As you probably know, Adobe"s software isn"t exactly affordable for a lot of people (in fact it"s cheaper to fly across continents than to buy in some cases) in both the developing and the developed world, so it"s not exactly a surprise that a lot of people use pirated copies of Adobe"s apps. There are also people who don"t even know that they are running unauthorized software (because they didn"t install it themselves) or because they consider piracy more or less a socially acceptable practice.
Adobe is trying a new approach in dealing with this issue, with a new software service that it has been developing for some time now. The company calls it the "Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Service", and it will soon come bundled with all Adobe apps. It is currently being tested only with Acrobat X users in the U.S., and the way it works is pretty simple: it checks the program files to see if they"ve been tampered with, in which case it shows the following pop-up notification:
The company recently launched a website where you can learn more about the service, and says that the aim is simply to inform users about the dangers of running non-genuine software, which could infect their PCs with malware and viruses, and direct them to authorized resellers.
According to the FAQ, the service won"t prevent you from using non-genuine software and installing updates, and the data collected is anonymized and encrypted. You"ll definitely get nagged about buying genuine software, but the message can always be dismissed.
Source: Adobe via TorrentFreak | Image via BlogSpot
