In the past, most software I used was paid and proprietary and would have some sort of limitation that I would try to get around by any means possible. Sometimes that would be resetting the clock on my computer, disabling the internet, and other times downloading a patch.
But in the past few years I’ve stopped using those things and have focused only on free and open source software (FOSS) to fulfill my needs. I hardly have to worry about privacy problems or trying to lock down a program that calls home. I might be missing out on some things that commercial software delivers, but I’m hardly aware of what they are anymore. It seems like the trend is for commercial software providers to migrate toward online or service models that have the company doing all the computing. I’m opposed to that, since they can take away your service at any time.
What do you do?
For tools and stuff: FOSS
For games: No need to pirate thanks to Epic overloading me with free stuff. If I want something specific, keyforsteam usually does the trick for a very reasonable amount of money.
Both of these categories are just not worth it to risk a potential infection due to malware in the pirated stuff.
The only places where I do do some pirating are:
These categories are pretty safe