAM , motherboard chipset, and other hardware features of a modern personal computer or Android device . CPU-Z is more comprehensive in virtually all areas compared to the tools provided in the Windows to identify various hardware components, and thus assists in identifying certain components without
72-523: A codec and a player by adding an optional media container format called "DivX Media Format" ("DMF") (with a .divx extension) that includes support for the following DVD-Video and VOB container like features. This media container format is used for the MPEG-4 Part 2 codec. This new DivX Media Format also came with a "DivX Ultra Certified" profile, and all "Ultra" certified players must support all DivX Media Format features. While video encoded with
108-592: A free Windows CLI through DivX Labs with documentation on the DivX Developer Portal; DivX describes the release as a reference mux to demonstrate DivX Plus MKV extensions like World Fonts and Smooth FF/RW . DivX, Inc. markets a certification program to consumer electronics and IC manufacturers for the purpose of guaranteed compatibility and playback of video files that fall within DivX profiles. Devices that have been DivX certified usually brandish one of
144-566: A legal safe and internationally law domains respecting way. The typical freeware use case "share" can be further refined with Creative Commons restriction clauses like non-commerciality ( CC BY-NC ) or no- derivatives ( CC BY-ND ), see description of licenses . There are several usage examples , for instance The White Chamber , Mari0 or Assault Cube , all freeware by being CC BY-NC-SA licensed with only non-commercial sharing allowed. Freeware cannot economically rely on commercial promotion. In May 2015 advertising freeware on Google AdWords
180-468: A license, but displays advertising to either cover development costs or as a means of income. Registerware forces the user to subscribe with the publisher before being able to use the product. While commercial products may require registration to ensure licensed use , registerware do not. Shareware permits redistribution, but the license only allows limited use before paying the license fee. Some features may be disabled prior to payment, in which case it
216-580: A pack of cigarettes" where he and Greenhall founded what would eventually become DivX, Inc. DivX took the encore2 code and developed it into DivX 4.0, initially released in July 2001. Other developers who had participated in OpenDivX took encore2 and started a new project— Xvid —that started with the same encoding core. DivX, Inc. has since continued to develop the DivX codec, releasing DivX 5.0 in March 2002. By
252-560: A promotion for the premium version. The two often share a code base, using a compiler flag to determine which is produced. For example, BBEdit has a BBEdit Lite edition which has fewer features. XnView is available free of charge for personal use but must be licensed for commercial use. The "free" version may be advertising supported, as was the case with the DivX . Ad-supported software and registerware also bear resemblances to freeware. Ad-supported software does not ask for payment for
288-405: A single entity to be responsible for updating and enhancing the product, which is then given away without charge. Other freeware projects are simply released as one-off programs with no promise or expectation of further development. These may include source code , as does free software, so that users can make any required or desired changes themselves, but this code remains subject to the license of
324-500: A week". In early 2000, Jordan Greenhall recruited Rota to form a company (originally called DivXNetworks, Inc., renamed to DivX, Inc. in 2005) to develop an MPEG-4 codec, from scratch, that would still be backward-compatible with the Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 format. This effort resulted first in the release of the "OpenDivX" codec and source code on 15 January 2001. OpenDivX was hosted as an open-source project on
360-424: Is DivX's version of digital rights management (DRM), which allows content copyright holders to control distribution. In 2009, DivX, Inc. received format approval from major Hollywood studios including Sony, Paramount, and Lionsgate, which has allowed content retailers to sell protected videos that will play on current and previous generations of DivX certified devices. The terms of the contract are not known, so it
396-552: Is a brand of video codec products developed by DivX, LLC . There are three DivX codecs : the original MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec, the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC DivX Plus HD codec and the High Efficiency Video Coding DivX HEVC Ultra HD codec. The most recent version of the codec itself is version 6.9.2, which is several years old. New version numbers on the packages now reflect updates to the media player, converter, etc. The "DivX" brand
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#1732780935391432-453: Is distinct from " DIVX ", which is an obsolete video rental system. The winking emoticon in the early " DivX ;-) " codec name was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the DIVX system. Although not created by them, the DivX company adopted the name of the popular DivX ;-) codec. The company dropped the smiley and released DivX 4.0, which was actually the first DivX version to trademark
