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IOS piracy site Installous down and out

technologyEdward Kiledjian

Many IOS jailbreak evangelists complain that piracy is actually hurting their mission but statistics show that most IOS jailbreakers do it to access pirated content. Cydia itself doesn’t distribute pirated content but allows you to access other application repositories that make it possible to install pirated content.

The king of IOS piracy, the Installous repository run by Hackulous, seems to be down. The official message on chat boards is that the site has been shut down because it is a “ghost town”.  This may be due to the fact that an unthetered jailbreak for IOS 6 isn’t readily available. In simple terms, the newest devices [ like the iPhone 5, iPad mini and iPad Gen 4] can’t be jail broken yet, therefore they can’t access the pirated app portal. Older devices like iPhone 4/4s and older iPads can be jailbroken but only if the IOS is at version 5.1.1 or older.

Apple has been raging a battle against these pirates and has patched many of the vulnerabilities these sites exploit to jailbreak IOS devices. This makes jailbreaking more complicated and therefore access to pirated apps less likely.

As a user, the allure of free apps may seem tempting but remember that these apps may have been modified to steal your information or to perform other less than honorable actions. Never install apps from unverified sources!