See also: Ware | Shareware | Non-Free
Shareware that encourages its user to pay the author by annoying them with every use of the program, often after 30 days or a certain number of uses. Nagware usually forces a user to constantly dismiss a notification box, sometimes with a built-in time before the box can be dismissed. Developers create nagware software because, it is reasoned, if the program is valuable enough to use often and be annoyed by, it is valuable enough to pay for. After all, software has to be funded and developed somehow. Often, users chose to duck these annoyances, not by paying, but by using Cracks And Serials. This is bad karma and still common.
Nagware takes a number of forms:
- Forced delays at the startup or shutdown of a program, with a shareware notice.
- Popup boxes, either timed or random, with a notice. These boxes have evolved over time, making some not dismissable for a period of time, others shuffle the button and hotkey around to avoid the fast-close reflex users have developed.
- In some cases, key functionality is crippled because of nagware delays and notices. See crippleware.
TakeDown.NET -> “Nagware”