Should I allow cracked programs on my PC?

My son likes installing cracked programs on our PC (some of them are unafordable, such as Vegas Pro).

Windows 10 often flags them as trojans and quarantines or recommends removing them.

He insists that he checks YouTube videos and stuff and that these are just false positives.

My view is that he shouldn't install any illegal programs, so I pay him what I can, but not any cracked programs.

We use this PC for the family: we buy online and do everything with this PC: buy online, check our bank accounts etc.
Another doubt is: if I buy him a PC for gaming and allow him to use cracked programs, would this put the rest of the computers connected to the same router as well?


I'd welcome any expert opinions on this.

Forum rules state that...

4. No piracy or discussion of piracy allowed at all...

Illegally cracked software can contain more than just the 'crack' and would risk putting spyware/back-doors on any machine it was installed on. It's not beyond the wit of a 'hacker' to write code that could infect other machines on the same network. So no, I wouldn't trust it, even on its own separate machine.

I don't advocate piracy at all. I think we've all been there at one point or another. Way back in the day, before the open source movement a lot of commercial apps did not have a solid alternative. Many of the problems I encountered on my PC's back in the day were from these shady websites offering these applications and things like key codes and key generators.

The other thing now that is helping are software subscriptions. My son uses photoshop and light room. For $10 a month, he has access to the software. We can cancel if he decides to no longer use the software. Considering that Photoshop used to be like $600...we can pay $10 a month for 5 years before we ever get to that original investment.

Pejole2165 said:

If you have had "cracked" software on a PC used for online banking/ shopping, I would strongly suggest wiping the drives and clean installing Windows. The virus/ trojan hits may be false positives or may well be actual viruses, how do you know for certain? Because some random YouTuber says so? If you have login details, credit card details saved on your PC from banking/ shopping then you should be very concerned about that PC and any other PC's and even phones that use the same network.
Having said all that, using cracked software is illegal, is not a victimless crime and not being able to afford something does not give any one an excuse for theft.
As Bree and swarfega have said, you are putting your data at risk every time illegally obtained software is downloaded.

That's exactly what I think, just wanted some opinions as I'm not a security expert. I've wiped our 3 Windows computers and set up Microsoft Family safety. It's not easy to control teens on this as it's so widespread.
Thanks for your answers.

In addition to what others have said I would like to add that there is many commercial software (even expensive one) for which there is free alternative.

I don't know your son is going to like that solution though.

For example Vegas Pro looks like some suite of software, you can get all this stuff for free and legally.
Except that there will be no suite but instead a collection of different software, also user experience might not be
as great as with Vegas Pro, but that's the price to stay safe and pay nothing

zebal said:

In addition to what others have said I would like to add that there is many commercial software (even expensive one) for which there is free alternative.

I don't know your son is going to like that solution though.

For example Vegas Pro looks like some suite of software, you can get all this stuff for free and legally.
Except that there will be no suite but instead a collection of different software, also user experience might not be
as great as with Vegas Pro, but that's the price to stay safe and pay nothing

Vegas Pro is indeed a legal tool, remember not to touch anything illegal, otherwise the results are unpredictable.