Why I’ll be Pirating Adobe’s Products From Now On | Hacker News Reader

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

parkerrr.com

164 pointsifrins172 comments

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

"should not of been suggested"

twitch

"Scott".

Exactly!

"Scott" Venkatasubramanian

I actually see native speakers make the "should of" mistake far more often than I see non-native speakers make it, probably because it's a mistake based on pronunciation. Native speakers often incorrectly spell based on pronunciation, while non-native speakers often incorrectly pronounce based on spelling. In fact, the (presumably native-speaking) author of the linked blog post makes such a mistake - he uses the word "manor" where he should have used "manner." Frequent signs of non-native English are improper verb conjugation and article placement, rather than something like "should of."

100% correct. Also, non-native speakers tend to make grammar errors, use idioms wrongly, etc. They (we) don't tend to mistake "to/too", "there/their/they're" and "your/you're", because second languages are usually acquired through the written word.

Well, I do sometimes make the mistakes you give as examples, but only as I get very tired, when I curiously start to mix up all kinds of homophones and near-homophones with no apparent connection (particularly curious to me since, as you suggested, I picked up English primarily through writing; it's not like I have a habit of sounding out words. It took many years from I started reading and writing English until I ever used it in a spoken conversation)

For the same reason I can't ever see me using "should of" - it sounds too wrong.

It is rarer for me to make the mistakes you list than mixing up completely unrelated homophones, though, as they're definitively ones I'm extra aware of.

In parts of England "should of" is in common use amongst younger speakers to the extent that "should of" to me is associated with South or East London more than non-native speakers (though it's in use many other places in England too).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_levelling_in_Britain#Ex...

My four year old might occasionally use it because his friends does, and he knows it drives his mother absolutely crazy when she notices he uses South London dialect features.

I always thought the use of "should of" is because people like to shorten "should have" to "should've", especially in conversation. This seems to have lead to people mistakenly thinking "should've" when spoken is actually "should of". Not sure how people can read "should of" and not think it makes no sense though.

* my grammar is most likely not great either, so I can't really criticise to be honest!

The name at the top of his comment was actually "Scott Valentine".

"Scott" Venkatasubramanian would've actually written "should have" instead of "should of".

This veiled attack on someone because of what their name may imply makes my stomach turn.

I've sometimes wondered whether those who are most passionate about bashing other languages and frameworks, are in fact, just using transferring the behaviour from more direct bias towards a group or person.

I hesitated in making a joke on HN, since that never works well here. I was actually making fun of the practice of having Indian call center employees go by ridiculous American sounding names that couldn't possibly be theirs.

I always have to chuckle when you get someone on the line, and they say "my name is 'Scott'", and you have to think, "No, its not." I thought that was what the parent meant by "Scott". As in, that's not his real name.

It was not an attack on anyone other than the people that run these call centers. Most of the comments thought I was picking on grammar or something, which wouldn't have been very funny.

Sorry for any misunderstanding or offense caused.

I love jokes. My sense of humor is such, that it doesn't have to take shots at people for things they can do nothing about: the colour of their skin, their looks, their height, the name they're given, how they didn't choose the families they were born into.

Still, let's chill out. And process the half hearted apology of "sorry if anyone was offended, but not sorry I said it because I don't see the big deal".

I wasn't really that upset by you putting a reasonably accurate looking and long south indian name..

It did made me wonder if doing so was really that evolved from making up a willfully ignorant African or Asian inspired name 30-60 years ago. That, in turn, made me wonder if we're really progressing, and what made me write.

What's a joke to me, is how little empathy there is when someone is told to change their name to make it more acceptable and easier to pronounce because they're not worth knowing.

Maybe it'll start getting better when narrow minded thinking stops telling the world to be more open minded to tolerate their continued close-mindedness.

> "downloading the software from the Adobe’s server"

twitches again

I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar because of comments like the one above.

Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?

