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Why I’ll be Pirating Adobe’s Products From Now On

• venomsnake 13y ago
  Downloading software is not piracy. Using it is. After all you are entitled to personal backup of your install media. The fact that the backup is distributed and cloud based is irrelevant.
  • hhm 13y ago
    There is another reason why downloading software from "somewhere else" is less than ideal in a case like this. The reason is that the pirated download might not be the original software as provided by the developer; there is no guarantee that it doesn't have, for example, some virus in it.
    • ta_tatata 13y ago
      Nice FUD. But one could just scan it with an up-to-date antivirus to be sure. Unless it is some form of government funded virus it will most probably get detected. I have yet to encounter a hard to detect and remove virus coming from a downloaded software from "somewhere else", I'd rather install software coming from the scene than a download portal such as softonic.
      • driverdan 13y ago
        It's pretty trivial to create undetectable droppers.
    • userbinator 13y ago
      There's no guarantee the original software doesn't either... And if it's precracked/modded/etc. then it's definitely not the original, but those who are downloading those would consider the modifications to be value-added.
• pasbesoin 13y ago
  I had a HORRIBLE, cumulative 7.5 hours with their tech support, trying to get them to provide the promised-on-the-package supplementary license keys to provide full support for the CS 5.5 Suite on 32-bit Windows XP. (The supplementary keys are required to activate/validate a couple of included installers for older versions of a couple of products that are compatible with 32-bit Win XP whereas the 5.5 versions are not.) If this hadn't been for a close family member, I would have given up. Adobe will NEVER get another penny out of me -- nor them, for that matter. --------- By the way, when it came down to it, all it took was for a "supervisor" -- to whom the support associates kept going while they put me on hold -- to understand, acknowledge, and attempt to use a system already available to them at their desk to look up the specific scenario and product package and have that system generate a key. I ended up repeatedly explaining this to various support associates. Finally, one with a bit more gumption actually went back to their supervisor and prodded them to have a second look. 10 minutes later (while I sat again on hold), I finally had the license key or keys (I forget; 2 products were involved in the 32-bit older-version downgrade, IIRC). THE ENTIRE 7.5 hour struggle was to learn for myself what their validation system was like and to repeatedly call and prod and follow through on ineffective suggestions in order to appease them, until finally a rep pushed back against their supervisor and that supervisor deigned to get off their duff and actually look in their system. I tend to try to restrain my vitriol and particularly public expression of same, but in this case I will say: Die, Adobe, die! P.S. Also, the support reps would promise to call back and check on the result of procedures they would insist I first try. I think once, one actually called me back. All the other call-back promises: Nothing.
• JAFTEM 13y ago
  I don't think Adobe has actually cared too much whether or not individual customers pirate their software. From what I've heard, piracy has actually helped the popularity of their products so that more companies and schools, who account for the bulk of their revenue, will buy their products en masse.
  • jrs99 13y ago
    it would suck for them if all students started using GIMP, get hired and ask their boss: Can I use GIMP for this? It's absolutely free. Then you start seeing job postings looking for "GIMP experience required."
    • alagappanr 13y ago
      However the fact that large companies are usually averse anything new would make that difficult.
• woah 13y ago
  Hate to say it, but I pirate Adobe's software for real. I use Pixelmator and Sketch, which are superior products at one tenth of the price. However, I often need to open files in Adobe's legacy formats, and since they do not provide any sort of converter software, I must take the only option available to me.
  • logicallee 13y ago
    I think you mean, "the cheaper of the two options available to me."
    • toomuchtodo 13y ago
      If there are two products, and both can accomplish the necessary task(s), and one is cheaper, the cheaper product is the superior product.
      • CrazedGeek 13y ago
        I think the comparison was between paying and not paying for Photoshop, not between Photoshop and Pixelmator.
        • woah 13y ago
          I pay for Pixelmator with great joy. Awesome product, intuitive interface, frequent updates.
      • Kudos 13y ago
        Replace "can accomplish the necessary task(s)" with "are functionally equivalent" and maybe you have a point. But the pirate copy is missing automatic updates and access to the web services (which Adobe has cleverly started moving into to add value where pirate copies cannot).
