Time to stop buying expensive software

[Hagen]

I'll be buying a new laptop soon...and I've been wondering whether or not I should add on top of the purchase for the new machine any new software. Well, after seeing the pricing on some of the software titles out there today...including Adobe and Microsoft...I'm forced to conclude it's time to start saying goodbye to their product lines.

Adobe Creative Suite 1200 dollars for activating on just one computer.
Microsoft Office Professional 900 dollars for activating on just *one* computer. The box claims its two "devices"...but let's stop kidding ourselves. They mean one desktop and one laptop and that's it. The Student and Home edition claims up to 3 computers per licence but get this...no PowerPoint and no Access. So if you want *those* titles...you're forced to buy them *separately* for 150 dollars each. And those separate copies can only be used on ONE computer.

I currently have Office 2007 on my old system and probably won't be able to use it anymore when I get the new laptop computer. I've been thinking about that for some time now and I've started to warm up to the idea of getting open source software alternatives. In fact, that's exactly what I've done. I've gotten Open Office, AbiWord, Gnumeric, OpenProj, Dia. Oh...as for burning CD/DVDs? I'm using the open source alternative CDBurnerXP...and avoiding the outrageous pricing for Sonic or Nero.

As for replacing my almost total reliance on Adobe products...I've found alternatives to Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. My response to those shockingly expensive and draconian activation nightmare applications are these open source alternatives: Gimp...an up and coming graphic photo application that looks similar to Photoshop and has many of the same tools and capabilities...without the expensive pricing and *no activation* worries. To Adobe's pricing and horrible activation included in InDesign...I've found a worthy alternative - Scribus. This desktop publishing tool offers almost all the tools of the really expensive InDesign and no activation hassles. And for the biggie...which to me is Illustrator...a vector illustration program...open source comes to my rescue with Inkscape.

In my opinion Microsoft and Adobe may be prancing around and preening in front of everybody these days because of their market status and importance to their shareholders. But I think in the long run they're going to disappear in importance because of their greed and need to treat hard working honest people like criminals with draconian activation schemes.

Don't believe me? I've learned through careful study that if you buy one of Adobe's products these days...don't forget to DEACTIVATE your copy before you turn off your computer. Because unless you do this...if your computer crashes the next day you will NOT be able to reinstall your software with the license you purchased dearly when you first got the software. You'll be forced to call Adobe's Call Center somewhere around the globe to explain to someone why they should grant you the ability to reinstall the software you legally purchased. All because of their suspicion that you might be VIOLATING their license terms by installing the software you purchased onto a "different" computer!

Until Microsoft and Adobe change their tune on this activation and outrageous pricing of their software tools...I don't feel the need to bleed myself to death to purchase their very expensive coffee coasters. Because that's exactly what those shiny CDs become once you subscribe to their harsh and brutally intrusive activation traps they force you into. Once you use up the activation on those CDs...they essentially become decoration items for parties. I'm saying good bye to all that...and this conclusion from a long time user of Adobe and Microsoft products. So I'm thankful there are people who've been thinking ahead of Micrsoft and Adobe and offer these alternatives. Because from my point of view...it's safer to use open source alternatives to closed proprietary software controlled by big corporations that apparently don't have your interests in mind.

[Uly]

I don't think software needs to be open source to be good, common freeware will do the trick. I also use OpenOffice but for CD Burning I use ImgBurn, that is not only free, I consider it much better than Nero.

In general I agree with you, I didn't buy The Sims 3 even though I'm a great fan of god simulation games, I had my lesson with Spore that broke my burner for no reason, now THAT is draconian copy protection.

[Roger Brown]

I don't think software needs to be open source to be good, common freeware will do the trick. I also use OpenOffice but for CD Burning I use ImgBurn, that is not only free, I consider it much better than Nero.

In general I agree with you, I didn't buy The Sims 3 even though I'm a great fan of god simulation games, I had my lesson with Spore that broke my burner for no reason, now THAT is draconian copy protection.

Hello Ovyron,

Could you supply some more details please - with respect to how the copy protection wrecked your CD burner? What the devil was the protection scheme that it used?

I actually contemplated buying that game (Spore) once!

Later.

[Uly]

It was SecuROM, beware of software that is protected by SecuROM as the same can happen to you. It was a software based attack, it changed the writing of the burner to analog and disabled it in many parts of the OS, after I got rid of SecuROM and restored my previous settings, the burner could only burn at x2 speed (very slow, taking 20 minutes to burn something ).

But then I got a new computer and moved the burner to it, and it was fine, I was truly scared, but apparently formating the drive would have fixed it as well. Of course that is unacceptable!

More info here:

http://www.amazon.com/What-is-DRM-Secur ... B000FKBCX4

And for what? It's meant to fight piracy, but games are pirated 2 weeks before official release *sigh*

[Roger Brown]

It was SecuROM, beware of software that is protected by SecuROM as the same can happen to you. It was a software based attack, it changed the writing of the burner to analog and disabled it in many parts of the OS, after I got rid of SecuROM and restored my previous settings, the burner could only burn at x2 speed (very slow, taking 20 minutes to burn something ).

But then I got a new computer and moved the burner to it, and it was fine, I was truly scared, but apparently formating the drive would have fixed it as well. Of course that is unacceptable!

More info here:

http://www.amazon.com/What-is-DRM-Secur ... B000FKBCX4

And for what? It's meant to fight piracy, but games are pirated 2 weeks before official release *sigh*

Hello Ovyron,

Thanks for the heads up!

Sadly, your final comment is all too true therefore it is the legal owners who are punished.

Of course, that is another can of worms entirely.

Later.