>I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar

Are you sure about that? Scour any comments section for 10 minutes and it should be clear that not enough time is being used to perfect spelling/grammar.

>Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?

No, but that doesn't mean we should settle for the lowest common denominator.

I think you mean "greatest common factor". "Lowest common denominator" is in fact the ideal format for clear, accurate expression of computation.

"Lowest common denominator" is what people say when they don't understand what the original term means, and think "lowest" must be worse than "greatest".

See also: "could care less".

Lowest common denominator is a phrase with different meanings in different contexts. It means the LCD in maths (used for simplifying fractional arithmetic) and it also means the "basest form of something which all members of a population are able to comprehend/use".

There is a loose commonality in the usage but the term "lowest common denominator" as used here is not the mathematical term. GCF is a mathematical analogy but doesn't work as a direct usage as it would be unclear what the "factor" is that the people are to hold in common whilst in the original phrase it's clear that the denominator (standard) to be held in common is the sum of language understood [and used correctly] by all. It is lowest because greater ones can be achieved by excluding proportions of the population that has been used to establish the standard.

Whilst I couldn't care less the real meaning I've always assumed that "I could care less" is a shorthand for something along the lines of "I could care less but that's too much effort given how little I care about it". YMMV.

All language can be misunderstood by those who wish to misunderstand it.

E&OE.

I'm beginning to get used to this particular error, but it's the kind of error that is often quite difficult to understand for non-native speakers (because you have to pronounce the comment, with the right accent, to be able to guess the meaning).

"Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?"

Absolutely not.

> Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?

I assume Scott's either dumb or careless. If public communication isn't your thing, how hard is it to find someone to proofread your message when you're working at a corporation? In either case he's not the person Adobe should have handling a PR situation.

> I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar because of comments like the one above.

I'm very sympathetic to an engineer or scientist having issues like this, perhaps working in fields where people from all over the world will be working together. On the other hand, if you're working in customer care, written and verbal communication is your thing. If you're not good at it, that reflects on you and your company and the seriousness with which they take the customer care function.

Poor communication started the problems here with this customer so it is an especially touchy subject for Adobe. Hence the way people are reacting.

edit: wow, mhurron, why not interact with what people have actually written in its full and intended context instead of assuming the worst about people and knocking over a strawman?

> I assume Scott's either dumb or careless.

Because everyone's first and best language is English. I guess someone needs to welcome the US as a member of the rest of the world.

> Hence the way people are reacting.

No, people are going grammar nazi on the message because it makes them feel more important. It's the same reason you're nitpicking here.

I think a lot of time is wasted trying to interpret comments with spelling/grammar problems. Every time I see something like 'should of' instead of 'should have', my brain trips out and I have to re-read the sentence.

For a typical blog post, the amount of effort required to get it right is minuscule in comparison to the number of eyes which will (hopefully) read it. For a public relations employee, it's just a matter of professionalism.

I think it's a matter of etiquette and professionalism. I don't get huffy about minor misspellings most of the time, but this conversation took place in a professional context. Imagine a scenario where you discover that several thousand dollars are missing from your bank account. You don't want them to reply with, "lol, sry bro... much stolen funds, wow fraud... we'll look into that... l8r"

When talking with friends I'd probably find that kind of banter (when used in moderation) to be amusing, but I expect a business person to take the time to proofread and spellcheck a message before sending it to me. I'm paying them money, they should show me a little courtesy.

Actually, yes. Everybody makes mistakes, but this one is so common that it has started to bother me. It immediately distracted me from the article and therefore his message.

"Downloading pirated content can contain viruses and cause security issues."

twitch attack

Did you twitch when you read OP's article?

"Image in your bank treated you this way..."

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.

This is not company policy, this is common sense and common usage.

Funny that, I've downloaded plenty of things from t'internet but the only time I've had a security issue is after I signed up for an Adobe account and they exposed my email and password.

or when they install additional 'value added software' without my consent.

