I will admit that when I was younger I did use pirated software and mostly security programs that cost to much. I later found that you can usually get software for either FREE or for a much lower cost without turning to pirating. I just wonder how many people you think are currently using pirated security software today.. 2010. Of course this poll isn't really going to provide any help so if it needs deleted, I understand.
It's at LEAST 50%, imho. I personally think that the majority of big vendors price their products too high, especially when most of the time the license is only good for 1 year. I've used pirated software myself, though I wouldn't recommend it, especially not security software.
Hacked softwares against hackers? I voted 50%, still there are many ppl using pirated softwares in this world.(i know some of them) Because they are not aware of excellent free alternatives. Also many ppl are not willing to learn anything about available softwares. They need softwares for their purposes with out any reminders for activating. they do not want to pay,they do not want to see trial popups.But they dont know free products available. Just like Ready to eat foods.
My vote is more than 50% I too have used many pirated programs in past and even still use some of them now. But as you get so many giveaways these days so I don't mind supporting antipiracy. I had created somewhat similar poll in the past here but it got locked
I voted to the "more than 50%" option. People crack and abuse every piece of paid software. As for me, I never pirated any security software, although I already tried to abuse a Norton suite 90-day trial by formatting the system. Nowadays, I use freeware security software.
More than 50% use one or more I guess. "Every software pirated"-users I guess will come down to 10% max. Too many free alternatives out there to overlook.
How many users where? On Wilders forum or in general? There are people who deal with that, so official estimations exist. I know this is an old article, but I believe it reflects the current situation in my country very well. If you are asking me if I use a pirated software, I do not. But I do not blindly stick to terms either. I did not know what to vote for, so I didn't vote.
I don't know the answer to "How many users"...I can't guess a number...well past the millions I'm sure. Percentage wise..that's a better question....a very high percentage I'd say. I put over 50%. The reasoning...a large percentage of overall computers out there are used in businesses. I've been doing this game for too long, seeing a single copy of MS Office installed across the network. A huge one...I'll see "free" version of AV products (such as AVG, Avast, AntiVir...and now MSE)...installed on work/office/business computers, and all of those free AV products are licensed ONLY for home/home office. Many peoples home computers are old computers retired from the office, they were allowed to take them home. Still having the copy of MS Office on them, still having the company antivirus product running. I can't believe how many home computers I've seen that are still running Symantec Corporate Edition antivirus from the workplace, because Symantec CE had pretty much no license checking, it would stay running forever. How many times have I seen "downloaded" copies of Adobe Photoshop/CS on some kids PC. You know he didn't go out and spend 600 bucks on it. And this is just from experience in the United States. Now lets look at the rest of the world, areas such as South America and Asia...where legit reports state that over 75% of the software..including Windows...is pirated.
Here is one report few months ago. It is mentioned in this article New wave of pirates has psoriasis, frat boy hair; no peglegs Some numbers from this article The picture is from the report.
Excuse me for being incredibly poor with ratios (math is not one of my best subjects admittedly), but it sure looks to these amateur eyes that the malware to pirated software ratio is a hell of a lot worse in the supposedly lowest pirated software using country in the world, the United States. While Russia, with about the highest percentage of pirated software users, has a very low (compared to the piracy rate) malware rate. I'm not so sure that "proves" high piracy means high infections.
Cracked software will often reside on infected sites or is infected itself. More often then official sites/software are infected if ever (not counting Cnet and such).
I voted 10%. You can look at torrent sites and see how many downloads there are for given torrents, security programs are low on the list compared to Windows xp/Win7, movies, winrar, nero, photoshop, and other dl's. Those are the heavily pirated items. IMO since there are several good AV's that are free. Also if don't have an AV program, it really seems crazy to run a crack on your computer which is probably malware in order to get a scanner, better without a security program at all IMO. Go look at the cracks on torrent/warez sites, upload them to http://virusscan.jotti.org/en or http://www.virustotal.com/. I bet you won't find one that is clean, if you do I bet its because it hasn't been detected and if you retry the same file after a month or two on the one of those sites it will show that it is indeed malware.
