Being a newbie on here, I don't want to step out of line on a coversation thread. However, on the subject of Warez and Hackerz. Firstly, not all of them are looser geeks out to screw the software industry. Sometimes it really IS just to get around some of the issues written about on this thread. I've seen it done, even when they own the software. In some cases it's something as simple as wanting to play a CD while you play Quake III, both of which demand a CD in the drive. If you have a CD-less copy of Quake III, it wouldn't be an issue, now would it? Now when that hacked copy of Quake goes out on the net to be hosted by someone, it becomes an issue. However, I used to work for a pretty large game company, and I can tell you that most software companies today KNOW the software they release is going to get hacked. It happens. If you put up artwork on the net, you can bet someone will save it to a HD and upload it somewhere else. It's as much a part of the Internet as anything else. For those of us who have been at this thing longer than AOL has been around accept a certain amount of this as "par for the course", as do the companies who get ripped off. Is it fair? Not in the least. But it does happen and it is taken into account when software is released. As for having to have dongles and other such things attached to your machine, not gonna happen to this computer person. Software asking you to stick yet another something into your machine just because they are paranoid, well in my opinon these companies are BEGGING to be ripped off. Hackerz see it as a challenge, and most of them are good enough to get away with it. Software companies themselves need to rethink the idea of what this does to the end user. If you are literally drving your customers to seek out hacked versions of your software, then in this users opinon you deserve what you get. There are smarter ways to do business. Sorry to go off on a rant here, but it's one of those things I feel strongly about. I have, in the past, used software that I had not paid for. In ALL cases, if I used the software more than a couple of times to see what it was like, I ended up going to the software store or online somewhere and paying for it. So Warez DO serve a purpose to some of us. I know a larger percentage of people who have cracked software do not do this, but lumping everyone into one stereotype on this one is as bad as any other stereotype. It's not impossible the person using the software doesn't want to pay $100 just to see if it's what they want. On a side note, don't kid yourself into thinking that Porn ladden websites are the only way to get these things. My old contact used to be a 50+ year old woman who had taken a code class and liked the fact that she could "Stick it to Corp America" by ripping software. She is no longer doing it, but she was not a "hacker" or a "Code warrior" or anything else. She was someone who lived for open source code and keeping software free. There IS something to be said for that as well. I'll shut up now. And get flamed I am sure. That's o.k. I'm a big boy and know that others may have differing opinons. Celty Out.