        • toomuchtodo 13y ago
          > Replace "can accomplish the necessary task(s)" with "are functionally equivalent" and maybe you have a point. Now you're just being pedantic :)
• vinceguidry 13y ago
  Adobe does practically nothing to deter piracy except put the token lock on the shed. Their copy protection has always been trivial to break. They seem to have worked out that it's better for someone to pirate their tools than it is for them to use a competing, cheaper product. Their bottom line would probably take a huge hit if they were to ever make it less than trivial to pirate. Not sure if this strategy is starting to take a back seat with their new subscription offerings. Seems like they might be trying to bring the pirates into the fold. Time will tell.
  • dublinben 13y ago
    The number one competitor of free alternatives like Inkscape or GIMP are pirated versions of Adobe's products. At least non-paying users are still perpetuating the Adobe monopoly on digital design and formats.
  • vxNsr 13y ago
    Actually, CS5 and CS6 both had updates that broke the cracked versions, now when "hackers" release the cracked version they recommend disabling auto-update.
• kisamoto 13y ago
  You can find the CS5 trial downloads here: http://prodesigntools.com/all-adobe-cs5-direct-download-links.html http://prodesigntools.com/all-adobe-cs5-direct-download-link... All you need to do after that is insert your Student and Teacher serial number.
  • lanaius 13y ago
    The annoying part is that you have to jump through cookie hoops to get the file, even though pro design appears to be affiliated with Adobe. Adobe does run a "hidden" FTP with installers for everything back to like version 9 of the software in the suite (excepting, for some odd reason, CS 5.5).
  • natdempk 13y ago
    This was the first thing that came to my mind as well. Its not terribly hard to find the trial version downloads of any old Adobe software available from Adobe or an Adobe subsidiary online. Not sure why the customer service rep. didn't just suggest this in the first place.
• justin66 13y ago
  A better, more insightful article than the stupid title implies. The author is dealing with the problem of how to install software he's already paid for.
  • adharmad 13y ago
    Smartdraw (www.smartdraw.com) is very similar. They do not even allow you to download the software you have paid for and force an upgrade for a steep price.
    • testrun 13y ago
      I cannot agree more. Bought it once, never again.
    • binxbolling 13y ago
      SmartDraw is also kind enough to include spyware/malware with their installation.
• spodek 13y ago
  > Me: So you’re telling me I should download an illegal copy of your software, and use my legal serial with it? > Support: Yes Sir, that will work. Seems to me if they tell you you can do something with their product, you aren't pirating. You're following their instructions, though I'm no lawyer.
  • samstave 13y ago
    The way this brief interaction is constructed would lead one to surmise that the SOFTWARE is not what is protected/IP/sold to you... it is the LICENSE key. Thus, downloading software should never be an offence. He paid for the serial, not the software..
    • csomar 13y ago
      Or more precisely, he paid for the license. He can use the serial in multiple computers, but that'd be illegal too.
      • rosser 13y ago
        Actually, IIRC, Adobe's EULA says you can install the software on multiple (up to 2) computers, but only use it on one at any given time.
    • streetnigga 13y ago
      Well for one I think without giving a hash value for the data to be downloaded, say a known good torrent, this can only result in tears for the end user. Adobe pirate releases, notorious for being infected. But to the point of your comment I would be wary of just considering it downloading. If, again using the bittorrent file transfer idea, you download a copy you could very well be considered to be making available the intellectual property for illegal obtainment. I personally wouldn't want to be stating "support said it was OK" if my ISP or an IP protection firm's lawyers take action. Since Adobe has worked with ISPs to monitor and issue complaints I wouldn't put this out of the realm of possibility.
      • 13y ago
• dozy 13y ago
  wow, quit your bellyaching and borrow an external cd-rom. Or, buy one for $30 (or less?). I don't know how you value your time, but surely $30 is worth it for the amount of time you've spent thinking about this, writing about it, on the phone, and now responding to people about it. also, hilarious that in my chrome, the obnoxiously massive adobe flash banner on your blog is crashing: http://snag.gy/FEVCV.jpg http://snag.gy/FEVCV.jpg
  • dperfect 13y ago
    That "obnoxiously massive adobe flash banner" that is "crashing" is intentional: http://parkerrr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/MZCin.png http://parkerrr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/MZCin.png Also, the "time [OP has] spent thinking about this, writing about it, on the phone, and now responding to people about it" is certainly worth more than $30 since it represents an issue that many people (including myself) have encountered, and I'm glad someone took the time to publicly document their frustration on behalf of the rest of us sharing that frustration.
