Real Reason I Avoid Pirated Software
I wish I could say I have moral reasons for not using pirated/cracked software but I’m pretty practical about the issue. Cracked software isn’t something new to me; I’ve used it a lot. No, like I said, I’m more practial about it.
Cracked Software
BTW, because I’ve had too much to drink while I write this, I’m using pirated and cracked interchangeably though I know they both mean different things. Try to keep up…
I was once a big fan of not paying for software. While I was a kid and all through college I never paid for any computer programs; not one, not ever. I used to have collections of stuff that my friends and I would share with each other and our families (computers were HUGE in my family). Basic disk swapping really.
And then the Internet came into my world. I became very good at finding cracked programs (warez). First warez sites, then Morpheus, then Limelight, then Kazaa (sometimes all 4).
That said, a lot of people find it surprising that I hate to use cracked software now.
Anyway, I’ve found that pirated programs are a little unreliable. This could of course be attributed to the main software product, not just the cracked version, but I find that hard to believe (unless, of course, it’s version 1 of a new Microsoft product). I’ve used both cracked and commercial versions of many programs and more often than not the cracked or pirated version is just more unstable.
Now, I admit, I’ve installed cracked programs that didn’t have any viruses and worked as stable as you could want. But I’ve also ran into the other side where it just becomes a pretty big time investment.
There’s also the whole virus thing which is definately a crap shoot; sometimes you’re good, other times you get hit. But it’s still an issue that, if you do get infected, now requires time to clean up. Kind of a bummer when it happens.
Another, smaller reason, is the whole update thing. A lot of companies (I’m looking at you Adobe) have started finding what versions are cracked and when updates are applied they disable the program. This means if you want to use a cracked program you had better not update it. Ever. No new security patches and no bug fixes. Sorry.
All the above is pretty lightweight though. I hate to say it, but if that’s all there was to worry about I’d probably be all about it.
No, the biggest reason is because you just never know. You never know if the issue you’re having with the program is because your computer sucks or because you’re using a cracked version that’s become unstable. How can you know?
If you rely on software for professional reasons (not a kid or student) it’s just not worth the headache.
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I think some games actually have the opposite problem. By using cracked versions you can avoid nasty DRM crap on your computer. It’s funny that their copy protection is a reason to pirate.
Buying a Sony CD a few years back was much worse for your computer than just downloading a illegal mp3.
That said, as a software developer, it’s pretty immoral to steal others peoples’ work.
It’s funny you mentioned games because cracked games were what initially turned me off. I’d spend all the time downloading a game and when I would attempt to play it the game would be super buggy and unstable. This was a few years ago though so maybe the scene has improved; I don’t know.
Yeah, I heard about Sony installing rootkits on peoples computers. Pretty dumb of them IMHO. I still have a Korn CD I’ve never ripped because of this.
From a moral position I honestly have no issue with a person (not a company) using cracked or pirated software from the likes of Adobe or M$. I do have a problem when people crack programs for the smaller, niche, programs like EditPlus or RegexBuddy.
Hypocritical? Totally.
The way I see it; a person (who’s not using the program for profit) is more often than not using their personal version to become familiar with the program so they can use it professionally. The company they work for then pays for a valid copy.
Besides; the cost of CS4 isn’t practical for an individual ($650 last I checked) unlike EditPlus ($35) .
I think a lot of people get caught out with pirated/cracked software. Sometimes they will work fine, but that’s of course if you haven’t downloaded a virus by mistake and got your computer infected. I won’t go near software on peer2peer programs, legal or otherwise, because it’s nearly always a virus of some kind.
Some though will always work fine. Those tend to be the ones where you are provided with a keygen crack rather than the program itself being hacked to remove the activation process.
I certainly don’t condone piracy, but a lot of software developers bring it on themselves by charging so much for the software, such as Adobe with Photoshop. Also games companies that force you to load with the disk in even though you don’t technically need it.
To me the reason for not using cracked software should be to support alternative development, and particularly open source development. As long as people keep on using cracked versions of e.g. Adobe InDesign, it maintains its position as the de-facto industry standard and support that would have gone elsewhere, like to Scribus, is lost.
The big developers are very two-faced: they know some people can’t afford their overpriced wares, yet still crackdown on something which keeps their product in standard use. Let’s face it, it’s only a certain number of people with the patience and ability to find, download, rebuild, install with sometimes complicated cracks and patches, that even use hacked software.
Cracks are good for gaming without cd.
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Pirating software isn’t bad especially if you belong in a private tracker for torrent downloads like i do, it is like communisim in the private trackers you all share things for the common good and they also have staff online that check torrent downloads for trojans and viruses before uploaded
if you use some random public tracker, thats another story