What keeps a person from downloading a free trial (Ex. Anti-Virus) onto their computer and when it expires they just download the trial again and again? Does it work?
by 
KiloWattKid
ANSWERS: 6
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It's a hassle to redownload every time and (if it's like photoshop) it remembers your email address so you have to create a new one each time you download it. Plus, a lot of time and effort has been put into programs and it's best to just buy it so they can get payed for their services.
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The first time these applications are installed they write a "signature" somewhere in a permanent location (i.e. the Windows registry or hard drive). When you attempt to reinstall them, they check for this signature -- which remains even after being uninstalled. So they can recognize that the application was previously installed. To defeat it would require fairly advanced skills at reverse-engineering the signature behavior. In other words, if you have to ask the question you're not really equipped to hack the app.
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You could do it, but you still wouldn't get the benefits of a subscription. Trial versions are just barebones demos that probably won't trap the very latest viruses, worms, spyware, etc. If you pay for a subscription, you will receive updates on a regular basis and you will lower your chances of getting malicious codes and worse imbedded into your computer. The cost of the software is good insurance.
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I did it twice years ago when I was studying and money was tight, but I am not sure about now? When I was able to, I did it using different email addresses. http://www.download.com/ http://antivirus-freebie.com/
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You can do it. I did it with NOD32 for awhile, but I bought it now because the annoyance of removing and reinstalling every 30 days was worse than the cost of the software (and I found i really liked it and wanted to support it). It's really just if you are willing to put up with the annoyance for most of them. Some programs leave behind traces that tell them whether you had the trial version installed already. In that case unless you can hunt down and remove the trace you can't run the trial more than once. That's not all AV software though.
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it's worked for me. i'm afraid to do it too many times though. viruses. my copy of ex isn't genuine. it causes problems somtimes. i think microsoft is catching on.
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