Veterans may remember a time in computing when virtual machines were all the rage. With them, you could test the features of an operating system on any computer, without the need to perform a clean installation of that system. They can even be used to have a rooted phone without doing anything to ours, or to have Windows on a Mac thanks to Parallels.
And that’s what we want to talk about, because there’s always been a superior option to Parallels called VMware. In fact, this program was quite superior to the competition for quite some time. Of course, it had one major drawback: its price.
VMware for All at Zero Cost
As NotebookCheck tells us, VMware Fusion is now free for everyone. Corporate users will, according to the media, have to continue paying a monthly subscription fee to be able to use the software. But for the rest of the world, not having to shell out the $199 VMware previously cost is great news.
If any user now wants to be able to download the virtual machine program without having to dig deep into their pockets, they will first have to register on the Broadcom support website. Once this is done, VMware will be available for download from the Broadcom download portal.
At the moment, VMware is compatible with Intel and ARM Mac computers, although it is true that with the second architecture there are certain limitations in terms of GPU performance and DirectX support.
There’s another catch: if you install the software on an Apple Silicon chip, the only version you can install is Windows ARM. This version emulates applications written for x64 architecture, which means that there will be even more performance loss.
We take this opportunity to remind you that the software is, since December 2023, owned by the connectivity giant Broadcom. Since the company bought VMware for $69 billion, it began to change the way licensing worked, which translates into what we see today.
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