468-431: Is sometimes known as crippleware. Both freeware and shareware sometimes have a limited evaluation period, after which the software is automatically disabled or starts displaying a request to pay a registration fee. In the latter case it is colloquially known as nagware. The Creative Commons offer licenses , applicable to all by copyright governed works including software, which allow a developer to define "freeware" in
504-653: Is typically proprietary and distributed without source code. By contrast, the "free" in "free software" refers to freedoms granted users under the software license (for example, to run the program for any purpose, modify and redistribute the program to others), and such software may be sold at a price. According to the Free Software Foundation (FSF), "freeware" is a loosely defined category and it has no clear accepted definition, although FSF asks that free software (libre; unrestricted and with source code available) should not be called freeware. In contrast
540-440: Is unknown if that approval is still in effect. Dr. DivX OSS is capable of transcoding many video formats to DivX-encoded video. The original closed-source Dr. DivX terminated at version 1.06 for DivX 5.21. That was the last version of DivX capable of running on Windows 9x . An open-source version has since been made, which supports DivX 6. Dr. DivX offers greatly expanded features over the free DivX Converter application, that
576-528: The Free Software Foundation calls free software , the author of freeware usually restricts the rights of the user to use, copy, distribute, modify, make derivative works, or reverse engineer the software. The software license may impose additional usage restrictions; for instance, the license may be "free for private, non-commercial use" only, or usage over a network, on a server, or in combination with certain other software packages may be prohibited. Restrictions may be required by license or enforced by
612-636: The AVI file format. The methods of including multiple audio and even subtitle tracks involve storing the data in RIFF headers and other such AVI hacks which have been known for quite a while, such that even VirtualDubMod supports them. DivX, Inc. did this on purpose to keep at least partial backward compatibility with AVI, so that players that do not support the new features available to the .divx container format (like interactive menus, chapter points and XSUB subtitles) can at least play that primary video stream (usually
648-475: The DivX codec is an MPEG-4 video stream, the DivX Media Format is analogous to media container formats such as Apple's QuickTime. In much the same way that media formats such as DVD specify MPEG-2 video as a part of their specification, the DivX Media Format specifies MPEG-4-compatible video as a part of its specification. However, despite the use of the ".divx" extension, this format is an extension to
684-487: The Oxford English Dictionary simply characterizes freeware as being "available free of charge (sometimes with the suggestion that users should make a donation to the provider)". Some freeware products are released alongside paid versions that either have more features or less restrictive licensing terms. This approach is known as freemium ("free" + "premium"), since the "free" version is intended as
720-475: The Project Mayo web site hosted at projectmayo.com (the name comes from " mayonnaise ", because, according to Rota, DivX and mayonnaise are both "French and very hard to make." ). The company's internal developers and some external developers worked jointly on OpenDivX for the next several months, but the project eventually stagnated. In early 2001, DivX employee "Sparky" wrote a new and improved version of
756-463: The codec's encoding algorithm known as "encore2". This code was included in the OpenDivX public source repository for a brief time, but then was abruptly removed. The explanation from DivX at the time was that "the community really wants a Winamp , not a Linux ." It was at this point that the project forked . That summer, Rota left the French Riviera and moved to San Diego "with nothing but
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#1732780935391792-605: The compiled executable and does not constitute free software. A "free" trial is another related concept in which customers are allowed to use a product, free of charge, for a limited time. When a software monopoly has a strong network effect, it may be more profitable for it to offer a "free" trial. Also, customers acquired via a "free" trial have a much lower customer lifetime value as opposed to regular customers, but they also respond more to marketing communications . Some factors that may encourage or discourage people to use "free" trials include: DivX DivX
828-547: The compressed output be put in an ASF file. It was altered to allow other containers such as Audio Video Interleave (AVI). Rota hacked the Microsoft codec because newer versions of the Windows Media Player would not play his video portfolio and résumé that were encoded with it. Instead of re-encoding his portfolio, Rota and German hacker Max Morice decided to reverse engineer the codec, which "took about
864-460: The following marks: DivX certified devices have included DVD players, car stereos, mobile phones, televisions, Blu-ray players, and even alarm clocks. Aside from verifying proper decoding of files conforming to the DivX profiles the certification also confirms the device can play back DivX Video on Demand content, which includes Hollywood content that can be purchased from Internet retailers. On 4 December 2007, native MPEG-4 ASP playback support