  • ta_tatata 13y ago
    For a second you had me doubt that the banner was an image illustrating the adobe experience, but then I remembered I don't have flash installed on any of my computers. At first the reason was that it was a resource hog diminishing battery life and destroying silence while being a security issue, but adobe dropped support anyways.
• davidgerard 13y ago
  This is Adobe lining themselves up for someone to do to them what they did to Quark. And by the same mechanism: utter contempt for the customer.
  • mattkevan 13y ago
    Please, yes! That would be amazing. I used quark for years back in the day and when InDesign CS1 came out it seemed like the industry switched overnight. Until then even though both Quarks 4 and 5 had been released no one I knew, including printers, had gone further than Quark 3.1. The entire creative suite cost less than Quark and Photoshop was essential anyway. No contest. Plus it had support for OS X, could do transparency (no more creating drop shadows in Photoshop and importing them as a flat TIFF, the joy!), had really good typography support (no more creating a separate text box for bullets and manually aligning them), and getting a press-ready PDF out of it wasn't some sort of voodoo. The difference 10 years makes. Now Adobe software is slow, bloated and buggy with only minor reasons to upgrade version to version. It seems like the fit and finish is worse on each release and watching photoshop or illustrator creak into life, even on my SSD macbook, is a painful experience. I think the only reason I've upgraded recently is due to their policy of making newer version file formats incompatible with the older version, so I've had to if I want to open files from colleagues. Creative Cloud is a blatant attempt to extract as much rent as they can before the gig is up, not as a way to provide a useful service. For that reason I won't be upgrading from CS6, even though as a designer it's the software I use most. We need an Adobe competitor who'll either remind them they can write good software when they have to or consign them to irrelevance.
• wellboy 13y ago
  Just do the localhost hack and you can use it all for free. Takes 1 min. http://theflashblogger.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-active-master-suite-cs4-using.html http://theflashblogger.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-active-ma...
• dasil003 13y ago
  I was hoping this would be about how annoying the pricing is for Creative Cloud. If I was a designer then I could justify paying that kind of monthly tariff, but as primarily a developer who needs infrequent access to Photoshop or Illustrator the pricing options are just highway robbery. At least in the old days I could pay up front and stretch it out over time to get my money's worth by deciding when and if to upgrade. Adobe is really pushing me as hard as they can towards the competition, and I've been using Photoshop for over 20 years now, so it's no light decision to give up such a familiar UI.
  • philwebster 13y ago
    I completely agree. Each month I spend maybe an hour in Adobe apps, so even the student pricing (~$16/mo) which I'm eligible for, is too high for me to justify paying for Creative Cloud.
    • sitkack 13y ago
      The Adobe hater I am ... 16 bucks a month for EVERYTHING THEY SELL is a fucking steal. You should be using it more, not less.
      • binxbolling 13y ago
        It's not everything they sell though.
  • bigd 13y ago
    25 bucks a month for students is not that bad. And 50 month is totally reasonable. I find it much more accessible than before. And honestly I think that's less than the money the average person here spends monthly at coffee-shops. Or in one night out! Here's how you can afford it: avoid eating 5 sandwiches in a posh bar per month, and cook sometimes by yourself.
    • csmithuk 13y ago
      My IT budget for the year is about $500. Doesn't fit.
• lostcolony 13y ago
  I find it interesting that despite Adobe (and many other companies) fixating on the idea that really what you're buying is the -serial-, not the binary, they don't continue to offer the binary. It runs at complete odds with the claim, and also what is clearly the expectation of the OP. I think we, as humans, have issues with buying 'permission' to use a good, even a digital good; what we want is to -buy- the good. Not license it. And since when we 'buy' it, it's now ours, it's free for us to share (or so the logic goes). It also seems rather amazing that Adobe's fix would be to tell you to download the software from an illegitimate source, given that the frequent anti-piracy scare tactics are that such downloads are ripe with malware, and will steal your serial, your bank account passwords, your soul, your little dog too, etc etc.