There aren't many security programs as compared to movies, music and other stuffs also people just want basic protection. Here where I stay people mostly prefer freewares or normally kaspersky(No Comparison ) as their main security application while most of my friends ask for movies, converters, photoshop..... and other stuffs they hardly even know there exist something more than just traditional AV like HIPS, Sandboxie, Imaging and other techniques to have better protection. Also they don't even know what are some other AVs like a-squared or online armor or prevX
Yeah, there's very few security programs on torrent websites. However, I disagree that almost all files are infected. Unlike methods such as Emule and Limewire, where everyone is a "ghost" and there either isn't an ability to comment on files or people simply don't use the ability, torrents are a bit different. With the majority of torrent websites, there is not only the ability to comment on the quality and clean vs infected state of files, but people WILL jump on it quick if the file is infected. On the well-known ones, you will NOT manage to "slip one by" people. They tend to be even more paranoid than some people here. Nobody wants to be infected, so if someone finds something, they're going to scream it from the rooftops. As far as the statement about something not being detected yet, well, hell, that can apply to any and every file and website on the internet these days. You can only run a file through so many AV/antimalware vendors before either considering it clean or just never opening it. If you're that concerned about undetected malware, you might as well not download anything, imho. But anyway, yeah, torrent websites are not the malware havens people think they are. Emule, Limewire, that's a much different story.
I disagree that almost all files are infected too. I do think most cracked security programs are infected, on a virtual machine try uploading some of the cracks on http://virusscan.jotti.org/en or http://www.virustotal.com/, they are often loaded with trojans
I think the securitywise not so savvy people will download cracks and cracked software whereever they can get it and therefor are much easier infected. Just my 2 cents .
A picture is worth a thousand words. I'm bad too with math, so no need to apologize. Well, about the ratios and numbers given there i was thinking the same thing before and after i posted that picture. My primary intention was only to show some numbers, only because this is security forum, and to see what other people think. Bear in mind that picture was taken from that report(written by BSA) and that is given bellow how that figures are made. Most people know that some AV's detect almost all keygens and that can make the total perceprion more different, while others AV's don't detect them. I really don't totally believe at those figures as those are probably made probably by some questionary and by guessing mostly. About guessing take example about figures in lost revenue. No one knows how those are made. Example: Kaspersky (AV or IS costs one price in US and other in China and totally different in other countries(is that taken in mind when giving such numbers?). And when there is report about lost revenue, has someone figured out that ppl can use free Av's(or any other software) instead of paid ones if they don't have money? And how high is number of people that don't even think about that. Mostly in some countries pirated software is installed when buying PC. As YeOldeStonecat have mentioned that he saw some kid using 600 bucks worth software(in US). Now, imagine that in China someone will probably have to work months if not a year to buy that (not kid but someone who actually have job). Are they going to buy it? Do they have money? Is the software installed when PC's is bought? There, probably one can get really good PC for that money. That is not excuse for people to pirate software but that can't be stopped totally and immediately.
Yeah, but it sure proves one thing - if your income is low, you quickly find ways to get pirated software from clean sources. While I certainly don't approve the use of keygens, I don't support the idea of AVs being in the role of morality police either.
Damn, i voted for more than 50% but actually i think it's like 20-30% i'm including ALL TYPES OF SOFTWARE. i rely on promotions LOL I've always said, when i get a work, i WILL buy software. Not now, still on high school and no job.
If this is limited to individual users, not corporations or those deploying on large networks, I don't think the percentage is that high. I'd imagine there's a significantly higher percentage that have tried to but have been prevented by anti-piracy features. On the PCs I service, I see plenty of expired security apps and a few pirated operating systems, but have only seen security software I could identify as pirated once. With individual users, I'd guess that by the time most of them are considering pirated security-ware, they've also learned about free and often superior alternatives. I've used a number of pirated or cracked applications over the years. For the most part, I've found freeware, Open Source, and other options that did everything I wanted, often better than the pirated software. Security software is an exception for me. Only once have I used pay security software, NIS. Got rid of it shortly after installing it. Used freeware ever since.
Pirated Security software I would think is pretty low maybe 10%, mainly because they have to phone home to get updates to remain current. And there are many free alternatives, as others have said. All other software is high, 50% or higher, especially games IMO.
Yeah, games are the most affected by piracy, on the other software i0m pretty sure software piracy is low here too. It's not that easy to get an pirated copy And everyone knows those "crack" websites have tons of virus
I went with 40%. I'd have to say out of all the PC's I've worked on I've run into about 2-3 pirated pieces of software out of 10, but not much security software - I'd say its much harder to pirate security software that needs constant updating than it is with most programs. Also, a lot of those finds on Jotti and VirusTotal on cracks/keygens are WAY over-estimated, a lot of security software will mark cracks or keygens just because what they are, I've had perfectly legitimate (well as legitimate as possible) cracks throw up warnings on it - and it's not even that I pirate software, it's just I find it ridiculous that I have to insert a CD everytime I want to play certain games that I LEGALLY bought.
