downloadsafari.com > Reviews > Go on safari . . .It's worth it

Author's product rating:   

Web site content	Good
Navigation	Good
Frequency of content update	Good,
Choice of FTP sites	Good
How fast is this website	Fast

Advantages:	Quick easy to use large number of downloads available
Disadvantages:	None really

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The first thing that strikes you when you visit this site is how visually unexciting it is.
The website is a mixture of a drab green, khaki and brown colours and is not at all pleasing to the eye. I visited the site on a recommendation by a friend and if I had just come across the site when surfing I might have thought the site wasn’t being maintained, so drab and derelict does it look.

Apart from needing a makeover and not inspiring too much confidence, once you actually start to look at the content of the site you find that there is a really comprehensive selection of downloads on offer. I visited the site to download a plain English text editor that I’d heard about, but hadn’t been able to find anywhere. (For anyone interested this piece of software works a bit like a spellchecker but scans your document looking for language or phrases that might be a bit too flowery it then suggests alternative shorter phrases or words using plain English.)

The site is easy to navigate and is pretty quick, it also has a good search facility that makes it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.
The site offers a selection of demo’s shareware and freeware in nine various categories. Games, Utilities, Programming, Internet, Business, Multi-media, Graphics,
Education and Email. Each of the categories contains sub –categories: Games for instance is divided into another fifteen different headings by type: Action, Strategy, Arcade, Role Playing, Casino, simulation, Board, sports, free, Add-on levels, patches/upgrades, Palm Pilot, Cheats, CD, miscellaneous. I’m sure you’ll agree that is a pretty comprehensive list.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the number of downloads on offer. In the games sections alone there are between 10000-13000 files available to download. Some of these files are the same games for different operating systems, but there is still a huge number available, including over 450 Role playing games over 400 simulations
And an amazing 5000+ free games.

The other sections also have large numbers of files available; the programming section looks pretty extensive as does the educational and business sections.
Things on offer include databases, spreadsheets, and word processors among others.

The graphics section contains a picture library, with 660 files available for download, ranging from clipart to background graphics complete with sounds.

When you see a file you’d like to download you click on it and a screen appears telling you about the program. There is a rating system and it also tells you how many downloads of the file there has been. It tells you the size of the file and an estimated download time based on your modem – 56k ISDN etc. The download times were pretty accurate on the couple of files I’ve downloaded.There is also an option to download th efiles from different locations. All files are downloaded as Zip files.

While this site is not the most attractive visually (an understatement!) it more than makes up for it with the content. I’m really impressed with what’s on offer –like most of these sites there will be the odd dud and absolutely crap programs -but the rating system and being able to see the number of downloads should give you some indication of the quality.

It’s not as well known a site as cnet,tucows etc but I think it’s on a par with them asfar as content goes, and it really is a hidden gem. I'd recommend it -it's well worth a look!