Yes, always search it on github and tell people to find it on github if you can't provide a link for them.
stepanzak
joined 2 years ago
I don't use VSCode for the exact reason. I used VSCodium but switched to Neovim. I see this problem more with GitHub (also owned by Microsoft). I was not able to get off GitHub yet, but I'm planning to switch to Codeberg probably. I heard that GitLab is also closed source?
So it's basically something with big impact?
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
Works great, is well documented and trusted. If I remember correctly it has multiple ways of activating stuff and you can select the one you want with explanation and pros/cons of each method.
EDIT: Documentation is here: https://massgrave.dev/ And it can even activate Office or change Windows edition.
Downloading the script and checking if it's the same script as the one on github is definitely better. Or running the curl but on raw.githubusercontent.com adress, because then you can be pretty sure it's not something else than you see.
These are the most well-known activation scripts that many people trust. They are well documented and often recommended, with more than one contributor. Written in powershell, I believe that if they were malicious, some of the 46k people who starred the repo or 4.8k people who forked it would notice. That being said, you can only be sure if you read the code, which is luckily not that difficult in the powershell script case. I personally trust them, definitely more than I trust Microsoft itself :D
Sadly, some people have to use Windows.
Oh, I thought disruptive is a negative adjective. Translator translates it to my language as a negative adjective.
I absolutely agree that Linux is great and I genuinely hate Windows for number of reasons. The problem is that some people just have to use Windows. This might include me in a few days, because I'm in high school and we have to install Solidworks. I think that for these people, Windows Activation Scripts are a good option that is safe (like it's not a virus), is free (because I don't want to pay for OS that I'm forced to use for some reason) and is safe in the meaning that there is no way of legal consequences if you are an individual, AFAIK. Also the licenses from 3rd party websites are often stolen licenses and buying them is IMO worse than activating Windows using the scripts, since you are supporting scammers.
Well I'm not an extrovert and I have no idea if it's really the same for them to be alone as constantly interacting with people is for introverts.
They do not distribute any binaries to avoid copyright issues I believe. There are some telegram channels doing what you described, but I wouldn't trust it enough to use it.