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FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

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Re: FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

#101

Post by melomac »

FileZilla 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-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).

Re: FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

#102

Post by Dylan16807 »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #94
Tostino wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely conceded that it is not legally required. I just don't want to do business with people who think that's an ethical way to do things. The hosting excuse is pathetic. Learn to do your job and it isn't something you need to think about more than once every half decade. I had to maintain a full build artifact history of my old app. It "just worked" for years and years without thinking twice, and cost a handf…

> Really, what excuse do you have for that other than screwing people who previously trusted you enough to do business with you? The license itself is ~$13 for a perpetual license and a year of support and updates. What expectation should I have that because I spent $13 years ago that the company will support me after my one year support window expires? Presumably, everyone on here knows supporting software isn't fre…

> At a certain point, paying a few dollars per month to host a decade old version of a $13 product that gets downloaded once a year actually is a problem.

The few dollars was talking about total cost, not per-version cost.

If we're talking about a single version of filezilla that rarely gets downloaded, the hosting cost is somewhere below a penny per month, possibly actual zero. And they might need to store 25 archival versions total? It's nothing.

Re: FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

#103

Post by KPGv2 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #15
didibus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.

You 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.

Your criteria for "perpetual license" requires immortality. I don't see a justification for that, or a possibility.

Re: FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

#104

Post by gruez »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #89
gruez wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, but there is no moral argument for requiring it. Are you sure you didn't butcher a word here? Yes, Firezilla might be in the clear legally if they told the OP to pound sand, but that's not the same thing as having no "moral argument". In most common law jurisdictions, it's perfectly legal to walk past a drowning child and refuse to save him, even if you'll incur marginal cost (eg. 10 min of your time). However…

Comparing a company that refuses to support a purchase with an expired support term to refusing to save the life of a child? I would argue that refusing to stop the death of a child is not in any way comparable to refusing to go above and beyond on a $13 sale from years ago. > Similar logic applies here, which is that it costs next to nothing for them to provide downloads to existing owners, because they presumably h…

>If you think there is a threshold for when a company should cover the costs of negligent loss versus not covering those costs, what is it? Why is the cost of shipping a replacement cost of a physical media above that cost, and the cost of hosting a server in perpetuity below that cost?

To paraphrase your words, "I would argue that refusing to offer 0.09 cents[1] (that's right, less than 1 cent) worth of bandwidth for legacy downloads not in any way comparable to spending $5 (at least) of postage to mail a book"

[1] 9 cents/GB charged by AWS for egress. Actual cost is likely far lower.

Re: FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

#105

Post by Dylan16807 »

KPGv2 wrote: post #103
Dylan16807 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You 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.

Your criteria for "perpetual license" requires immortality. I don't see a justification for that, or a possibility.

I'm not using the word "forever" literally. Please try to give some benefit of the doubt.

For one, the company can stop hosting the installers when it goes out of business (but they should do their best to not leave customers in the cold). And if they don't have 30 year old files around, I won't complain too hard (but I will make fun of them if they lost the ability to look back at their main product historically).

Re: FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

#109

Post by opengrass »

melomac wrote: post #101

FileZilla 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-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…

Is Linux clean?
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