Since R2R stated at the sis site, the protection has been stronger recently, so cr**king is also getting harder and harder. Since 2021 (probably in the middle of the year), I noticed some plugins didn't work properly or became unstable. As you can see, some ppl also talked about partially cr**ked recent iZotope plugin in this section as well.
Eg) Massive X v1.3.3 has an issue with the keygen.
There are more cases, but I can't recall all of them now. So, what do you think? Do you also agree with me, or am I so paranoid?

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2022

Well, I don't know much about programming. But it was always difficult to decipher the vst. Back in 2002/2005 the teams that managed to find the serials were like "gods". There were some sound libraries that once you put the serial, if it was wrong, you couldn't put it back.
I think that as protection advances, so does the learning of the teams on how to decipher them.

And I mean, for example. Now we know more how to do a clean installation, removing all the remains. Before that was more difficult to do. I remember having formatted the pc several times.

 

Could be that this is the same Problem as with Fluid Chords which was solved by R2R. In some Cases this Problems do not accour for all People and are very specific as in this Case. Protection is Always getting stronger but i feel like that in the Last Year so many Stuff came up on Sis Site which many People where waiting for. I'm an prospective IT Administrator myself and also know a lil coding but that Stuff R2R is doing is "Godlike" Because Reverse Engineering is the Hardest Stuff and people like that are very well paid in the IT Buisness. So I'm very happy that the Teams are doing this for free.

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2022

The biggest advantage the crackers have over the "protection maker" is they don't have any limitation. They can try to do whatever it is they think necessary to break it, any idea could be entertained, use 10 Computers, rent a server from Amazon to emulate the "home" (ref:Nexus 3) or whatever.

Protection maker has to play around the efficiency, file size, CPU consumption, OS limitation, Multi-OS compatibility, competitors, market etc. They even have to fight against each other, I mean they break each other's protection and leak it so their own product could dominate the market. It looks like things are way harder for them.

 

R2R has managed to crack some stuff that was thought to be uncrackable. So I'm pretty happy. I'd almost say it's gotten better. I do purposefully avoid V.R now, whereas before I used to grab his packs. Too many missed things with his cracks, but R2R has been quite reliable for me.

A simple thing to do is just not install the latest cracked update right away. Let others do that first, and check comments for problems encountered. Always keep a stable older version archived somewhere that you can go back to, if needed (important for something like Serum that gets DMCA'ed and gone from the sister site very quickly).

 

look what happened with cubase 12. supposedly implementing the new online system was going to be more difficult or it would take time to find how to crack it and in a funny way I think that same one was already on the sister site, which I think the first team that the public was VR.

 

BTW @ArticStorm , congratulations for your Max release

 

And as R2R said in the Best Service Engine release i think a bigger Problem is often the Supply of Software

 

You are right. But for the Last Part that a Competitor breaks protection of another company can be an shot in the foot in my Opinion most of the Time Software will become Popular when cracked, because People can try it and some of them will end up buying. A Good Example is Cubase they where on Top when Cubase 5 was cracked and gone done by Users because their where no new Versions released so other DAW's which were cracked and released in new Version from time to time took over.

By the way most of the Software i own i don't use the regular Version, because when the Protection is gone most vsts use less CPU and RAM.

 

I agree
I switched from Cubase 5 to Studio one, and many did the same. There I discovered Studio one, and although it is not as complex as Cubase and its Gui is not as interesting as Cubase. It is much more intuitive when working.
It's okay that I can't buy it to be realistic, but if I could, I would buy Studio one now, when I would have bought Cubase before.

 

since launch of Apple M1 in the end of 2020, things are going weird,
developers are facing challenges of the new platform, and so do protection coders,
if only this transition era was over yet, but I gotta feeling it'll take whole 2022 and 2023 to settle down

 

Oh, I didn't realize that as my history to use the plugins were not so long like yours. Interesting!

 

Now, I can see why so many people love r2r. Gr8!

 

Ye, that's what I do. I always check what ppl say about the new one and if it's not good (like Massive X 1.3.3 I discussed, then I avoid it.
The problem of this method is that the room of HDD. If the size of the plugin is big, then your HDD will be full very quickly.
Plus, you don't have option for specific ones such as Toontrack ones. R2R doesn't update it often, but VR does. It is not easy to update R2R version of Toontrack plugins. Of course, they do the great job for other ones though.
What I found is that some plugins are buggy. I found it since I purchased the legit version. Most issues were gone since then.

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2022

I also salute to them.

 

Since I purchased S1, many issues were gone. I spent so much time to figure it out and end up found the cr**ked version caused it. I think it's the best idea to purchase DAW at least. I've been reducing using the cr**ked ones and use less than 10 plugins these days, and half of them are instruments.

 

regarding large plugins. I don't know if you've seen it on the sister site, but they have released several "Lite" versions of kontakt that sound great. As in the case of Symphobia, these new things help a lot. you save a lot of space

 

I hear yah. Me personally, I have somewhere around 2TB-3TB dedicated on a drive for this. Your storage req's will obviously vary. You really don't even need fast drives.. just something cheap and reliable. You can always get (most) stuff again... so really just need to keep the stuff that you'll have troubles finding again or don't want to invest a lot of time into redownloading. I purge out a lot from time to time. It definitely can add up though, yes.

And yes, V.R... real easy installs, typically, but potentially a mess of problems with missed things in cracks. That's always been the case though. All this stuff has been part of our game for quite a while though. I haven't found problems to be more common, in my case. Seems that most people feel the same way. Patience has paid off for me. It could just be some certain things you're downloading haven't been cracked very well though. This is the risk we take when we play this game though

 

Lite version? Nope, I never heard that. Probably, are you talking about the portable version? Otherwise, library? I'm confused.