Once upon a time I wrote a piece of software for Mac OS 8.1 to 9.2 called Wowser.
What it did was it allowed you to choose which web browser was your favorite, and launch that one if no other browser was open. But if a different browser was open, it would use the one that was running, rather than launching your favorite one.
A lot of people hear that description and they either don't understand it, or say, "Why would you want to do that?"
Wowser had two registered users, and only a few hundred downloads over about three years. Then the downloads tapered off, too. I was less than aggressive about marketing it, because, well... It's a tiny piece of shareware that isn't really all that useful.
So Wowser is gone. I stopped updating it long, long ago, and now it's out to pasture in every way.
If you want it, let me know and I can make it available for download again.
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2 comments postedI think shareware is an
Submitted by sean on Mon, 2005-07-11 11:20.I think shareware is an endangered species.
I used to use (or at least try out) a variety of shareware apps, but the volume and quality of free-with-a-big-f software these days has weaned me off of it.
I made this article so that
Submitted by Mile23 on Mon, 2005-07-11 13:47.I made this article so that www.mile23.com/wowser.html would resolve to an explanation of what had happened to Wowser. I was actually getting referrals from Google, which is just too weird. But they were getting a 404 when they visited the page, which isn't very inviting.
There are two kinds of shareware: The good kind that might as well be freeware, and the crap kind that people charge a lot of money for. Free and open source alternatives have made this the reality.