Thoughts On Obtaining Software Illegally

[Chromatinfish 123]

(This is mainly for new MT members, veterans usually know this by now...)
Let's be honest here: Did you ever try to obtain software illegally?

If you do:

Spoiler: huge rant

" Cracking is illegal and can be punishable by law. Anyways, just look for a free similar software if you don't want to empty your pocket anyway! If you spent years and thousands of dollars perfecting your lawn and people are coming in and shoveling you grass out and on their own lawn wouldn't you feel steamed? How about if you built the world's fastest computer and some other guy decided to copy it? Just don't do it. And not to say that it is illegal anyways. Please stop and we will be forgiving.

After all many companies even offer free giveaways (like through MT) and there are always free, or open-source alternatives so just use those instead! Because you don't like the speed limit on the local roads doesn't mean you just ride 70 in a 15 mph zone, you take the freeways...

If you don't:

Thank you for obtaining it legally. Warm thanks from me and millions of other shareware developers out there.

You harm other people by chasing your happiness if you ever do it illegally. I may not change your feelings for this but at least this will be in your mind screaming no no! when you do that.

 

[hjlbx]

Don't do it...

 

[Deleted member 178]

I dont acknowledge piracy and other crackings, but if developers and mstly their marketting dept would adjust the price of their products to the countries lifecost , im sure there will be less piracy.

Be honest , who in any emerging country will buy a security software 40+ US dollars when the average salary is 100...

I dont even mention unavoidable softs like MS office and Photoshop. You need them even if you dont like them.

Where i am , almost all professional photographers use cracked Photoshop to work. Most companies use cracked Office.

At least MS seems to close their eyes on poor countries.

 

[LabZero]

There are currently many Giveaway of paid software and there are free alternatives (and sometimes are better).

Unfortunately, sometimes with just a few mouse clicks you can get for free, but illegally, any software you want.

Many people use cracked software just for fun even if it cost a few dollars.

 

[frogboy]

All my machines have 100% legit software installed.

 

[LabZero]

All my machines have 100% legit software installed.

The same here

 

[Sr. Normal]

Some time ago I'm a good guy and I have only legal software, but I recognize that I installed illegal copies of Windows in VM.

Once I met Toolwiz Time Freeze and most recently Shadow Defender I removed my VM of my computer.

There are free software (not want to get into classifications) strong enough to be able to dispense of payment tools. And as you said @Klipsh , there is very good software giveaways

 

[Deleted member 178]

How may people knows about giveaways? Only few of us , mostly geeks.

 

[Sr. Normal]

How may people knows about giveaways? Only few of us , mostly geeks.

Better that way. I think f this were known-used by more people, simply it would cease to exist

 

[frogboy]

How may people knows about giveaways? Only few of us , mostly geeks.

It is a valid point.

 

[MalwareT]

How may people knows about giveaways? Only few of us , mostly geeks.

I do My PC is 100% legal.

 

[Chromatinfish 123]

I, for one agree with this, and more so with differential pricing system.
C'mon I am a student whose school is not listed in those M$ list for free/subsidised edition.
If I were to have all my softwares legally I would be broke even before I started earning.
But I do plan to have them in original.
The first thing I do when I like a software is go to its support and suggest country-specific pricing.
Been a long tym since I told the IDM dev to introduce this and its still in process, so u cud imagine, how much they care for our view.


This is also true, I only started in this software world around a year ago and then only I came to know abt these giveaways.
Otherwise, I was like why wud anyone give u sumthing just like that for free?
so ppl do have apprehension at the start.

I have some original software in my PCs but all those are gathered via Giveaways. ATM, I am in no condition to buy those.

Yes I understand that people have limited budgets and can't afford to pay $100+ for security.

Next time maybe try Avast with Malwarebytes? It's totally free with good protection. On our computer we just use ESET with HitmanPro only because we won keys from the giveaway.

Still only people who are geeks obtain illegal software too so er... they should know about giveaways. MT is not the first, last, or only place where you can get free keys legally (Softpedia, for example, and comms.ru, and some companies run their own giveaways like Cyberghost, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and many others have done on some point.

For Adguard, for example, to get free you can (legally)

1) Become a Beta Tester: but you need to give info on how it works! You also need to remember that beta versions aren't stable ones and crash more often.

