I’ve always pirated AutoCAD and will continue to do so. I use it occasionally and just for hobby stuff, nothing commercial. So why would I pay out the ass for that? Same story with Photoshop. Ohhhh it might contain malware… I don’t really give a damn because to me it’s the only option, paying $10, $20, $50/month for software I hardly use but still kind of need is not an option.
Run pirated software in a containerized/VM instance of Windows (or even macOS) and you’ll be alright.
You could also diff the binaries with the unmodified version. We did that at work once (on behalf of the publisher of the same software) and the cracked version was literally one byte different. Just to be sure, we also reverse-engineered that part of the code to see what the original vs. cracked logic did. No surprises, no malware, just skipping over the license check.
I think it’s part of their plan to allow pirated versions of their software be distributed precisely because now you are semi proficient in the software, further solidifying their relevance.
When you run the software in a VM of Windows, how do you provide access to the files that you want to edit? Do you have a shared volume between the host and the VM?
Yes, I just share the ./Downloads folder usually, sometimes the whole home folder, but if malware is truly a concern it’s safest to share a dedicated “Windows VM” folder for just those files.
Run pirated software in a containerized/VM instance of Windows (or even macOS) and you’ll be alright.