FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

https://github.com/x011/FileZilla-Pro-Download

by lobito25 • 8 months ago

112 131 8 months ago

lobito258• 8 months ago

This is a blunt warning to anyone who ever purchased, or is thinking about purchasing, FileZilla Pro.

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.

whatevaa• 8 months ago

Lifetime licenses are basically a scam these days. Don't trust any of them.

willis9362• 8 months ago

And instead trust that subscription prices will stay constant and that the company will always stay in business and support the product you purchase?

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.

didibus2• 8 months ago

I admit it's a bit shitty, but I can also understand.

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.

grugagag• 8 months ago

Sounds like piracy may solve such problems (of course just for the binaries)

Dylan1680712• 8 months ago

You can understand what? You're listing workarounds, not justifications.

Since it would cost them roughly nothing to keep old installers around forever for paid users, it's really hard to imagine a justification.

jay_kyburz• 8 months ago

Why did they not mention what the operating system is? I don't think it unreasonable for a company to no longer support operating systems that are also unsupported.

tim--3• 8 months ago

So, going to https://filezilla-project.org/prodownload.php?beta=0 and entering your email address and order number doesn't work?

lobito258• 8 months ago

No, it says expired.

nightfly• 8 months ago

If you bought something from a physical store and lose it doesn't entitle you to go get another one for free...

ryanmcbride• 8 months ago

That's the difference between a license and a product my friend

gruez6• 8 months ago

But we're not discussing an item from a physical store? We're discussing software sold online.

fuzzy_biscuit• 8 months ago

If you bought a license from a physical store - depending on the language of that license - yes, it would entitle you.

op00to4• 8 months ago

I bought a Windows license from a university book store. I can download copies of Windows all day if I want.

Brian_K_White9• 8 months ago

Buddy. "This is a blunt warning", the reasonable and unreasonable parties in this story are not what you seem to think.

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.

cosmotic• 8 months ago

Sounds like all software from the 70s through 00's.

Did they ever claim they would hold a backup of the installer?

viraptor2• 8 months ago

There's a difference between "we don't have it anymore" and "we won't provide it for security reasons". They're not the same.

benatkin3• 8 months ago

They are essentially the same as software purchased from the 70s to the 00s though - shrinkwrap software, a term cleverly coined by Joel Spolsky. I just thought of it as buying software in a store at the time.

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.

Brian_K_White9• 8 months ago

There is no difference. They are exatly the same, because they don't owe you a rationale that you approve of. Even if they offered no rationale at all it changes nothing because they don't owe you anything. You paid, you got, you're both done.

firesteelrain2• 8 months ago

I guess this is akin to Microsoft not allowing you to download Windows XP any more.

51Cards• 8 months ago

I have a folder in my server where I archive the last several versions (usually 3-5) of all software I install. It would have helped in this situation but the main reason I started doing it >25 years ago is in case companies disappeared.

znkynz• 8 months ago

Funny project, funny people, funny ideas. There is some really black and white thinking around feature requests on their forums - for example, segmented ftp downloading for their ftp client.[1]

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

anonymousiam2• 8 months ago

I began installing perpetually licensed software in VMs about 15 years ago. When I upgrade my (hypervisor) hardware, the VM still runs just fine. Obviously, a VM wouldn't be a suitable environment for FileZilla.

cowsandmilk• 8 months ago

Obviously, a VM wouldn't be a suitable environment for FileZilla.

Why not? VMs can be given access to the host file systems.

Brian_K_White9• 8 months ago

Do you sell vms or something? It's absurd to even consider running an entire os in a vm just to use the calculator or the notepad.

firesteelrain2• 8 months ago

FileZilla runs fine in a VM

hluska• 8 months ago

I guess we’ve reached a point where instead of taking personal responsibility for our backups, we just try to turn the internet into our personal army against products.

pshirshov• 8 months ago

Yeah, we subscription price of an FTP client which didn't actually modernize in decades is justified, totally justified.

ndsipa_pomu2• 8 months ago

It's a lot more efficient to have a central repository for versions of a particular bit of software rather than expect every user to keep a backup of all the versions. It's just a general waste of resources.

Spare_account• 8 months ago

I have installation media for MS Office 2010 in my desk drawer. If I lose the disc, I wouldn't expect Microsoft to replace it for me.

I'm afraid I don't really understand what the author is angry about here.

izacus3• 8 months ago

Why... not? You paid for that software.

throwaway1389z3• 8 months ago

You paid for a copy, you got your copy. The business is not responsible forever furnishing you a new copy.

dghlsakjg5• 8 months ago

Because what you paid for is the software on physical media. Why would any publisher just hand out things for free that they otherwise charge for because you claim you lost the item. Back in the days of physical software, it used to be common to buy and sell used software. The difference between "I lost it, send me a new one" and "I sold it, send me a new one" is a simple lie, that more people than you think would be happy to tell a faceless corpo. Would it be nice if they issued a new copy that worked with the old key? Yes, but there is no moral argument for requiring it.

