Researchers reckon 500k PCs infested with malware after dodgy downloads install even more nasties from Bitbucket We don't know who needs to hear this, but don't download cracked commercial software. Researchers claim more than 500,000 PCs have been left wriggling with malware after a cracked app went on to retrieve further nasties from Bitbucket repos. Security company Cybereason has studied a campaign to deliver "an arsenal of malware" …
I've little sympathy for folks downloading these illegal copies; besides as someone else mentioned, there are alternatives like Gimp and Libreoffice available free of charge and free of malware.
It's the electronic equivalent of searching through trash cans to find a fly covered burger and eating it. Tasty - got it for free.
I agree however as a side note have you considered how education providers work? I know someone struggling at Uni on a internal graphics design course who has to pay £16 (8 because she splits it with her friend) a month to Adobe while working a minimum wage job. Now I agree there are alternatives but when you have limited time to learn how to use these tools and your course provider uses these expensive tools is it any wonder some people resort to piracy? You also have to question the cheap licences they give these institutions to get more business from the students and then their eventual employers.
"You also have to question the cheap licences they give these institutions to get more business from the students and then their eventual employers."
You'll be pleased to hear that Adobe are significantly increasing the cost of licences for higher-education establishments. As a result, some are re-evaluating the software used in the course ...
It gets worse when you're in research. The go-to toolbox for assembling figures for publications and lectures, used once in a blue moon, but which you buy monthly - 12 months at a time. Hey, we're not making money using these tools you know.
EVERYONE wants Photoshop and Illustrator to make their figures though.
Not any more, matey, not any more.
There are numerous more reasonably priced (or free) options if you do not want to use Gimp or Libreoffice for example.
I suspect most of the people using cracked commercial software refuse to research what is actually available, how much it costs, and whether it fulfill their needs. Basically being stupid. Joe Christina, a photographer on YouTube, is doing a 'Life after Adobe' series where he looks at various options to replace Adobe on various platforms. It turns out there is quite a number of excellent options at various price points available. So for any supposed 'default' software there often exists a number of options to replace it. The only question is what fits the user best.
Decades ago everyone had to have the top-range WP to write letters to their mother, the top range spreadsheet to reconcile their bank account, or to work out the cost per gallon of petrol. The top range relational database to catalogue their record collection, top range DTP to do a church flier, and so it went. All pirated, and eventually we ended up with MS Office and nothing else.
O there was OpenOffice but no one could use it for real commercial work. Most of us need not of it.
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