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FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users
- lobito25 11mo agoThis is a blunt warning to anyone who ever purchased, or is thinking about purchasing, FileZilla Pro. I bought FileZilla Pro under a perpetual license - a one-time payment, lifetime right to use the version I purchased. After reinstalling my operating system, I simply needed to reinstall the software I already paid for. Here's what happened: - Support admitted I still have the legal right to use the old version of FileZilla Pro that I originally purchased. - Then they told me they refuse to provide the installer for that version. - Their excuse: “For security reasons we do not provide older versions.” The impact: If a customer cannot download the installer, the "perpetual license" is dead. It doesn’t matter what rights they acknowledge on paper - they are blocking any practical way to use the software unless you pay again under their new subscription model. There is no way to reinstall. There is no way to access the product you bought. Your "perpetual license" effectively becomes worthless the moment you reinstall your OS or lose the installer. Full text on link.
- whatevaa 11mo agoLifetime licenses are basically a scam these days. Don't trust any of them.
- willis936 11mo agoAnd instead trust that subscription prices will stay constant and that the company will always stay in business and support the product you purchase? The root issue is trust, not a lifetime license. In fact, a lifetime license is a good predictor of trust because users prefer it to subscriptions and it indicates that the company at least pretends to be interested in the customer's wants. Trust can always be abused, as in this case. Trust is gone everywhere. That doesn't mean it can't be rebuilt. It won't be rebuilt on a subscription model that no one asked for.
- buildfocus 11mo agoThis makes no sense. A lifetime license is convenient conceptually, but it completely detaches your goals (working software) from a company's incentives (provide absolutely zero after initial delivery - everything afterwards is cost without upside). Lifetime licenses are bad for users (cf this post, as just one example). Subscriptions are incentives for companies to keep doing what you want, along with direct consequences (everybody will cancel) to penalise them for ignoring their core user base. Don't let the awkwardness of the system (fully agree modern banking is shit at letting you manage recurring bills) distract from the underlying user-beneficial dynamics.
- willis936 11mo agoThese are all problems for companies, not users. Edit: let me give you an example. How much do you pay Valve for a Steam subscription? Zero, because they don't offer one, because that isn't what their customers want. This is Valve, who offers perpetual licenses exclusively, offers steep discounts often, and is worth 10s of billions of dollars. The excuses for why it doesn't work are bullshit peddled by middlemen mouthpieces for suits who believe in nothing. They are redundant leeches. Ignore them and make it work.
- lobito25 11mo agoI agree with you completely. For me, this is a matter of trust and principle, not the cost of the software. I see this as a questionable practice aimed at pushing long-time supporters to spend more money. After this experience, I would never consider purchasing anything from them again.
- didibus 11mo agoI admit it's a bit shitty, but I can also understand. You could have saved the installer, put it on disk, you could find a copy of it elsewhere, etc. I don't think it makes the idea of the license void, but it's for sure not the nicest customer move.
- grugagag 11mo agoSounds like piracy may solve such problems (of course just for the binaries)
- Dylan16807 11mo agoYou can understand what? You're listing workarounds, not justifications. Since it would cost them roughly nothing to keep old installers around forever for paid users, it's really hard to imagine a justification.
- didibus 11mo agoThe justification is that they sold you a copy of the software with a lifetime license to use that copy. Not a lifetime license to download the installer from them. It's not customer friendly, but it doesn't seem like it's going back on a promise, unless the license especially called for it.
- Dylan16807 11mo agoThat's a reason they're not legally obligated. It doesn't make me understand their actions in the sympathetic sense, and the sympathetic sense is how I interpreted "but I can also understand". It doesn't explain the choice they made. "Legally they could" applies equally to removing the download and keeping the download. The only reason I can think of, to make me understand in a much more derogatory sense, is they want to give a deliberately bad experience to customers that didn't give them money recently enough, trying to make them buy again to keep using the software.
- Brian_K_White 11mo agoJust like it would cost you roughly nothing to keep exactly the same copy in your own backups. So why didn't you if it was so effortless and free?
