Filezilla Pro "perpetual License" – a Warning to All Users
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Original: FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users
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I bought FileZilla Pro under a perpetual license - a one-time payment, lifetime right to use the version I purchased. After reinstalling my operating system, I simply needed to reinstall the software I already paid for.
Here's what happened:
- Support admitted I still have the legal right to use the old version of FileZilla Pro that I originally purchased. - Then they told me they refuse to provide the installer for that version. - Their excuse: “For security reasons we do not provide older versions.”
The impact:
If a customer cannot download the installer, the "perpetual license" is dead. It doesn’t matter what rights they acknowledge on paper - they are blocking any practical way to use the software unless you pay again under their new subscription model.
There is no way to reinstall. There is no way to access the product you bought. Your "perpetual license" effectively becomes worthless the moment you reinstall your OS or lose the installer.
Full text on link.
The root issue is trust, not a lifetime license. In fact, a lifetime license is a good predictor of trust because users prefer it to subscriptions and it indicates that the company at least pretends to be interested in the customer's wants.
Trust can always be abused, as in this case. Trust is gone everywhere. That doesn't mean it can't be rebuilt. It won't be rebuilt on a subscription model that no one asked for.
Subscriptions are incentives for companies to keep doing what you want, along with direct consequences (everybody will cancel) to penalise them for ignoring their core user base.
Don't let the awkwardness of the system (fully agree modern banking is shit at letting you manage recurring bills) distract from the underlying user-beneficial dynamics.
You could have saved the installer, put it on disk, you could find a copy of it elsewhere, etc.
I don't think it makes the idea of the license void, but it's for sure not the nicest customer move.
Since it would cost them roughly nothing to keep old installers around forever for paid users, it's really hard to imagine a justification.
It's not customer friendly, but it doesn't seem like it's going back on a promise, unless the license especially called for it.
And it doesn't explain the choice they made. "Legally they could" applies equally to removing the download and keeping the download.
Forgetting is a pretty good excuse I think.
The company didn't forget anything. They're refusing the download on purpose, presumably because they don't want the user to walk away happy without paying more.
The fact is they don't owe anyone any backups or any reasons.
I guess you will just have to go on feeling abused and robbed. Go ahead and try to sue them for theft and fraud if you think your argument actually holds water.
I don't even know what you're calling a "rationalization".
And this isn't about what they legally owe, this is about them having very bad customer support.
We all agree, even me, that it's not the most cutomer-first policy. Except, maybe it is actually the most customer-first, because their support & security argument is not bullshit. If there are things wrong with the old version that they know about, then it is entirely valid to decide not to actively help facilitate the proliferation of old bad versions that still have their name on it out in the world. Maybe they don't have the policy for such pure and virtuous reason, or maybe they do, but it doesn't matter because it's actually perfectly valid anyway.
The fact you don't like it is purely a you problem.
The reason they should do it is because it helps their customers get what they paid for.
They have a solution to the problem, and sharing the solution costs nothing, but they refuse to share it.
There doesn't need to be an obligation to make that refusal asshole behavior.
At no point am I rationalizing anything here. I'm not even a customer.
> Except, maybe it is actually the most customer-first, because their support & security argument is not bullshit. If there are things wrong with the old version that they know about, then it is entirely valid to decide not to actively help facilitate the proliferation of old bad versions that still have their name on it out in the world.
Moving toward a world where users can't use that version but have no replacement is not customer-first.
> The fact you don't like it is purely a you problem.
Why do so many people act like it's invalid to complain about legal company actions? Complaints about bad service give warning to other potential customers, and might get the company to change things for the better.
Companies can have bad support, and that risks them getting bad reviews.
For one, the company can stop hosting the installers when it goes out of business. And if they don't have 30 year old files around, I won't complain too hard.
Your right to receive updates is limited to the time that you selected when you ordered FileZilla Pro.
If you have, infact, ordered a "Perpetual License" (which they might have offered previously, currently I can only see a Lifetime license available for order, the wording is important!) (assuming you are in the EU) then I would go and file for a European Small Claims Procedure.
FileZilla's Terms and Conditions are a mess. https://filezillapro.com/terms-and-conditions/
It does say:
> In a one-off purchase you will have a right to receive services or other rights for the maximum period of time indicated in the package you have purchased or ‒ missing that indication ‒ for up to five years.
It also says:
> Unless registered, your copy will not receive updates and will not exploit the services of the Software.
So, I would assume that if you purchased the Lifetime license, and you registered the software within the 4 required weeks, then they are infact breaking their contract with you.
Which is a bad thing, and it's good to warn people about that clause loudly.
The lifetime license purchased today is not a perpetual license. FileZilla says that it will update it for life.
So, respectfully, no, it's not good to warn people about the clause, because people purchasing the product today do not run into this issue.
If Microsoft blocked me from installing an obsolete version of windows via the activation servers, it would be reasonable to hold that against them.
It's not about updates, it's about being able to use the original purchase.
No one owes you a perpetual backup. Not even the people who sold you the first copy.