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?

hulitu3• 8 months ago

Why... not? You paid for that software.

... and forgot to make a backup. Nothing lasts forever.

Tostino2• 8 months ago

When the purchase medium is a download link the expectation is that the link keeps working if the company is in business.

Give a good reason it shouldn't.

Edit: also, list your startups. I like to avoid doing business with people who think this way.

throwaway1389z3• 8 months ago

Unreasonable and unrealistic expectation. You pay for a copy, you get a copy. Deal is over unless you have problem with the product in that it doesn't work as advertised or malfunctions.

dghlsakjg5• 8 months ago

Maintaining a perpetual archive for the convenience of those that don't do backups is not part of a typical licensing agreement. It is a nice thing to do, but unless a perpetually accessible hosted file service is what you bought, it is reasonable for the company to stop hosting copies of software that they no longer sell.

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)

echelon3• 8 months ago

the expectation is that the link keeps working if the company is in business.

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.

hulitu3• 8 months ago

When the purchase medium is a download link the expectation is that the link keeps working if the company is in business.

Famous last words.

There is a reason Internet Archive is so popular.

A lot of SW was hosted on ftp sites, which became "unsecure".

benatkin3• 8 months ago

The author didn't explain what the actual impact was on them. They stopped at "security implications" because the only reasonable outcome that would obviate this "Warning to All Users" would be to provide the latest version for free. No, it doesn't make sense to provide an insecure version. No, it doesn't make sense to patch such an old version. The other reasonable outcome is the actual outcome - that FileZilla doesn't let them download it, but if for some reason they backed it up (which is cool) and want to use it (which is odd), they can still use it.

thefz• 8 months ago

Since when GitHub is a blogging platform?

benatkin3• 8 months ago

It's more of a Yelp review platform in this case.

gunalx• 8 months ago

github pages?

lobito258• 8 months ago

It’s not, but it ranks better on Google than any blogging platform. If you search “Filezilla Pro Download,” it appears on the first page. Since the goal is awareness, strong visibility on Google is essential.

powerclue• 8 months ago

Weird to connect FileZilla and Mozilla, but leave out that both are presumably named after Godzilla.

It's like going, "weird that they named it hemoglobin when it bears no physical resemblance to hematite!"

Etheryte• 8 months ago

While I understand the author's frustration, I think they should take a moment and look in the mirror. A perpetual license doesn't mean that Filezilla should be a free hosting provider for installation media for eternity. Their reasons really aren't that relevant here. Likewise the rant about Mozilla is completely unfounded. There are many things to be upset at in the modern software world, this is not one of them.

heyitsdaad• 8 months ago

Good faith and common sense is being violated. That’s a valid point here.

reactordev• 8 months ago

Good faith ended at sale and support. Common sense isn’t at play because who is going to host installation media for eternity? No. There’s a nothing burger here.

echelon3• 8 months ago

A perpetual license doesn't mean that Filezilla should be a free hosting provider for installation media for eternity.

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.

Dylan1680712• 8 months ago

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.

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.

cactusplant7374• 8 months ago

Filezilla is horrible software compared to software like Transmit. What you have to understand is that someone with no artistic vision sat down and decided to build an FTP client for the masses. Fortunately, vibe coding will fix this. We will have much better software in the future. It will be free. It will be a commodity.

gruez6• 8 months ago

A perpetual license doesn't mean that Filezilla should be a free hosting provider for installation media for eternity.

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.

jeroenhd2• 8 months ago

I disagree. Hosting licensed copies of software is the norm. Steam does it, Google does it, Apple does it, EA and Ubisoft do it, and all of them host much larger software (including free updates) than FileZilla. Maybe hosting 5GiB image downloads on a dedicated web portal the same way Microsoft does is a bit much to ask, but this is nothing.

We're talking 50 megabytes of storage here, per version. They can save themselves a lot of hosting 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.

unsnap_biceps• 8 months ago

Hosting licensed copies of software is the norm. Steam does it, Google does it, Apple does it, EA and Ubisoft do it

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they do not store previous versions for you to choose, only the current version.

Dylan1680712• 8 months ago

Think about how little it costs to be a free hosting provider for a handful of 15MB downloads, maybe one per major version, and just for people that paid you in the past. It's next to nothing. In particular, cloudflare will give you 10GB of free object storage with unlimited bandwidth and 10 million downloads a month. So yes, they should host the installer forever.

To put it another way, the cost to provide downloads forever instead of just once is less than a penny. It should be built in to the purchase.

handsclean• 8 months ago

FileZilla explicitly and emphatically sells a license, not a download. In fact, technically not even the initial download is included in the purchase. They’re technically within their rights to never even give you the software, just say “all we ever sold you was a promise not to sue”, but we’d all agree that’s a scam, right? So, where’s the line?