  • sitkack 13y ago
    They don't offer the binary because cracks and keygens get out that make installing it trivial. And since the version N-1 or more back is still totally useful they don't want to support shooting their own bottom line. What they _should_ do is offer a signed realtime .dmg for logged in users. But since they are Adobe and have their crufty ass codebase head stuck so far up their hard drive they will never do that. It is time for terracotta, porcelain or some other ceramic to start pushing their media wielding wares.
• PinguTS 13y ago
  The problem is just: "You have old software, which was distributed on CD/DVD and have no drive anymore." The solution: get a drive or use another Mac's drive via Remote DVD. The problem is not only with Adobe, but with others too. Like there is no MS Office download, AFAIK. Yes, Adobe has a ridiculous pricing policy, especially if you live outside the US (yeah, translating from English to English is expansive, UK version, AUS version, I get that </irony>). But that is a different point, I think.
  • digitalengineer 13y ago
    Actually there s. I'm experimenting with MS cloud based products and was forced (more or less) to dl the entire thing during registation even though I have a legit ms office installed...
  • Gracana 13y ago
    Apparently CS5 used to be something you could purchase for download, so that was an option, but is no longer.
• DominikR 13y ago
  I just don't get such people, how can someone be so persistently annoying instead of just downloading the damn software somewhere else? Or maybe connecting an external DVD drive/using Apple Software to connect to some DVD drive over network. Instead this guy wastes his time calling hotlines and writing a pointless blog post - I guess that's what it means to be more productive on a Mac. (Of course, there are people that don't know how to solve such an issue, but this person is probably not one of them)
  • dperfect 13y ago
    FWIW, I purchased the same CS5 Master Suite with a student/teacher license and opted originally not to receive a copy on optical media (IIRC, it was a bit cheaper that way). At the time, there was no indication that in 4 years, obtaining the software online from Adobe would be an issue. Obtaining the software from other sources is obviously an option, but not one that should be required, especially for someone trying to "play by the rules." EDIT: While I agree that digital-only distribution carries inherent risks to the buyer (and the buyer should normally maintain thier own backup of installation files), I think most people consider that risk to be associated with things like the publisher going out of business or some other major calamity. In this case, it sounds like Adobe is willfully removing these download options (I'm sure the file didn't disappear from Adobe's servers without someone in management deliberately making a decision to remove it) with the intent to encourage people to upgrade.
  • crististm 13y ago
    The starting point is where you say to yourself to do it "the right way". It turns out that you had a blind spot and your solution was far from being right or optimal. Time for a reality check. In this case "pirating" was a viable solution but the quest for a binary changed into one about "rightfulness". Reality check: "what are you trying to achieve?".
    • res0nat0r 13y ago
      The "right way" to reinstall DVD/CD based software to your Mac without a drive is to buy a SuperDrive or use the remote DVD/CD option that OSX provides.
• lfuller 13y ago
  It seems to me that if you're planning to apply your serial to a piece of software that you download off The Pirate Bay then that software is not an illegal copy. It's only illegal if you breach your licensing agreement.
• edj 13y ago
  Installing old-school, shrinkwrapped box software onto computers that lack disk drives is a real pain point for a lot of people. I made a little video[1] explaining how to install MS Office Mac 2011 onto a MacBook Air -- for my own use, in case I ever needed to do it again -- and it's received over 36,000 views. LOTS of people have trouble with this. The Microsofts and Adobes in the industry don't appear to realize the difficulty their customers face. 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3hloQl_qs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3hloQl_qs
  • te_chris 13y ago
    Installing office is kids stuff, all 9 DVDs of native instrument's komplete 9 (not even the ultimate version which has like another 100 gigs of samples included) took 2 days using another laptop's drive over wifi.
    • JWLong 13y ago
      Oh, God... Native... just. no. They make some awesome hardware, but their attempts at DRM made me never want to risk my hard earned cash on them again.
      • te_chris 13y ago
        I've never run into any issues with their DRM, but I guess I haven't pushed it that far. What happened for you? I bought K9 in the sale, $350 NZD which to me is ridiculous value for what you get. I'm super happy either way.