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.

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.

> 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.

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..

Or more precisely, he paid for the license. He can use the serial in multiple computers, but that'd be illegal too.

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.

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.

>"wouldn't want to be stating "support said it was OK""

In this case - does he have an email or chat session proving that support said it was ok?

Well, good thing it's so easy to pirate. Older versions only required blocking Adobe servers in your hosts file. The newer ones just need replacement of a single lib. Why do I know this? because I tried to purchase their software and was DENIED "We're sorry but we can't approve your application to purchase Adobe CC.

Yeah, and replacing amtlib.dll is something which does not work very well. Crashes all the time.

Under OSX it's been completely stable AFAIK, YMMV.

It is the license that gives you the right to use the software. How you acquire the software is of little importance, as long as you have (and paid for) the license.

It works for Windows as well. It is perfectly legal to use an "illegal" DVD to install the OS, given you have an appropriate license.

Well, the theory is that you need a license to make a copy of the software when it loads from disk into memory. Depending on your outlook, that could be fair use, and the license is optional. The license removes all ambiguity -- if you agree to these terms, then we won't come after you for making a copy of the software.

In the US, courts have gone both ways.

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.

>> "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.

These days you can watch torrents while downloading too.

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.

Are you using Google DNS? I've had issues with CDNs because of that.

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.

i was skeptical about reinstalling cs4 when i upgraded to mavericks and found that it actually worked. amazing. the unintuitive part was that i needed to install java which is no longer standard on a bare osx install, but afterwards, it worked, which blew my mind. i guess ymmv.

> 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.

Hey, at least you have the option of getting it on iTunes. Where I am, neither iTunes, Amazon Instant Video or any other online service is willing to even sell me the content I want.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's not everything they sell though.

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.

My IT budget for the year is about $500. Doesn't fit.

But for what i remember, neither illustrator or photoshop cs5 alone did fit in that.

EDIT: http://www.adobe.com/products/catalog/cs6._sl_id-contentfilt... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362428,00.asp

but you could buy software once and use it for several years, skipping a few versions before upgrade. There are lots of users that don't need latest bells and whistles.

This. I used Fireworks MX (released 2002) until 2 years ago

Yeaaah, I am not the only one. It was the good old time! Each new version after the MX was a deception, damn Adobe.

You switch to what?

Inkscape and gimp.

I agree. Inkscape and Gimp do everything I need them to do. The last time I hit a limitation was when I needed Inkscape to create a multi-page document. But that was more than a year ago and I managed without that function.

I think the only irritation I get is gimp startup time on windows.

Need a replacement for Adobe Lightroom and I'm sorted then :)

Yes I spend more than that on coffee, I drink very good coffee every day and I enjoy it. If I used Photoshop every day I would also find their pricing reasonable, but the reality is I can go 6 months without needing Photoshop. I don't need advice on how to afford it, I am not a student and I have plenty of money. My point is that the old pricing model was at least justifiable for me whereas the new pricing model is just not suitable for me in any way. To capitulate to this greedy new regime would be a slap in the face for upstarts like Pixelmator who are doing a great product at a reasonable value, it's no Photoshop, but at least they aren't just trying to juice the orange of all the people that are extrinsically locked into their file formats.

I had this problem.

Pixelmator and Acorn for Mac are not perfect replacements but after awhile you figure out what they do well and you start to not miss Adobe products.

also iDraw... all of them together are trivial in cost compared to anything Adobe.

As a developer, I have to be able to open our designer's PSDs to extract elements. He's always using the latest features as well so I have to keep up with the new versions...

There are no alternatives that have even half-way decent PSD support (through no fault of their own, of course).

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.

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.

Actually, CS5 and CS6 both had updates that broke the cracked versions, now when "hackers" release the cracked version they recommend disabling auto-update.

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.

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.

I cannot agree more. Bought it once, never again.

SmartDraw is also kind enough to include spyware/malware with their installation.