- jay_kyburz 11mo agoWhy did they not mention what the operating system is? I don't think it unreasonable for a company to no longer support operating systems that are also unsupported.
- tim-- 11mo agoSo, going to https://filezilla-project.org/prodownload.php?beta=0 https://filezilla-project.org/prodownload.php?beta=0 and entering your email address and order number doesn't work?
- lobito25 11mo agoNo, it says expired.
- tim-- 11mo agoSo then you didn't buy a lifetime subscription? Why would you get access to the software for lifetime, if you ordered only a 1, 3 or 5 year license? Your right to receive updates is limited to the time that you selected when you ordered FileZilla Pro. If you have, infact, ordered a "Perpetual License", then you would have agreed to the Terms and Conditions when ordering FileZilla (here's a random old copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20211128083132/https://store.filezillapro.com/order/terms_conditions.php?CART_ID=fb8a31bfec1615af191201ba66a26b4f https://web.archive.org/web/20211128083132/https://store.fil...) It clearly says in the T&C that you agreed to: > All risk of loss for the Products shall pass to You upon delivery of the Products to the location specified in Your Order (even if no signature is required for delivery). For the avoidance of doubt, the delivery of downloaded Products occurs when the Products are downloaded. What you are saying is that you ordered FileZilla (agreeing to the T&C as part of payment). The T&C said once you downloaded the product, you were required to keep the software yourself. FileZilla's Terms and Conditions are a mess. https://filezillapro.com/terms-and-conditions/ https://filezillapro.com/terms-and-conditions/ It does say: > In a one-off purchase you will have a right to receive services or other rights for the maximum period of time indicated in the package you have purchased or ‒ missing that indication ‒ for up to five years. It also says: > Unless registered, your copy will not receive updates and will not exploit the services of the Software. So, I would assume that if you purchased the Lifetime license, and you registered the software within the 4 required weeks, then they are infact breaking their contract with you.
- Dylan16807 11mo ago
- nightfly 11mo agoIf you bought something from a physical store and lose it doesn't entitle you to go get another one for free...
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ryanmcbride 11mo agoThat's the difference between a license and a product my friend
- nothrabannosir 11mo agoExactly. OP bought a lifetime license but expects a lifetime product.
- gruez 11mo agoBut we're not discussing an item from a physical store? We're discussing software sold online.
- Brian_K_White 11mo agoWhy do you think there is any difference? Did servers and backups and data centers and electricity and cooling and ups batteries and generators and facility operators and banwidth all become free while I wasn't looking?
- gruez 11mo agoThey're going to need "servers and backups and data centers and electricity and cooling and ups batteries and generators and facility operators and banwidth" regardless, because they're still selling licenses. The cost of providing downloads to existing owners is marginal.
- Brian_K_White 11mo ago
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- Brian_K_White 11mo agoBuddy. "This is a blunt warning", the reasonable and unreasonable parties in this story are not what you seem to think. No one owes you a perpetual backup. Not even the people who sold you the first copy. You are not prevented from reinstalling your os or filezilla by anything but your own apparent dipshittery. You bought something and then threw it away, and now you cry that you don't have it, and then as if that wasn't ridiculous enough already, you then try to blame this on the vendor.
- cosmotic 11mo agoSounds like all software from the 70s through 00's. Did they ever claim they would hold a backup of the installer?
- viraptor 11mo agoThere's a difference between "we don't have it anymore" and "we won't provide it for security reasons". They're not the same.
- benatkin 11mo agoThey are essentially the same as software purchased from the 70s to the 00s though - shrinkwrap software, a term cleverly coined by Joel Spolsky. I just thought of it as buying software in a store at the time. Perpetual license is also a good descriptor. If you have the same OS you downloaded it on, hopefully you have it backed up. The scenario "we won't provide it for security reasons" only shows up as a gotcha. The author of that GitHub repo would know better than to use it.