You are not prevented from reinstalling your os or filezilla by anything but your own apparent dipshittery.
You bought something and then threw it away, and now you cry that you don't have it, and then as if that wasn't ridiculous enough already, you then try to blame this on the vendor.
Did they ever claim they would hold a backup of the installer?
Perpetual license is also a good descriptor. If you have the same OS you downloaded it on, hopefully you have it backed up.
The scenario "we won't provide it for security reasons" only shows up as a gotcha. The author of that GitHub repo would know better than to use it.
Why not? VMs can be given access to the host file systems.
I'm afraid I don't really understand what the author is angry about here.
If I lose a book, I wouldn't expect the publisher to send me a new one. If I buy a physical copy of a Nintendo game and lose the cartridge, there is no reason to expect Nintendo to send me a new one. Why would MS word be different?
Are you sure you didn't butcher a word here? Yes, Firezilla might be in the clear legally if they told the OP to pound sand, but that's not the same thing as having no "moral argument". The moral argument is pretty straightforward, which is that it costs next to nothing for them to provide downloads to existing owners, because they presumably have the digital distribution infrastructure for new sales. It doesn't make sense for a book publisher to send you new copies after your dog ate your book because postage, ink and paper costs money, and if for whatever reason they have a e-book version, it'll be a pain to authenticate that they actually bought the physical book. None of those excuses work for digital downloads.
> Are you sure you didn't butcher a word here?
Speak plainly, no circumspection necessary. Nor sarcasm if that was what you are attempting.
In any case, hosting archival versions is not free, it incurs a cost, just like printing, mailing, and postage does for a hard copy of a book. The cost is possibly less, but not 0.
If you think there is a threshold for when a company should cover the costs of negligent loss versus not covering those costs, what is it? Why is the cost of shipping a replacement cost of a physical media above that cost, and the cost of hosting a server in perpetuity below that cost?
> Similar logic applies here, which is that it costs next to nothing for them to provide downloads to existing owners, because they presumably have the digital distribution infrastructure for new sales.
New sales are for different versions than what he purchased. Filezilla sells a perpetual license with updates for a year. They just keep the most up to date version on the download server and cut off your access after a year. In order to implement what you are suggesting they would have to build an entire application that knows when your support ended and serve the specific build that you are licensed for. The reality is that the cost of developing and maintaining that minimal functionality are far from free, probably not too dissimilar from the cost of replacing physical copies of books at a unit level, tbh.
While, yes, it would be generous for Filezilla to provide perpetual support and downloads, that is not what was offered or purchased. They provided software, they supported it for a year, they even allow him to use their customer support resources outside of that time.
Under what moral system is there an imperative to do something that is beyond what you originally agreed to in an anonymous purchase?
At the end of the day, all this spilled ink is about a ~$13 license. Sorry, but a years old $13 purchase carries precisely no implied moral imperative for perpetual availability.
To paraphrase your words, "I would argue that refusing to offer 0.09 cents[1] (that's right, less than 1 cent) worth of bandwidth for legacy downloads not in any way comparable to spending $5 (at least) of postage to mail a book"
[1] 9 cents/GB charged by AWS for egress. Actual cost is likely far lower.
We are talking about physical media to compare and contrast the differing expectations around responsibility for backing up a digital download (what the linked complaint was about), and physical install media (what this thread is about).
> I'm pretty sure the business was very clear that I'm only buying the license though.
Microsoft in 2010 was very clear that your were buying physical install media for Office 2010 along with your license. They did this by making the physical install media part of the license purchase transaction.
... and forgot to make a backup. Nothing lasts forever.
Give a good reason it shouldn't.
Some people might believe differently, and some companies might do it out of the goodness of their hearts (or because they signed up for a permanent liability for hosting)
I just don't want to do business with people who think that's an ethical way to do things. The hosting excuse is pathetic. Learn to do your job and it isn't something you need to think about more than once every half decade.
I had to maintain a full build artifact history of my old app. It "just worked" for years and years without thinking twice, and cost a handful of dollars a month for a few TB of build artifacts.
For most apps that aren't continual delivery, it's way fewer artifacts to handle so way less data...a couple dollars a month at most.
Really, what excuse do you have for that other than screwing people who previously trusted you enough to do so business with you?
The license itself is ~$13 for a perpetual license and a year of support and updates. What expectation should I have that because I spent $13 years ago that the company will support me after my one year support window expires?
Who exactly is getting screwed by being charged $13 to replace an old version of software with a new version because the client failed to do a backup before nuking your HD for an OS install.
No one is being screwed, this is just one party thinking that they are entitled to perpetual support for a perpetual license, and the other party saying that the license is perpetual and the support ends at 1 year.
The few dollars was talking about total cost, not per-version cost.
If we're talking about a single version of filezilla that rarely gets downloaded, the hosting cost is somewhere below a penny per month. And they might need to store 25 archival versions total? It's nothing.
Famous last words.
There is a reason Internet Archive is so popular.
A lot of SW was hosted on ftp sites, which became "unsecure".