    • vacri 13y ago
      A cat5 cable really isn't that expensive. I don't understand the distaste people have regarding wired networking. In my office, I have several people who complain about the wifi having congestion. In the heart of the CBD, with tons of other networks visible. "That network cable on your desk, which I put there for you to use, plug it in and this problem goes away". They plug it in, comment on how quick and clean their network is now... then complain the next day about wifi congestion.
• sigzero 13y ago
  > Me: So you’re telling me I should download an illegal copy of your software, and use my legal serial with it? If you have your legal serial number for the software...it isn't pirating.
  • Kudos 13y ago
    If you are torrenting copyright files and therefore uploading bits of it in the process, you are enabling copyright infringement. At least by the standards of a number of courts around the world.
    • krzyk 13y ago
      You can disable uploading and become a pure leecher and court problem solved :)
• dkuntz2 13y ago
  I have an issue with the car analogy. First, warranty isn't forever. Second CS5 was released four years ago, which is a really long time in software, to make the analogy more accurate you'd need to take a really old car that doesn't have replacement parts being made for it anymore to the dealer and claim they need to fix it. There's also the issue of Student/Teacher edition means you can't use it except for educational purposes, and it seems like the author was going to use them for professional work, which means he needs a different license, legally speaking. Finally, it's not up to Adobe to provide you with installers just because you can't be bothered to go get a disk drive. They're not that expensive. The problem exists solely on the author's side, not Adobe's.
  • girvo 13y ago
    Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. When you're paying HUNDREDS of dollars for software, damn right I expect better support 4 years down the track. Hell, it's barely even support. Let me download it, like you used to only two years back. Are you kidding me?
    • dkuntz2 13y ago
      Bullshit yourself. Cars cost hundreds of times more and typically get just four years of support. Hardware typically gets a year free, and it also costs a whole lot more than software. You didn't pay for any sort of extended warranty. Legally the only warranty required is that at time of purchase it work as advertised. It did, and while Adobe has an additional warranty they've added, it doesn't say you get everything you wish for just because you want it. Even saying you purchased the full creative suite at $2600, that's $650/year, $54.17/month. You didn't pay all that much for it, slightly less than $2 a day. Even assuming you purchased it near the end of it's life, that's 3 years, making it $72.23/month, which is only $2.37/day. That's less than the price of a meal. Additionally, they have no responsibility to provide you with an installer. You got your installer, based on the post the author still had the installer, but happened to purchase a computer without a disk drive, which is essentially purchasing a computer without the minimum system requirements of the installer. The author could purchase a disk drive, or borrow a disk drive, or use his old computer's disk drive across the network (something OS X has the capability to do built in). Adobe also never had to provide downloads of those installers in the first place. Just because they previously had them available to download doesn't mean they have a responsibility to continue keeping them available for download. Your losing your disks is your fault, not Adobe's. So, bullshit yourself.
• greenyoda 13y ago
  A guy from Adobe replied in the comments. Apparently Adobe is a bit uncomfortable with the advice that their support rep gave about downloading a pirated copy of the software: Hi, your blog post was brought to my attention. After reading this post, I want to apologize for the way that your issue was handled. Our tech support agent provided you incorrect information as far “that its OK to download pirated software”. This is not a company policy suggestion and should not of been suggested. We prefer to provide you a link to download the Adobe software from an Adobe server. Downloading pirated content can contain viruses and cause security issues. I can help you with downloading the software from the Adobe’s server. I have sent you my email via a private message on your contact page. Please contact me at your earliest convenience Thank you Scott V Adobe Customer Care Follow us on @AdobeCare
  • MatthewWilkes 13y ago
    "should not of been suggested" twitch
    • vacri 13y ago
      The main article had: I was connected with a sales rep. His manor was very professional, and I could tell he was smart. I was hoping for a successful resolution to the story at that point, given he was apparently meeting the sales guy at his palatial home.
    • yuvadam 13y ago
      "Scott".
      • ulfw 13y ago
        Exactly!
      • cschmidt 13y ago
        "Scott" Venkatasubramanian
        • 13y ago
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• kabdib 13y ago
  About a decade ago I bought some OCR software. I used it for a few years, then flattened my OS and had to reinstall it. No dice. It was not supported any more; I even had the license, but the company's activation servers no longer worked. I could pay $400 or so to buy a new version or do without. I did without. I refuse to buy that company's products.