2) Tell 4 people to use Adguard: Why not tell more people about your favorite adblocker and get a free 1 year?

Avast also has this "tell people and get free keys" promotion running sometimes.

Zemana has a Twitter promotion...

Webroot used to have the huge Broncos giveaway which I snatched many keys from because I used all our family's email addresses (which are tons, imho).

Bit defender used to have so many free giveaways that you didn't have to pay once! Now they are less frequent but you can use the old ones... I have them still stored with the Webroot keys in a folder.

Mostly companies will have a promotion or at least there is one free alternative. If you upload cracked free versions, you can suffer heavy fines or even jail time if you are caught.

I dont acknowledge piracy and other crackings, but if developers and mstly their marketting dept would adjust the price of their products to the countries lifecost , im sure there will be less piracy.

Be honest , who in any emerging country will buy a security software 40+ US dollars when the average salary is 100...

I dont even mention unavoidable softs like MS office and Photoshop. You need them even if you dont like them.

Where i am , almost all professional photographers use cracked Photoshop to work. Most companies use cracked Office.

At least MS seems to close their eyes on poor countries.

Kingsoft Office seems like a very good alternative to Microsoft Office with the same or more features. MS probably should just charge upfront for the software (like $69.99 for lifetime key) or even make it free (like Pages in apple). We still have MS 2007 from university which was one-pay lifetime.


Photoshop- now this argument is getting very warm. GIMP is what our university distributes to all computers which is free but still miss the features of Photoshop. Actually we snagged a copy of Photoshop for about $39.99 (very old, mind you about 2003 version) at our old university which was also one-pay lifetime.

Agreed that both consumers and developers should look out on piracy and prevent it.

 

[Chromatinfish 123]

@Chromatinfish 123
I respect your view and as already told once I start earning, I do plan to have them in originals.
In the meantime, I have already been doing what u suggested - using free alternatives and giveaways.
But there are some softwares, which are just irreplaceable for 'me' - Windows and Office being one example.
And yes I also do beta testing of s/w and devs have been kind enuff to give me free access
But since here no one was forth coming to accept that they use pirated/cracks/hacks/patches or whatever the term, I stared the trend

Thanks

 

[illumination]

There is never a need to obtain software illegally period..

With tons of open source software out there that can produce just as good as results as the name brand components.. Not to mention, looking around to find even "paid" software to replace those high dollar ones...

Example: I was doing photography for awhile, and seriously could not afford to go out and spend $600.00 on Photoshop.. So what did i do, well i researched, found a software made by Corel called "Paintsho Pro" which was around $80.00 and allowed me to do pretty much anything i could have done with PS. Matter of fact, after using it for awhile, and then trying a trial of PS, i discovered i liked Corel better.. Then i combined efforts by downloading Gimp and all the extra plugins, and then between the two, i could literally do what ever i needed with my photos.

The biggest excuse i hear with people is MS office, needing it, well, there are many open source office suites that can convert file formats "including MS office format" and are just as functional.

Security wise... With free applications like Avast, CIS, ect, one can take care of business...

Bottom line, as stated above, never a need to obtain anything illegally.. Most softwares that people go after illegally require knowledge to run them, and if you have enough knowledge to do so, you have enough to find compatible alternatives.

 

[Purshu_Pro]

I was also once a pirated software user until I bought my new genuine Windows 8 PC in 2012. Then I order to learn and develop myself, I made tons of experiments over my PC only with the confidence that I have genuine windows and I dont need to worry. Slowly I learned the software developers how they work hard in building the software for us and we just tend to snatch it illegally.

Believe it or not, Malware tips really taught me how to do stuffs legally and the choices that we have over the paid applications.

In India an Antivirus software just costs $ 5-8 USD. But still people refuse to invest over it and men like me accept changes and believe my true words.

What is the use of cracking an antivirus? U just get more Vulnerable when u crack it instead of getting protected. For time being IDM is the software that most people use to crack. But you dont know that there are equal alternatives developed open source.

Now I am a genuine user of genuine softwares. I do edit photos, thanks for my Institute for providing a free 1 year subscription of Photoshop CC 2014.