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.

I think you mean, "the cheaper of the two options available to me."

If there are two products, and both can accomplish the necessary task(s), and one is cheaper, the cheaper product is the superior product.

I think the comparison was between paying and not paying for Photoshop, not between Photoshop and Pixelmator.

I pay for Pixelmator with great joy. Awesome product, intuitive interface, frequent updates.

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).

> Replace "can accomplish the necessary task(s)" with "are functionally equivalent" and maybe you have a point.

Now you're just being pedantic :)

Not really, lots of things can accomplish the same tasks and are functionally different. A car will get you from one location to another (necessary task), but so will a boat or a plane.

Where there is a market problem, there will be a market solution.

IMO Sketch is actually more relevant than Photoshop for some work,

Sketch is flat out better for almost everything. (In a web and interface workflow)

Can you clarify how pirating Adobe's software is "the only option available to [you]"? I get that it's ridiculously expensive and generally a pain in the ass... but needing to do something expensive doesn't provide justification for bypassing the cost, or in any way make "paying for the product" no longer an option.

Meh, it's an industry monopoly they have on a global scale. And a web developer from india cannot afford the huge price that comes with Adobe Photoshop - so they pirate it. Don't care personally, what do you they expect, in the real world? Shades of gray and all that.

Another example: games.

A AAA game costs 60$ on Steam a price 90% of the people online in South America can't afford. So what happened recently? A lot of latinamerican online stores sell Steam games for a much more realistic price. For example, a AAA game costs $30-$40 on sites like Nuuvem.

No offense, but there really aren't "shades of gray" here. I've definitely pirated things, but not wanting to pay the cost of something doesn't entitle you to spring forth "illegally downloading" as a justified option.

The article's case, where downloading the software legitimately was actually not an option, does establish that other option: he has paid for the software (or the serial, or the dream of software, or whatever), but Adobe has now made it impossible to legitimately access the software. He didn't contact Adobe and say "I've decided I must use your software, but I do not wish to pay, so it's cool if I pirate, right?"

There may not be "shades of gray" as far as the legality and fact of copyright infringement goes. But morally, it's certainly not so clear cut. A 14-yr-old me pirated Photoshop and used it to screw around with some filters (I've got little artistic talent) and whatnot. There's certainly no harm done to Adobe in that case - I wasn't gonna buy Photoshop for a total few hours of playing around. Someone living in a poor country that simply could not afford the software is in a similar position. It doesn't harm Adobe, but locks them in further - just like Microsoft benefited greatly from piracy, too.

It's still illegal, but there is clearly different levels of morality. If a large, profitable, studio was pirating software, that's sorta sleazy. People that legitimately can't afford it, eh.

There's no way to load PSD files other than paying obscene amounts of money. Both pricing models screw the person who has to occasionally open and view PSDs - the monthly fee screws you unless you're opening and editing lots of files; the one-time fee screws you unless you manage to open a bunch of files before the new version comes out and you're not compatible with what artists/designers are sending you anymore.

At least with formats like DOC, there are free reader apps available and free converters, because the format has public specifications and is used for interchange. In comparison, working with artists and designers is just plain expensive, because they all use Photoshop and the only way to consume their work is to buy Photoshop.

You can call the OP names if you want, but I think the larger evil here is what Adobe's done.

I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars just to open a file or convert it to SVG for Sketch. If they were going to be moral about it (IMO), Adobe would offer a free converter.

"B.. b.. but", you might say, "you can't just force Adobe to write a free converter!"

Well, you can't force me to pay for their paid software. And I'm someone who has spent thousands of dollars on graphics software of various kinds over the years.

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.

Is this OCR software called microsoft windows ?

Why don't you name and shame the company?

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.

You can find the CS5 trial downloads here: http://prodesigntools.com/all-adobe-cs5-direct-download-link...

All you need to do after that is insert your Student and Teacher serial number.

