From my personal experiences these 20 something years ago, we were getting software mainly from variety of computer and gaming magazines releasing often on mont

From my personal experiences these 20 something years ago, we were getting software mainly from variety of computer and gaming magazines releasing often on monthly cycle, coming with CDs. These were packed with freeware, shareware, trials and sometimes full versions. And if you got large circle of friends you could swap these CDs in kinda offline P2P way. If you were really lucky there was someone who had already broadband connection and you could ask for a favor. Internet Cafes were also a thing back then - you could burn stuff on CDs or come with your own HDDs; and people did, sometimes clogging whole connection with P2P programs.