Rest all my softwares won in Giveaways here in MalwareTips. Guess what yesterday I won Shadow Defender. And a week before Revo Uninstaller, and lot many before. Now entered Norton !

 

[Chromatinfish 123]

Spoiler: Reply post from [USER=10837]@Purshu_Pro[/USER]

I was also once a pirated software user until I bought my new genuine Windows 8 PC in 2012. Then I order to learn and develop myself, I made tons of experiments over my PC only with the confidence that I have genuine windows and I dont need to worry. Slowly I learned the software developers how they work hard in building the software for us and we just tend to snatch it illegally.

Believe it or not, Malware tips really taught me how to do stuffs legally and the choices that we have over the paid applications.

In India an Antivirus software just costs $ 5-8 USD. But still people refuse to invest over it and men like me accept changes and believe my true words.

What is the use of cracking an antivirus? U just get more Vulnerable when u crack it instead of getting protected. For time being IDM is the software that most people use to crack. But you dont know that there are equal alternatives developed open source.

Now I am a genuine user of genuine softwares. I do edit photos, thanks for my Institute for providing a free 1 year subscription of Photoshop CC 2014.

Rest all my softwares won in Giveaways here in MalwareTips. Guess what yesterday I won Shadow Defender. And a week before Revo Uninstaller, and lot many before. Now entered Norton !

Yep MT is a great way to win free legal keys.

Once had an experiment where I downloaded keygens (not for their purpose, obviously) in a VM of course and see what they could do. Most were malicious... which means that this illegal ways are also dangerous.

 

[jamescv7]

No matter how the things upside down, illegal is illegal.

The problem nowadays where people already been folded that free is for everything. Let's clarify, there's no more free in this world and already bind with expenses not for money but time value too.

Many misconception happen before when if you obtain from torrents for free as crack then is considered not an issue, however that's wrong! Because you are already an instrument to steal + modified program already, no matter when rules on your regions are not fully implemented but the mere fact you should realize if a logic is inserted.

I admit long time before of ignoring to choose any alternative products to remove the pirated program like MS Office but it takes a little effort to realize that something to try which considered to be free and genuine. Plus until realizing that as I conduct VM (Virtual Machine) hence no more problem to reuse the trial version without any hacks cause the logic is considered to be a brand new system.

So unfortunately, corruption is already a part of a life so if you are going to take a course in related to IT then be assure to follow that number one ethics in terms of piracy usage.

 

[Vasudev]

Most of the time, I tend to use Xubuntu and I'm happy with it. Quite a few amounts of Office docs may not work or render correctly in LO so I use MSO 2010 or office online to edit some docs. Office online can be accessed if there's an outlook/hotmail account.

 

[jackuars]

Since almost all of the software's I use on my laptops and PC's are freeware (except for Windows obviously) as they have served me really well, I didn't have to illegally download software's ever. My advice is that if you search good enough there is at least one freeware gem that, at least meets all your needs, is as good or sometimes ever better than most paid software's.

Atleast 30% of the time I use a freeware O.S, Linux Mint, and I've found it to be a pleasure to use.

 

[Malware Man]

I used to be REALLY bad for piracy. Downloading cracks, keygens, movies, songs, etc. Now I knw why I used to get SO infected constantly!
Piracy rates in Canada are ridiculous since so many things here are way more expensive than the USA plus shipping and handling costs a fortune extra when ordering from out of the country. I've had cracked AVs, Windows, games, MS Office, etc. I got tons of viruses... I learned the hard way. I'm proud to say now everything I have is legit and I no longer pirate anything and am happily virus free.

My ISP states in it's terms and conditions that it hates piracy and will flag you for it. From the 10 years using them and downloading all those stuff. I have yet to get a letter from them saying they caught me and are gonna get me fined,

I heard in the USA it is really bad and they will send a letter after the very first thing you download illegally and threaten to cut off your connection.

My Windows 10 Education OS is legit from my school.
MS Office is now legit, my school also provides it included with Education edition
I no longer pirate music. I use Spotify for all my music needs.
I don't pirate movies anymore. I instead, just use Netflix.
I have a few paid software on my PC but they are legal thanks to MT!

If I want a paid software now I'll just pay for it. I have no reason to crack it and risk viruses. Plus I'll soon be working so I can actually pay for it with my money if I really want it.