Would you use nulled software, addons, or themes?

Nulled software, addons, and themes are basically copies of paid products that are made available for free.

They typically do so illegally and often violate copyright guidelines.

However, many forum owners use them.

Have you ever used them?

If yes, how can you justify doing it when it most cases, it's theft?

Anyone that uses them takes a risk. You don't know what they hid in there when they nulled the software.

While I don't condone using nulled software I do understand why people do it. Some can't afford the price tag on the software.

I can honestly say I have never used any nulled software, not even PhotoShop back in the day when it was popular to do so. I'm not even one of those that pirated Windows back in the day. I preferred to run OS/2 or Linux.

I bought clone software before.

I learned my lesson on that - lots of backdoors and the next day, every website I had was defaced by Islamic hacker terrorists. LOL.

That was a long time ago. I learned my lesson!

Nope, not at all. I’ve never used nulled software before.

Shawn Gossman said:

I bought clone software before.

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Is that the new nice way of saying nulled/pirated software?

Shawn Gossman said:

Nulled software, addons, and themes are basically copies of paid products that are made available for free.

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One of the really interesting observations about the legacy forum ecosystem is that - as some developers "upscale" their clients while others continue to cater to a low cost / entry level - the piracy will follow the appropriate markets.

There are enterprise community software like Salesforce that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Nobody is pirating them! But people unfortunately are pirating Xenforo precisely because it is so cheap and accessible (and unfortunately attracts clients in that free / entry level area)

Shawn Gossman said:

If yes, how can you justify doing it when it most cases, it's theft?

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Yes, but only in very rare circumstances with license confusion as I have multiple copies of the same add on licensed to different forums that get mixed up.

I have forums broken into their respective directories as a base to rebuild (to include backups) from the ground up if restoration fails with styles, templates, category configuration, etc. In this directory, I keep an /XF/ folder that contains that forum's XenForo licensed installation package as well as all add ons associated with it. I have to admit at times, during my organization, I have added add ons for other forums that weren't licensed to run it. I might've gone about a month or two without realizing the license issue, and when I do, I either disable/uninstall it, or purchase a new license to support the developers.

AWS said:

Some can't afford the price tag on the software.

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And thereby have no right to use it. We can argue inequity all day and all night, but the simple fact is they do not have the right to use the forum software or add ons. This is taking money from developers, which legitimate users will be the first to bear the brunt of if they feel they need to increase prices to offset these lost sales, which is double-edged as it might force some to go the nulling route. If more had the mindset of copying add ons over to multiple forums, some developers that all of us rely on might call it quits... then what?

I suspect XF 2.4 has the structure (from DragonByte's reply) that XF will either launch with add ons having the ability to do callbacks to ensure there's a legitimate license running, and if not, report back. Of course, this isn't solid, as I'm sure add ons will be nulled. But, you're also dealing with this at that point:

AWS said:

You don't know what they hid in there when they nulled the software.

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AWS said:

You don't know what they hid in there when they nulled the software.

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I would say, this was more a concern back in the days compared to now. Most if not all, nulled suppliers don't know how to hide something that could compromise your data.

Cedric said:

I would say, this was more a concern back in the days compared to now. Most if not all, nulled suppliers don't know how to hide something that could compromise your data.

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Or if they do hide something, it shouldn't be as malicious as exec() or system() as those functions are typically blocked on most pre-configured installs.

But, if they're not, whelp, you learned a good and hard lesson.

It would be relatively easy to extend search or something else and add cmd=, then displaying the system output to know what you're looking to do... unless you just straight up want to destroy everything... but leaving those functions open (and them being in a malicious add on) could let them take a full backup of your site for download and then delete everything too.

This could be painful in a scenario where your PHP isn't configured correctly and they put one of them in an add on:
https://forum.com/search/?cmd=rm%20-rf

Tracy said:

Is that the new nice way of saying nulled/pirated software?

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No.

I think it was a nice way of saying, Shawn was an idiot.

It was a jobs board software. No name but said it had the features of a popular jobs board. They call it Turnkey software. Not nulled but heavily infected with backdoors.

I got hacked overnight,

Shawn Gossman said:

Turnkey software

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I did some turnkey affiliate marketing before. Hop on one trend, off to another once you got a nice profit.