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Symantec's DRM of Choice | 49 comments (49 topical) | Post A Comment
Symantec's DRM of Choice[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#4)
by schda on Thu Oct 02, 2003 at 11:04:47 AM PDT

Someone suggested voting with our pocket books in an earlier response. Unfortunately, the big software companies of the world have been so successful that we now have limited choices. I know you want to keep the gripe column/website non-commercial, but I would love to know of other choices. Perhaps a listing of software types with fields to indicate price, method of actuation, method of copy protection, etc. would be appropriate. I for one am ready to vote with my wallet, but I have used Microsoft-Symantec-Intuit software for so many years that I have little or no knowledge of alternatives. I am frustrated enough that I would be willing to live with a little less software functionality and even a little higher price if I knew I could escape wasting time hassling the protection schemes being forced upon me and my IT people. It hardly seems fair that a company should have to pay the increased support costs to hassle the protection schemes. That is not value-added -- that is value substracted. Often my IT people have spent more time hassling these schemes than the product cost initially. Bottom line is that I want to break the "addiction" to these software companies, but I need to some help to do it.

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Norton DRM Alternatives[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#5)
by Anonymous User on Thu Oct 02, 2003 at 11:21:04 AM PDT

Here! Here! non-commercial is great and I think that the list suggested would not make you commercial and would be a great benfit to all of us who are looking for alternatives.

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Activation: just say no[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#19)
by Anonymous User on Tue Oct 07, 2003 at 11:32:05 AM PDT

Activation is the refuge of the monopoly. How many competitive products use it? Few, if any!

Consider the expense of implementing, maintaining, and administering intrusive DRM schemes. That is resource a smaller company can pour into making their product better. So if you hate DRM, reward the smaller players who don't use it.

"But what can we do, when 95% of computers are sold with an operating system that use an oppresive, intrusive activation scheme?" Use the other 5% -- Think Different.

Apple users traditionally favor functionality and ease of use over "features" implemented for the convenience of the manufacturer. Consider that Adobe's new Creative Suite is DRM'd for Windows, but not for MacOS. Consider that numerous products -- from Quark to Quicken -- were once DRM'd on the Mac, but removed it after users refused to upgrade.

I don't steal software, and I don't deal with companies that treat me as if I do. When Adobe gets around to DRM'ing Photoshop for MacOS, that's when I start investigating Painter, Canvas, even Corel Draw.

But in the meantime, MacOS X is largely a haven from the storm of oppressive, intrusive DRM schemes. Even the music software vendors (a real hotbed of DRM schemes) have largely thrown in the towel, since the companies with the most oppresive schemes have all gone out of business.

You can say "No" if you hate DRM enough. Compare the cost of switching to a Mac to the frustration of re-activating all your software after Windows or Norton eats your hard drive.

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Activation Reactivation[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#36)
by Anonymous User on Wed Jun 23, 2004 at 09:11:39 AM PDT

I still have no answer from a major software vendor to whether I have to buy new software when my uninsured machine is stolen and how many headaches do I have to go through to reinstall on a new machine when I buy one. How intrusive it has become to have the clamps put on how or what you upgrade from your hardware so as not to upset the activation sequence. Piracy control is the domain of governments and not that of software vendors, whereby they can effectively intimidate and irritate users with threatening and intrusive methods. So what if my machine is stolen, do I spend another thousand pounds on another program, do I go back to OS9 to use my user friendly and actually perfectly adecuate software? If I want a new machine I do not feel obliged to justify such a simple consumer act to a software producer who will probably not give a damn if that precious item gives me grief for instance. I have nothing left for the new activation system, I am an honest user and I think that these companies should lobby governments for more agressive piracy control.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]


Symantec[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#30)
by Anonymous User on Thu Nov 06, 2003 at 10:20:49 AM PDT

I switched to a site license for F-Prot at $2 a seat and love not having to read the "If you have Norton" sections of other vendors troubleshootng manuals anymore.

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Symantec's DRM of Choice | 49 comments (49 topical) | Post A Comment
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