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

A lot of laptops that don't have an optical drive also don't have built-in ethernet (Retina MacBooks). The Thunderbolt adapter is an option, but it's not cheap.

I agree that when wired networking is available, it is a far superior option. Streaming local video to Apple TV is nearly impossible without it.

No distaste of wired networking, just didn't have the possibility of running a cable between both machines due to location in the house.

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as attacking. Just a hobby horse of mine...

CS5 is not "old-shool, shrinkwrapped box software" though, it was available as a download on Adobe's site back then[0], and IIRC you could get it slightly cheaper by not getting the physical box.

[0] back then… ha ha… 3 years 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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

However the fact that large companies are usually averse anything new would make that difficult.

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.

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...

Apparently CS5 used to be something you could purchase for download, so that was an option, but is no longer.

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

That "obnoxiously massive adobe flash banner" that is "crashing" is intentional: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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=4485...

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.

> 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.

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.

You can disable uploading and become a pure leecher and court problem solved :)

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!

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.

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.

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.

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-ma...

I'd rather give money to small developers who build great products than steal from Adobe.

If you truly care, develop a free alternative that is just as good as their products. See RMS.

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.

> 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".

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.

I'll grant you that Gimp's user interface is kind of a mess, but what specifically is wrong with Inkscape?

Actually... apart from some things like not having a mesh transform, extrude, skew and support for some color schemes, Inkscape is pretty nice, your comment encouraged me to try it out again. Apparently it will export in Illustrator's ai format as well. I was probably a bit rash to lump Inkscape in there.

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?

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...

Got this when I visited your page: http://imgur.com/ulQuiSe

Seems like your overlords got the memo. ;-)

>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.

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.

so wait, you not going to borrow a CD drive and make an ISO of the disk you've already bought?

It seems attacking Adobe shit (by writing a blog post) is the best way to get their correct support.

After they got hacked I won't deal with them every again!

I'm back to pirating.

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)

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.

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?".

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.

Yeah but would that have made a good blog post for HN?

Nope it wouldn't....Spending a couple hours calling support and writing a blog post to whine vs. doing the obvious solution helps make Adobe look evil, since they charge so much for Photoshop and all...

The remote DVD/CD option is a great idea, but it sadly doesn't support Linux, last time I looked. I'm got a mac laptop and linux desktop, so I'm SOL as far as the remote CD thing goes. :-(

Of course I agree that it would be better for customers to have the binary available on Adobes servers.

What is annoying to me is that this is so obvious and trivial to everybody here on HN, yet this developer feels it is important to declare to the world that he is going to pirate Adobe software from now on because of his "shocking" experience with Adobes customer support.

In the end it might even be that the software was always available on Adobes website, but some frontend developer made a mistake, or that the support guy didn't know better and gave him bad advise.

And then there's this line:

> I was greeted by Adobe’s “International” support team, based out of India where they can pay pennies on the dollar for you to get support in broken english. It’s almost as good as real english… almost.

My blood starts to boil when I read something like that, even though I agree that it can be hard to communicate with someone that doesn't speak your language well.

I agree on the last point, this complaint is so casual and frequently expressed. What is the issue? That they are paid less and the service would be better otherwise? The adobe CEO is Indian too. Fact is that when I work with international teams, the English of Indian team members have been a breath of fresh air compared to ESL European counterparts. This call center first world problem trope is tired. Would love to see folks deal with call center operators from areas of the UK with more abstract manifestations of English.

The guy's not a developer...

Pirating is always an option. But why did you pay for it if it's the only answer?

In this case it was not pirating but "pirating" because Adobe did not have the binary that he already payed for. It is not the only answer but it is an appropriate one for the situation.

>I just don't get such people, how can someone be so persistently annoying instead of just downloading the damn software somewhere else

From where? Torrents? And risk malware and viruses?

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.

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.

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.

It's pretty trivial to create undetectable droppers.

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.

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