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What are Warez? They appear to be free, but are they safe?

Question:

I downloaded Kaspersky Lab 7.0 from [a link to a warez site]. I installed
it, it prompted me that I had to uninstall AVG which I was running. I
uninstalled AVG, rebooted, then ran the install on Kaspersky. When I rebooted
again, strange things started to happen.

I am pulling my hair out here trying to figure out how to get this stupid
machine back to square.

I would really like to know how I can uninstall Kaspersky while in safe
mode. When I try I get a message that says Windows Installer Service can not be
accessed.

This is frightening on so many levels.

The site the software was downloaded from appears to be a pirated software
or “warez” site. The problem is that when you download from these free download
sites you’re asking for trouble. And I’m not even talking about legal
trouble.

One clue? As far as I can tell, there is no “Kaspersky Lab 7.0”.

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“Warez” is a term that’s come to refer to pirated software. There are web
sites that specialize in making these illegal copies of pirated software
available for download.

It appears that what you downloaded came from such a site.

One of the problems with these sites or the folks that contribute to them is
that they often use the lure of free software to get people to download virus
and spyware laden versions of those programs. Download one of those and when
you install you’ll end up with a machine full of malware.

Given that you had to explicitly disable your anti-virus program in order to
be able to install it seems likely that’s exactly what happened to you.
Certainly your experience after the install would seem to indicate so.

Another clue that something’s amiss is that I went out to the Kaspersky site
and couldn’t find references to a “Kaspersky Lab 7.0”. This is another trick of
warez sites: make something appears to be newer than you can find anywhere
else.

“As you can see, without even touching on the legal
issues involved, you might well be ‘paying for it’ in other ways.”

It’s just another argument for making absolutely positive that you only
download and install legitimate software from reputable sites. If that means
you need to pay for it, then pay for it, or choose different software.

As you can see, without even touching on the legal issues involved, you
might well be “paying for it” in other ways.

I’ve mentioned it before: there’s an adage in computer server management
that applies here: once your machine has been compromised by malware, you
really can’t trust it ever again until you completely reformat and
reinstall.

In your case, I know of no quick fix. It sounds like your machine has become
seriously infected. The only solution I can recommend to you is to backup your
data, and then completely reformat your machine and reinstall all of your
legitimate applications.

And stay away from those warez sites in the future.

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9 comments on “What are Warez? They appear to be free, but are they safe?”

  1. Warez would probably be one of the riskiest sites for the curious to visit.
    To fix your problem, boot into Safe Mode,[press F8 key before Windows logo appears] use system restore to to reset your PC to an earlier date. You will not lose any Emails or Office documents.

    Reply
  2. I had an experience with one of these sites a couple of years ago.
    I was looking for a utility to help me with a password problem. I never actuall yfound any thing but in the process of trawling the site I fould that IE got hijacked and I had a large number of rubbish windows opened and spurious entries in my Favorites. I got stuck with a lot of site variants of the ‘lop’ variety. It took me some whil to clear tham all out. I had to go off line and spend about half an hour deleting things and then running antiviral and malware clean up utilities to get back to normal.
    Definitely don’t touch these sites !

    Reply
  3. I am sure that you will most likely delete this but i don’t really care,In my 15 years of software coding,driver coding and viruis removel on the profressional level i have to somewhat, not totally but to a high degree. And to those who are looking for sites that are safe,then goodluck to you and they are easy enough to find.
    First research the software so you know how big your download should be within a few kbs give or take depending on the tool used to compress the file.stay away from CRACKERS and please do not asume that a hacker is the same as a cracker, hackers are highly intellignet people who’s only purpose is learn new things or to tear a program in pieces to see what it tick or to improve it.Crackers are punks who most times are menvolent and sneaky.
    As with everyone leo you are entitled to your opinion.While there are some people who do indeed pack trojons and virius’s into some warez downloads(CRACKERS FOR THE MOST PART) ,But to mark all “warez” or sites that offer shareware that has been patched or that you will be provided with the means to register the said download, is in over 75% safe,not to a legal standard which is a whole different thing becuase there are many cases in which EULA AGREEMENT does not expressly state that we can not share this software,In fact u could send everyone on the page a copy of any windows operating system without breaking the law so long as i have not supplied you a product key! Most of us that are offering expensive software to others ARE NOT OUT TO HARM ANYONE!! We do this for the simple pleasure of helping others who may not have the resources to pay for some of these things,eg games like half life 2, the need for speed series,ect. And if you look at the NFO file from some of the top groups like Paradox.Vitality,Razor1911..They express the same thing, we are ofering you a chance to review the software without limitation and that if you are pleased with it then please BUY a legit copy because they programmers derserve it! next you wanna bash a comunity go bash the porn sites because that is where 90% of the trojans,virues,web spiders and browser hijacks come from!

    Reply
  4. This was a FAKE WAREZ site. There are some great generous people who will give you programs, they paid money for, for free, but there are some who will pretend to be one of them in order to get a virus on your PC.
    First, you should use a warez site, you can trust, which hasn’t given you any trouble before, preferable Russian.

    Second, you must research what you are looking for and you must learn what exactly and which version of it you are looking for.

    Third, you must stay out of computer-generated text and always look for a picture of a game and some info about it on the site, so you know it is giving you exacly what you want.

    Reply

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