What is a shareware, who creates it, what does it cost to use shareware,are there any risks and would you use shareware, why?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware

Shareware is copyrighted computer programs, usually created by anyone, and put on the internet for most anyone to download. In most cases, the shareware provider (the writer), would like a donation for their product. Shareware can also be older versions of current products. They may be under a different name, but in THIS case, they should be copyrighted by the original company, I believe.

In some cases, you are given a limited number of uses; In others, they may not allow you to use certain functions, unless you pay them and get a release code for the other functions. (Just like the big boys do.)

Who creates it? Programmers, on their days off. People learning programming. People who create something for their own use, and figure that someone else may be interested in it. Sometimes bad guys (who load it with a virus or trojan horse).

Shareware can cost anything between $5 or less, to thousands of dollars with licenses for different computers or users. But again, you may get shareware with unlimited use, or at least unlimited use for the type of things you will use it for. However, if it is something you use a lot, it would be worth paying for, right?

Risks: There COULD be a virus or trojan horse or other malware attached. Make sure, before you install it, that you run it through a virus scanner, and adware scanner, and a malware scanner.

Would I use it? Sure. I had a friend that created a game, that some idiot had stolen, and sold as shareware. I mentioned it to my friend, he told me that people had been doing that, and said he'd (or his lawyer) would be talking to the shareware provider. And back in the early 90s, I was buying and downloading other shareware. (Mostly games, but some handy things, too, like image converters.) Just be safe with it and scan it before installing.

I hope that helps.