Yep, this was the golden age of ethical games journalism that 
gaters yearn for. This was the era where there were centerfold-style ads that didn’t show the fucking game but showed a sweaty naked woman with the game’s logo printed on her body. This was the era that said Rise of the Robots was GAME OF THE YEAR before anyone fucking played it.
The freeware age was wonderful. It’s also part of what made Doom so popular to begin with: almost anyone could play the first episode and all of its maps (which was a good time in its own right) for free.
One neat thing a game that recently paid homage to shareware with was the source port of Diablo - DevilutionX, it lets you play the shareware copy complete with multiplayer and I thought that was a really cool touch.
Amen to that. I remember you could buy magazines with demo CDs on them. Made it feel like you got really something out of buying them gaming mags. That was super rad