900-487: The grouping is a specific subset of what is in the standards, there are certification processes for each of the profiles that device manufacturers must follow. All DivX certified devices bearing a DivX logo will adhere to one of the profiles outlined in the table below as would any tools that support the DivX profiles. 352×288×25 720×576×25 720×480×30, 720×576×25 5/6: 1920×1080×30, 1280×720×60 1280×720×60 NAL: 24000000 5/6: 244800 DivX Video on Demand (DivX VOD)
936-582: The main movie if the DMF file contains multiple video streams like special features like bonus materials). Of course, the DivX codec and tools like Dr. DivX still support the traditional method of creating standard AVI files. Since version 5.0 of DivX, the FourCC (identifying code) for the DivX MPEG-4 Part 2 codec is DX50. Previously it used DIVX. DivX Plus HD is a marketing name for a file type using
972-482: The need of opening the case; particularly the core revision and RAM clock rate . It also provides information on the system's GPU . This Microsoft Windows software -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Freeware The term freeware was coined in 1982 by Andrew Fluegelman , who wanted to sell PC-Talk , the communications application he had created, outside of commercial distribution channels. Fluegelman distributed
1008-481: The program via the same process as shareware . As software types can change, freeware can change into shareware. In the 1980s and 1990s, the term freeware was often applied to software released without source code . Freeware software is available for use without charge and typically has limited functionality with a more capable version available commercially or as shareware. It is typically fully functional for an unlimited period of time. In contrast to what
1044-518: The release of version 5.2.1 on 8 September 2004, the DivX codec was substantially feature-complete. Changes since then have tended to focus on speed, and encouraging wider hardware player support, while the company has also focused its time on the formats and next generation codecs. In February 2011, DivX was acquired by Rovi Corporation , upon completion of its acquisition of Sonic Solutions . In 2014, Blackstone Group and Parallax Capital acquired DivX from Rovi for $ 75 million. On January 5, 2015, it
1080-464: The software itself; e.g., the package may fail to function over a network. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) defines "open source software" (i.e., free software or free and open-source software), as distinct from "freeware" or "shareware"; it is software where "the Government does not have access to the original source code". The "free" in "freeware" refers to the price of the software, which
1116-436: The standard Matroska media container format (.mkv), rather than the proprietary DivX Media Format. DivX Plus HD files contain an H.264 video bitstream, AAC surround sound audio, and a number of XML-based attachments defining chapters, subtitles and meta data. This media container format is used for the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec. DivX has defined profiles which are subsets of MPEG-4/AVI and H.264/Matroska standards. Because
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1152-512: The term DivX . DivX ;-) (not DivX) 3.11 Alpha and later 3.xx versions refers to a hacked version of the Microsoft MPEG-4 Version 3 video codec (not to be confused with MPEG-4 Part 3 ) from Windows Media Tools 4 codecs. The video codec, which was actually not MPEG-4 compliant, was extracted around 1998 by French hacker Jerome Rota (also known as Gej) at Montpellier. The Microsoft codec originally required that
1188-705: Was added to the Xbox 360 , allowing it to play video encoded with DivX and other MPEG-4 ASP codecs. On 17 December 2007, firmware upgrade 2.10 was released for the Sony PlayStation 3 , which included official DivX Certification. Firmware version 2.50 (released on 15 October 2008) included support for the DivX Video on Demand (DivX VOD) service, and firmware version 2.60 (released on 20 January 2009) included official DivX Certification and updated Profile support to version 3.11. With introduction of DivX to Go in
1224-491: Was announced that IPTV company NeuLion would acquire DivX for $ 62.5 million. In February 2018, a deal was finalized to sell certain DivX assets, intellectual property and subsidiaries from NeuLion, Inc. to Fortress Investment Group . DivX, LLC continues to operate from their headquarters in San Diego and release new versions of DivX Software for Windows and macOS. DivX 6 expanded the scope of DivX from including just
1260-538: Was bundled with the codec from version 6 onwards. Dr. DivX is not compatible with DivX Plus HD. DivX has released a command line interface (CLI) for the divx264 encoder used in the DivX Converter as beta, free for non-commercial use. To complement the CLI divx264 encoder released on DivX Labs, DivX has also released a DivX AAC encoder CLI as a Windows beta binary. Finally, DivXMKVMux has been released as
1296-509: Was restricted to "authoritative source"[s]. Thus web sites and blogs are the primary resource for information on which freeware is available, useful, and is not malware . However, there are also many computer magazines or newspapers that provide ratings for freeware and include compact discs or other storage media containing freeware. Freeware is also often bundled with other products such as digital cameras or scanners . Freeware has been criticized as "unsustainable" because it requires
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