Some thoughts on pirate sites

I’ve been seeing a rash of pirate website selling deeply discounted or even free ebooks.  I am not going to rant about how unethical these sites are or that you are stealing from the author.  There are a million posts like that.

I’m going to offer another perspective.  As a reformed computer geek, I view these “here today gone tomorrow” pirates sites as nothing more than a virus waiting to infect your computer.  Literally.  Did you know that some sites can infect your computer with a virus or key logger just by visiting?  You might think, I have X Brand Anti-Virus software so I’m safe.  Uh, no.  Since these programs are built by people with the sole intention of messing up your life, they evolve to evade Norton or McAfee, etc.  Hence why your software has updates, to counter the new stuff.  So,  you can get computer bugs.

If you buy a discounted book, the site owner might just take your payment information and use it themselves, especially credit cards.  If you slap your personal information down to buy a discounted book you have no guarantee that site wont turn around and sell it or use it to buy high prices electronics overseas.  Can we say identity theft?

A free download from an unknown site could result in the aforementioned virus too.  Especially if the file is zipped.  So you might think that you are getting a free ebook but instead you get free porn pop ups and a trip to the tech guys to get it removed.  Imagine trying to explain the porn infestation?  Ha ha.  And that’s just the light end of what could happen.

So, in summary, please purchase and download your ebooks from sites you trust.  Amazon, B&N, All Romance Ebooks, the author’s own website, or the publisher website.  Type in the URL to your browser yourself.  Sometimes phishers try to make their site look legit by using an Amazon logo so don’t click funky ads or weird looking addresses.  Protect yourself buy avoiding scam sites.  🙂