The developer preview of Mac OS 10.7 Lion has arrived on the most popular torrent site. Question is, is it safe to download?
Apple made the developer preview of Lion available Thursday through the Mac App Store. As of now, developers who paid the $99 annual fee to Apple’s Developer Connection can legally run and install Lion. However, that hasn’t stopped the Developer Preview of Lion from reaching torrent sites.
Potential legal issues aside, the current iteration of Lion is meant for developers to test their Apps on and provide feedback to Apple. Bugs and other nuances have yet to be squashed and using a Beta or preview for mission critical tasks is a terrible decision. Incompatibility could arise and corrupt data or hamper your daily workflow.
Downloading the Developer Preview from a site besides Apple has some risks associated with it. Malicious code could be included that can track personal information or the file itself could be a dud.
If you really want to try the new version of OS X Lion, you can sign up as an Apple developer for $99 which gets you access to all pre-release Software made available in addition to the Developer Preview of OS X Lion.
4 thoughts on “OS X Lion Hits Torrent Sites, Should You Download It?”
Is it asking too much for people to abide by the law? Why is the first thing people do is to break the law. The only way people can get Lion is to be an ADC member and that requires saying you will abide by the NDA. This also means not discussing what’s contained in Lion, except what Apple has disclosed on their public websites. I guess there are fewer and fewer honest people in this world who just aren’t willing to wait for a product to be released. How many of these people actually contribute by providing bug reports? Probably none of them.
I think its wise to wait and get the download from apple store when its available, i heard its 29$ not 99$…
As secure as the OSx has been, its growing popularity in the market inevitably has led to a lot of interest from people who may not be interested in getting software the legal way. Which also means that there are skilled programmers out there who would want to reap where they have not sown by putting in malware into something that is otherwise really good, so…its wiser to stay safe and stay legal.
As an apple enthusiast, I am a bit disappointed that they have now chosen to distribute Lion through downloads, especially coming from an area where good bandwidth can be an issue. I would much rather go and purchase the instal disc and run it from there. In my view this mode of distribution can work against MacOSX’s growing popularity in previously uncharted waters.