Shoutbox

You can't comapre free and paid software anyway, as paid for software will often come from companies who evidently have greater resources, thus more can be put into developing, etc.

Equally some free software offers a much more user friendly outlook and generally better software (case in point, norton vs avg!)

To properly compare like with like you have to compare free software with free software and paid software with paid software.

Then again it depends what you're after