- viraptor 11mo agoI see that as more than a gotcha. It speaks to what the company really stands for if they say "yeah, we got it, you bought rights to use it, but nah, screw you". They're in no way obligated to provide the installer of course, but if they have the ability, I'd still complain if they don't.
- Brian_K_White 11mo agoThere is no difference. They are exatly the same, because they don't owe you a rationale that you approve of. Even if they offered no rationale at all it changes nothing because they don't owe you anything. You paid, you got, you're both done.
- firesteelrain 11mo agoI guess this is akin to Microsoft not allowing you to download Windows XP any more.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- 51Cards 11mo agoI have a folder in my server where I archive the last several versions (usually 3-5) of all software I install. It would have helped in this situation but the main reason I started doing it >25 years ago is in case companies disappeared.
- znkynz 11mo agoFunny project, funny people, funny ideas. There is some really black and white thinking around feature requests on their forums - for example, segmented ftp downloading for their ftp client.[1] They are not, nor have ever been interested in solving customer problems. That's ok; that's their privlidge. 1 https://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/2309 https://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/2309
- anonymousiam 11mo agoI began installing perpetually licensed software in VMs about 15 years ago. When I upgrade my (hypervisor) hardware, the VM still runs just fine. Obviously, a VM wouldn't be a suitable environment for FileZilla.
- cowsandmilk 11mo ago> Obviously, a VM wouldn't be a suitable environment for FileZilla. Why not? VMs can be given access to the host file systems.
- Brian_K_White 11mo agoDo you sell vms or something? It's absurd to even consider running an entire os in a vm just to use the calculator or the notepad.
- anonymousiam 11mo agoThe only time it's worthwhile is when you pay thousands of dollars for a license, and don't want to spend on an annual maintenance contract. For example, I've got a ~10 year old IDA Pro license server in an Ubuntu 16.04 VM.
- Daviey 11mo agoQubesOS would like a word with you. https://www.qubes-os.org/ https://www.qubes-os.org/
- firesteelrain 11mo agoFileZilla runs fine in a VM
- hluska 11mo agoI guess we’ve reached a point where instead of taking personal responsibility for our backups, we just try to turn the internet into our personal army against products.
- pshirshov 11mo agoYeah, we subscription price of an FTP client which didn't actually modernize in decades is justified, totally justified.
- ndsipa_pomu 11mo agoIt's a lot more efficient to have a central repository for versions of a particular bit of software rather than expect every user to keep a backup of all the versions. It's just a general waste of resources.
- Spare_account 11mo agoI have installation media for MS Office 2010 in my desk drawer. If I lose the disc, I wouldn't expect Microsoft to replace it for me. I'm afraid I don't really understand what the author is angry about here.
- izacus 11mo agoWhy... not? You paid for that software.
- throwaway1389z 11mo agoYou paid for a copy, you got your copy. The business is not responsible forever furnishing you a new copy.
- izacus 11mo agoWhy not? They sold you a license, they said so themselves. Why are you defending them here?
- throwaway1389z 11mo agoI did not sell you the promise of forever hosting a copy for you. The deal is "license and copy". Done.
- dghlsakjg 11mo agoBecause what you paid for is the software on physical media. Why would any publisher just hand out things for free that they otherwise charge for because you claim you lost the item. Back in the days of physical software, it used to be common to buy and sell used software. The difference between "I lost it, send me a new one" and "I sold it, send me a new one" is a simple lie, that more people than you think would be happy to tell a faceless corpo. Would it be nice if they issued a new copy that worked with the old key? Yes, but there is no moral argument for requiring it. If I lose a book, I wouldn't expect the publisher to send me a new one. If I buy a physical copy of a Nintendo game and lose the cartridge, there is no reason to expect Nintendo to send me a new one. Why would MS word be different?
- thefz 11mo agoSince when GitHub is a blogging platform?
- benatkin 11mo agoIt's more of a Yelp review platform in this case.
- gunalx 11mo agogithub pages?