  • aethertron 13y ago
    Why don't you name and shame the company?
    • kabdib 13y ago
      Honestly, I couldn't remember the name of the company, I'd buried it. Let's see . . . oh yeah, Omnipage. The activation was painful, too, involving a key server and a few cut-and-paste operations that were easy to get wrong. I haven't needed to do any OCR in the last couple of years, but I'm sure I'll investigate other options than Omnipage before I'll use their products again. I'm happy to buy software. But I have to be able to use it indefinitely, without activations (which depend on companies still being around) or time-limited licenses that are just designed to fuel an upgrade pump. I don't insist on source code or freedom, just quality. I'm not on a holy mission, I just won't buy software on bad terms.
  • ta_tatata 13y ago
    Is this OCR software called microsoft windows ?
• cromulent 13y ago
  Yet another Adobe story: I paid for CS4, infrequent user, after a couple of hardware changes (SSDs etc) it wouldn't install anymore. Long Skype call to US (over an hour), treated like criminal. Forget it, I'm your customer taking the burden of your business problems. Happy Acorn user now. So many dollars over the years on PS/Macromedia/etc, never again. So tired of companies treating honest customers like criminals. Edit: how many times have I bought a movie on iTunes to show my kids how to do it right, and then torrented it as I couldn't wait for the download, too slow.
  • k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> "Edit: how many times have I bought a movie on iTunes to show my kids how to do it right, and then torrented it as I couldn't wait for the download, too slow." Strange, I find iTunes the fastest way to download media + you can watch while downloading. For me that usually means spend 30-60 seconds downloading and then start watching and the download keeps up.
    • errantspark 13y ago
      These days you can watch torrents while downloading too.
    • dsuth 13y ago
      Not here (Australia). iTunes can take anywhere up to 40 minutes to download enough of a high res movie to start watching. And can then randomly stop the movie as it fails to keep up enough bandwidth over the 1:30 or so run duration. Torrents are normally half an hour from start to finish.
      • taspeotis 13y ago
        Are you using Google DNS? I've had issues with CDNs because of that.
  • donretag 13y ago
    Are you using an alternative DNS such as OpenDNS or Google DNS? You might be using the wrong CDN since your correct geographical location might not be available.
• eonil 13y ago
  It seems attacking Adobe shit (by writing a blog post) is the best way to get their correct support.
• abalone 13y ago
  This post is superficially about bad support but the underlying issue is the move to subscription-based pricing (Creative Cloud). Slightly in Adobe's defense, a subscription model would avoid this particular issue, where the customer needed support for a 4 year old version. Subscriptions just get everyone on a recent version always. The problem of course is that the subscription price is so much more expensive for casual/budget users. Casual users used to skip upgrades because they don't need all the latest features (some would say bloatware). Now they have to pay a minimum of $240/yr (1 app) and as much as $600/yr. Adobe has essentially screwed these less profitable but very loyal and evangelistic customers in favor of extracting more revenue out of those that depend on Creative Suite. Wall St. responded favorably to this revenue pop but I fear this has (further) damaged Adobe's brand in the long term. Interesting fact: the folks responsible for the Flash Platform fiasco were rewarded by being put in charge of Creative Suite. It's like the CEO said, sure, Flash worked out great, why not hand them the crown jewels and a shotgun? BTW I 100% agree with the Sketch recommendation. It's much better than Fireworks or Photoshop for UI-related design.
• Mikeb85 13y ago
  Again, this goes back to the old adage that people pirate software because companies make it inconvenient to use their product. Look at how Steam, iTunes, etc... have changed media distribution...
• flywheel 13y ago
  >It all started with my new Macbook Retina. A gleaming beacon of self-worth, and productivity (Yes, Mac IS more productive). I stopped reading after this.
• Ellipsis753 13y ago
  I remember than after downloading Spore (the game) and finding it to be very poor quality I checked the forums. No official EA people were there but literally the advice everyone got was "here's an illegal version, it runs faster and doesn't have most of these bugs, don't worry, it's just as good but much better". Goes to show that pirated software is rarely an inferior product at all.