It is hard to keep things running when you're changing and experimenting. It's why Google shutters businesses it finds are not growing - they're a maintenance burden and suck up resources, dragging down other efforts. And that's for a company with near-infinite resources. Imagine sole proprietorships.
Someone has to care and devote time and attention to keep it there. At the expense of other opportunities.
Just because Tim Berners-Lee said "cool URIs don't change" doesn't mean it's practical. Almost everything is temporary and dies. It's okay. Not much in life has permanence.
If you want to hold onto it, archive it.
This is exactly backwards. Good faith is what's left after sale and support.
Thank you.
This is like people who think $5 is too much for an app. We've become entitled to think software is free because giants pour lots of ad-riddled software in our laps.
You bought the car. You can use the car forever. If you lose it, that's on you.
Your complaint is misplaced. Software takes work, and updates take work. Hosting <100MB installers doesn't take work.
It basically is zero cost to keep those files available somewhere.
> You bought the car. You can use the car forever. If you lose it, that's on you.
If the manufacturer had a button that could summon the car I lost, and refused to press it, that would reflect extremely badly on them.
> It basically is zero cost to keep those files available somewhere.
You don't know that.
Maybe it was put in a bucket or host that died when the company switched to a subscription model. Maybe they don't have copies on hand. Maybe it was a previous team that owned it. Maybe a different owner.
You're assuming a possibility space of zero chance of work on their behalf. There are lots of things that could have happened.
If they don't have copies on hand, they could fix that with a one time effort that still comes out as negligible overall.
We're talking 50 megabytes of storage here, per version. They can save themselves a lot of money by letting lifetime subscribers download the latest version, but that'll cut into their profit margins of course. Even if they don't want to host the setup on their website, providing a 50MiB installer file on request has to be the bare minimum customer support I'd expect.
My experience is that some people do confuse FileZilla with Mozilla. That said, everyone I know just uses the free version, despite the spyware that's bundled with the installer.
Based on this post, I wouldn't buy their professional subscription.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but they do not store previous versions for you to choose, only the current version.
But once you have the links, you can download the actual files directly from Apple, e.g., if you're ready to upgrade your Mac Plus to the latest and greatest version of System 6, download
https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...
https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...
https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...
https://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Sof...
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20141025043714/http://www.info.a...
In this case, the existing license is only valid up to a certain point, after which you need to buy a subscription (because the perpetual license wasn't quite so perpetual).
exactly. If you buy a music CD and lose that CD, while you have the license of the music on that CD, you should not get a free CD as replacement.
if you buy a software license, at least store the install binary?
It is however, quite reasonable to expect that downloads will be available as long as the vendor is still in business, especially if the cost of hosting is marginal. Apple could theoretically sell you songs/albums on itunes, and tell you to rebuy if for whatever reason you lost your phone and didn't back up the file, but most people would think that's a dick move.
Point of comparison, Steam, CodeCanyon, and Gumroad all let you re-download the version you licensed indefinitely.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/adobe-releases-creative-...
Better question is which places don't allow unlimited downloads. If you buy office 365, you can download it unlimited amount of times from microsoft. Hell, you can download it unlimited times even if you don't own it, because activation happens after it's installed. Same goes for something like Steam.
>especially the ones who don't implement some kind of license key check?
they don't?
https://filezillapro.com/docs/v3/licensing/do-i-need-to-acti...
Oh, and just for the record, one time in the early 90s, I was getting read errors trying to reinstall Excel from the original floppies, had no backups, and Microsoft support sent a complete replacement disk set, at no charge, no questions asked (seriously; for all they knew, I could have been lying to get a free unlicensed copy of Excel).
Why not ? It is a file tranfer protocol.
https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/osx-ironcore-a-or-what-we-k...
As IronCore evolved, it eventually got packed — `+[obj load]` executed prior to entry point — and provided a JavaScript to Objective-C bridge. JS payloads were remotely downloaded and AES encrypted...
While offers were the usual suspects back then (Advanced Mac Cleaner, MacKeeper, and a customized Chromium app), the technique could be abused in a couple of ways so to spy on specific targets.
So my first inclination wouldn't be to try filezilla but archive.org. After that I'd search for other options and see what was most trustworthy.
I've done well with oldversions.com in the past. Last I heard they were still reputable. http://www.oldversion.com/windows/filezilla/
Even without knowing which version the author is looking for, I'm betting I could locate a suitable copy.
No. You are not denied any way to reinstall the product you legally own. It's on you to maintain backups of your installers. If you have that backup, you may install it and run it legally.
> Their excuse: “For security reasons we do not provide older versions.”
I can understand that logic. If an out-of-date version is found to have a vulnerability, then if they provide that version but don't update it, they are exposing themselves to lawsuits. Whether or not the lawsuit makes sense is another matter, but I can imagine the company's lawyers putting the kibosh on providing an archive of outdated installers.
They are not, nor have ever been interested in solving customer problems. That's ok; that's their privlidge.
1 https://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/2309
It's like going, "weird that they named it hemoglobin when it bears no physical resemblance to hematite!"