- lobito25 11mo agoIt’s not, but it ranks better on Google than any blogging platform. If you search “Filezilla Pro Download,” it appears on the first page. Since the goal is awareness, strong visibility on Google is essential.
- powerclue 11mo agoWeird to connect FileZilla and Mozilla, but leave out that both are presumably named after Godzilla. It's like going, "weird that they named it hemoglobin when it bears no physical resemblance to hematite!"
- meowmastermx 11mo ago[dead]
- Etheryte 11mo agoWhile I understand the author's frustration, I think they should take a moment and look in the mirror. A perpetual license doesn't mean that Filezilla should be a free hosting provider for installation media for eternity. Their reasons really aren't that relevant here. Likewise the rant about Mozilla is completely unfounded. There are many things to be upset at in the modern software world, this is not one of them.
- heyitsdaad 11mo agoGood faith and common sense is being violated. That’s a valid point here.
- reactordev 11mo agoGood faith ended at sale and support. Common sense isn’t at play because who is going to host installation media for eternity? No. There’s a nothing burger here.
- op00to 11mo agoWho mentioned eternity?
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- echelon 11mo ago> A perpetual license doesn't mean that Filezilla should be a free hosting provider for installation media for eternity. Thank you. This is like people who think $5 is too much for an app. We've become entitled to think software is free because giants pour lots of ad-riddled software in our laps. You bought the car. You can use the car forever. If you lose it, that's on you.
- AshamedCaptain 11mo agoNow go complain to Adobe, where they just shut down their activation servers and leave you with 1k$ of "perpetual" unactivable & unusable software, no matter how much care you took keeping the installer media.
- op00to 11mo agoThat’s horrible too.
- crtasm 11mo agoI remember downloading the offline installers for CS2 they released after turning off its activation servers. I take it that wasn't repeated for the later versions https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/adobe-releases-creative-suite-2-for-free/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/adobe-releases-creative-...
- AshamedCaptain 11mo agoNope: https://community.adobe.com/t5/download-install-discussions/cs3-acrobat-8-activation-servers-retired/td-p/9291706 https://community.adobe.com/t5/download-install-discussions/...
- em-bee 11mo agowasn't every traditional license where you bought some software that you could use indefinitely a perpetual license? and how many places allowed you to redownload a paid software product multiple times? is filezilla here really out of place. is it not just following the norm? don't most applications work this way? especially the ones who don't implement some kind of license key check? i mean, without a license key system, you can't sell a product and offer it as a free download as well. how would you verify that only those who paid for it can download it? so it doesn't make any sense for this to be an issue.
- gruez 11mo ago>and how many places allowed you to redownload a paid software product multiple times? Better question is which places don't allow unlimited downloads. If you buy office 365, you can download it unlimited amount of times from microsoft. Hell, you can download it unlimited times even if you don't own it, because activation happens after it's installed. Same goes for something like Steam. The only exception is something that comes on physical media, or the company went bankrupt, none of that happened here. >especially the ones who don't implement some kind of license key check? they don't? https://filezillapro.com/docs/v3/licensing/do-i-need-to-activate-filezilla-pro/ https://filezillapro.com/docs/v3/licensing/do-i-need-to-acti...
- em-bee 11mo agook, i didn't bother to check. so yeah, with a license key system it would cost them nothing to allow unlimited downloads for old versions. i don't buy their security argument either. my point was more about the general expectation that there should be unlimited downloads. i mean, it's nice to have, and kudos to those who offer it, but i don't see it as a generally expected practice.
- jasomill 11mo agoOffice 365 is a subscription, not a perpetual license, but the only time I can recall Microsoft ever deliberately removing access to downloadable software I was entitled to was in the late 90's, when they removed Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 from MSDN as part of a settlement with Sun where they agreed to stop distributing their Java runtime. Oh, and just for the record, one time in the early 90s, I was getting read errors trying to reinstall Excel from the original floppies, had no backups, and Microsoft support sent a complete replacement disk set, at no charge, no questions asked (seriously; for all they knew, I could have been lying to get a free unlicensed copy of Excel).