• tlow 13y ago
  If you truly care, develop a free alternative that is just as good as their products. See RMS.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  • krapp 13y ago
    Problem is, the open source community apparently decided Gimp and Inkscape were probably good enough, and few people who've ever used Adobe software would likely agree. Never mind that employers probably won't have them installed, and probably won't allow them to be used in house, they won't care if Gimp and Inkscape are on your resume if they're looking specifically to hire for photoshop/illustrator experience, and these alternatives would also have to deal with proprietary image formats, which might make the end result unacceptable to free software purists.
    • nfoz 13y ago
      > Problem is, the open source community apparently decided Gimp and Inkscape were probably good enough I suspect the projects are just short on developer effort, and that no-one decided it was "good enough" to not need improvement. If you are submitting patches that are being denied by the project maintainers, you are welcome to fork the project. That is the "open source community".
      • tlow 13y ago
        This is an excellent point. You don't necessarily need to start from scratch if there are existing projects which you might be able to contribute to. If you don't like the direction of certain decisions, you are certainly free to fork the project and continue in your own direction as well.
    • csense 13y ago
      I'll grant you that Gimp's user interface is kind of a mess, but what specifically is wrong with Inkscape?
• kyriakos 13y ago
  I don't mind their new subscription model but: 1. why do i have to pay 50% more because I am in Europe? 2. why do I need to keep running a 500mb service just to keep adobe's apps licensing working?
• macinjosh 13y ago
  As long as we're griping about Adobe. Why the hell can't I install Photoshop or any Creative Cloud product for that matter on a case-sensitive HFS+ drive! There is a hack you can run to trick the installer into thinking the drive is case-insensitive and after that everything works without any problems. No further hacks or workarounds needed until you have to install again on a clean machine. I know it is not their most common use case but it can't be that hard!
• justinph 13y ago
  How is it adobe's fault that the OP no longer has a optical drive? He purchased physical media in the first place, Adobe, nor any other vendor, is under no obligations to provide convenient access to him for years down the road. Sure, it'd be nice if they did, it is completely understandable that they don't. CS5 is four year old software. Also, we're talking about an academic version of the software, which retails for about $200, not the full $799 for one App, or $2200+ for the full suite. They sell it to students so some day they'll buy the real thing when they do commercial work, which the academic license doesn't allow.
• coldcode 13y ago
  I'd rather give money to small developers who build great products than steal from Adobe.
• jpswade 13y ago
  Microsoft told me the same thing. When I didn't have a disc for windows they told me to "borrow it from a friend". My friends on tpb had it.
• kalleboo 13y ago
  I had a similar issue with Apple accessing my download for an old version of iWork (this was before the App Store was launched). Took me an hour on the phone and a few hours waiting for them to get back to me via email, but I did eventually get a download link to some internal server... I was amazed they didn't have a real procedure for it, but that's how a real support team handles the issue.
• shittyanalogy 13y ago
  There's no such thing as "pirating". "Pirating" is just a buzz word that some use as a ignorant epithet and others hold as a badge of honor. The question is, "Am I breaking copyright law by downloading this software?" Here's a flow chart so you can check for yourself: Did you purchase said software? a) Yes -> Then you are not breaking copyright law. b) No -> Then you are breaking copyright law. Distributing the copyrighted material, as many torrent clients do for you automatically, is another matter altogether.
• founder4fun 13y ago
  After they got hacked I won't deal with them every again! I'm back to pirating.
• tomphoolery 13y ago
  Got this when I visited your page: http://imgur.com/ulQuiSe http://imgur.com/ulQuiSe Seems like your overlords got the memo. ;-)
• ctrl 13y ago
  For all those stating in the comments they only need to use Adobe products for an hour a month and can't justify CC. You can download Adobe CS2 for free. https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?pid=4485850&e=cs2_downloads https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?pid=4485...
• quadrangle 13y ago
  Obviously, if you use proprietary software, you do not control it, it controls you. The FSF message rings true as usual (not as always, I don't think the world is black and white). Many people have these stories. How you got screwed over by some proprietary company in some way. The only solution is for the company to guarantee their trustworthiness by respecting software freedom i.e. being FLOSS.
• KaiserPro 13y ago
  so wait, you not going to borrow a CD drive and make an ISO of the disk you've already bought?
• tmikaeld 13y ago
  If someone made a tool that extracted layers from PSD's they would get rich. - SVG files from vector layers. - PNG files form rastered layers.