Is It Safe To Download Mods Or Pirated Apps And Software?

Do you download pirated apps or are you tempted to pirate? Piracy is pretty common in today’s age. It is a way to get paid apps and software for free unethically by getting a cracked version. But as tempting as it may seem, pirated apps and software can cause some serious damage to your devices.

Piracy is the illegal copying or distribution of copyrighted material via internet. Software piracy is the act of copying or distributing software or apps which are generally referred as mods, and using or downloading pirated apps is also a part of breaking the law.

Cracked versions of the software we download from various sites are created using software called debuggers. These debuggers let programmers deconstruct a software into its constituent parts. This is done for the purpose of finding bugs in the software, which are later used to reverse-engineer and make a cracked software.

Debugging allows the attacker to bypass the recognition process in the software so that he/she does not have to pay for it. All this is done so that they can use this software for themselves or share it online. This might sound tempting considering one doesn’t have to pay a single penny and have premium content all for free, but trust me, its not worth it.

There are quite a lot of risks of downloading pirated or mod software or apps. Some of these are listed below:

Pirated apps can allow malware to infect your device:

Downloading pirated software or mod apps often means you are inviting tons of malware on your device. Attackers hide malwares inside cracked software and upload it online for free, people who are tempted, download these software for free. Once a user downloads and installs the cracked software in his/her device, the malware is released. This malware can do all sorts of harm including stealing your information, harming the operating system by releasing virus, stealing cryptocurrency wallets and much more.

You have to visit deceptive sites:

This is another reason to avoid piracy. You have to visit shady sites to download these cracked software. Visiting such sites already means you are exposing yourself to online malwares. These sites contain lots of popups and ads which redirect you to dangerous sites, which can expose you to adware infections or even ransomware.

The software may not work at all:

You spend hours just searching for a software, then you download it in hopes of accessing premium content for free, but there’s no guarantee that the software will actually work. If you download cracked software from some unknown site, there’s a big chance the uploader just uploaded it there without even properly cracking it.

Additionally, many companies take major steps to prevent their software from being pirated. So the software may not even work in the first place.

You are unable to update the software:

Downloading cracked software means you will be unable to download updates for the software and will have to stick with the same version and the same features however poorly they may perform. Or you will have to download the entire software all over again and install it. If there are any vulnerabilities in the software, the responsible company launches updates which you won’t be able to download leaving your device vulnerable.

You might face legal problems:

You might think there’s no legal issue if you just download a software and do not upload and share it, but that’s still illegal. Even downloading and using pirated content is breaking the law and you might have to face legal consequences.

These include being temporarily or permanently blocked by the software vendor. You may also be banned from using future updated versions of some software. This problem often arises with downloading cracked games.

In addition to that, if you are caught with pirated content, you may be fined up to $250,000 in places like the US. You could even face jail time if you are caught distributing pirated content.

Piracy is not worth the risk:

You have now read the risks involving downloading and using pirated software and apps. You can face all sorts of problems from minor slowdown of your device to jail time. If you can’t afford a paid software, try using the free one compromising a little until you can afford to buy one. We stress you to avoid taking these risks and safeguard yourself as well as your device.

We hope this post was helpful.

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