- nightshift1 11mo agoI guess It depends on what the EULA said you bought back then.
- renewiltord 11mo agoRealistically, this is why buy-once software is a bad idea. Users have expectations that can only be met via subscription service. If you choose the buy-once you'll get complaints like this with online mobs and so on. If you do services, you'll get paid and you provide the service and everyone's happy. SaaS is the better model in every way - including for the user.
- WhoCaresAboutIt 11mo agoThe license policy sounds annoying, but the bigger question (to me) is: why are we still talking about FTP in 2025? If you need file transfer, use SFTP/SSH, rsync, rclone, etc. And if you want a GUI, WinSCP has been doing this for free for ages.
- hulitu 11mo ago> why are we still talking about FTP in 2025? Why not ? It is a file tranfer protocol.
- ndsipa_pomu 11mo agoIt does support sFTP etc. so is similar to WinSCP, but I think it's an easier GUI for non-technical windows users to get to grips with. However, if they're going to be asshats about licensing, then WinSCP is a clear winner.
- lobito25 11mo agoFileZilla refused to give me a copy of the version I purchased for 'security reasons,' even though they were already updating the version installed on my system, so it makes little sense to deny me access to the app. It is also worth noting that in the first email I received from them, they had already offered me a discount coupon to buy a new version. I strongly believe the decision to withhold a copy of the software is driven by financial motives rather than security concerns.
- paulmooreparks 11mo ago> If you’re considering FileZilla Pro, understand exactly what you are walking into: You can pay for a perpetual license, and later be denied any way to reinstall the product you legally own. No. You are not denied any way to reinstall the product you legally own. It's on you to maintain backups of your installers. If you have that backup, you may install it and run it legally. > Their excuse: “For security reasons we do not provide older versions.” I can understand that logic. If an out-of-date version is found to have a vulnerability, then if they provide that version but don't update it, they are exposing themselves to lawsuits. Whether or not the lawsuit makes sense is another matter, but I can imagine the company's lawyers putting the kibosh on providing an archive of outdated installers.
- melomac 11mo agoFileZilla author was caught red handed, shipping app with IronCore adware downloader, aka installCore from ironSource: https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/osx-ironcore-a-or-what-we-know-about-osx-flashimitator-a/ https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/osx-ironcore-a-or-what-we-k... As IronCore evolved, it eventually got packed — `+[obj load]` executed prior to entry point — and provided a JavaScript to Objective-C bridge. JS payloads were remotely downloaded and AES encrypted... While offers were the usual suspects back then (Advanced Mac Cleaner, MacKeeper, and a customized Chromium app), the technique could be abused in a couple of ways so to spy on specific targets. Anyhow, I don't know what you do with FZ, I am very much into rsync (OSS) and Transmit app (Panic).
- pabs3 11mo agoThis is why I like Debian, they keep all source and binaries online at snapshot.debian.org, for like two decades now.
- opengrass 11mo agoAdobe did the same. I admire the repo name for SEO trolling.
- opengrass 11mo agoReally weird comments. Would you feel the same about your rented Steam games no longer receiving updates?
- WarOnPrivacy 11mo agoI don't often try to get previous versions from the developer. While there are strongly ethical and consumer-centric software houses, I have been long conditioned to expect predatory behavior, usually with some degree of incompetence. So my first inclination wouldn't be to try filezilla but archive.org. After that I'd search for other options and see what was most trustworthy. I've done well with oldversions.com in the past. Last I heard they were still reputable. http://www.oldversion.com/windows/filezilla/ http://www.oldversion.com/windows/filezilla/ Even without knowing which version the author is looking for, I'm betting I could locate a suitable copy.
- lobito25 11mo agoI couldn't find any copy of the pro version for linux.
- WarOnPrivacy 11mo agoYeah. I yield. I looked for a while and I couldn't either.
- NautilusWave 11mo agoDoesn't JetBrains offer perpetual licenses for specific software versions? How do they host all the old versions?