Point of comparison, Steam, CodeCanyon, and Gumroad all let you re-download the version you licensed indefinitely.

TiredOfLife• 8 months ago

If one bought Total Commander 30 years ago they can still download (from authors site) and use the latest version

xela79• 8 months ago

A perpetual license doesn't mean that Filezilla should be a free hosting provider for installation media for eternity.

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?

zdware• 8 months ago

It's 2025, not 1995 or even 2005. Installers for apps like this are tiny for cloud storage today. Cloudfront's recent flat tier pricing would even probably do the trick. free tier is 100gb data transfer a month, 1m requests. If that doesn't work, Pro is 50 tb, 10m requests, that's 15 bucks a month.

AshamedCaptain2• 8 months ago

Now go complain to Adobe, where they just shut down their activation servers and leave you with 1k$ of "perpetual" unactivable & unusable software, no matter how much care you took keeping the installer media.

op00to4• 8 months ago

That’s horrible too.

crtasm• 8 months ago

I remember downloading the offline installers for CS2 they released after turning off its activation servers. I take it that wasn't repeated for the later versions

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/adobe-releases-creative-...

AshamedCaptain2• 8 months ago

Nope: https://community.adobe.com/t5/download-install-discussions/...

em-bee2• 8 months ago

wasn't every traditional license where you bought some software that you could use indefinitely a perpetual license? and how many places allowed you to redownload a paid software product multiple times? is filezilla here really out of place. is it not just following the norm? don't most applications work this way? especially the ones who don't implement some kind of license key check? i mean, without a license key system, you can't sell a product and offer it as a free download as well. how would you verify that only those who paid for it can download it? so it doesn't make any sense for this to be an issue.

gruez6• 8 months ago

and how many places allowed you to redownload a paid software product multiple times?

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. The only exception is something that comes on physical media, or the company went bankrupt, none of that happened here.

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...

em-bee2• 8 months ago

ok, i didn't bother to check. so yeah, with a license key system it would cost them nothing to allow unlimited downloads for old versions. i don't buy their security argument either. my point was more about the general expectation that there should be unlimited downloads. i mean, it's nice to have, and kudos to those who offer it, but i don't see it as a generally expected practice.

jasomill2• 8 months ago

Office 365 is a subscription, not a perpetual license, but the only time I can recall Microsoft ever deliberately removing access to downloadable software I was entitled to was in the late 90's, when they removed Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 from MSDN as part of a settlement with Sun where they agreed to stop distributing their Java runtime.

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).

nightshift1• 8 months ago

I guess It depends on what the EULA said you bought back then.

renewiltord• 8 months ago

Realistically, this is why buy-once software is a bad idea. Users have expectations that can only be met via subscription service. If you choose the buy-once you'll get complaints like this with online mobs and so on. If you do services, you'll get paid and you provide the service and everyone's happy. SaaS is the better model in every way - including for the user.

WhoCaresAboutIt• 8 months ago

The license policy sounds annoying, but the bigger question (to me) is: why are we still talking about FTP in 2025? If you need file transfer, use SFTP/SSH, rsync, rclone, etc. And if you want a GUI, WinSCP has been doing this for free for ages.

hulitu3• 8 months ago

why are we still talking about FTP in 2025?

Why not ? It is a file tranfer protocol.

ndsipa_pomu2• 8 months ago

It does support sFTP etc. so is similar to WinSCP, but I think it's an easier GUI for non-technical windows users to get to grips with. However, if they're going to be asshats about licensing, then WinSCP is a clear winner.

lobito258• 8 months ago

FileZilla refused to give me a copy of the version I purchased for 'security reasons,' even though they were already updating the version installed on my system, so it makes little sense to deny me access to the app. It is also worth noting that in the first email I received from them, they had already offered me a discount coupon to buy a new version. I strongly believe the decision to withhold a copy of the software is driven by financial motives rather than security concerns.

paulmooreparks• 8 months ago

If you’re considering FileZilla Pro, understand exactly what you are walking into: You can pay for a perpetual license, and later be denied any way to reinstall the product you legally own.

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.

melomac• 8 months ago

FileZilla author was caught red handed, shipping app with IronCore adware downloader, aka installCore from ironSource:

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.

Anyhow, I don't know what you do with FZ, I am very much into rsync (OSS) and Transmit app (Panic).

opengrass3• 8 months ago

Is Linux clean?

lobito258• 8 months ago

Thanks for sharing. I wasn’t aware of this before, but it does confirm some concerns I already had about the developer’s questionable practices.

pabs3• 8 months ago

This is why I like Debian, they keep all source and binaries online at snapshot.debian.org, for like two decades now.

opengrass3• 8 months ago

Adobe did the same. I admire the repo name for SEO trolling.

opengrass3• 8 months ago

Really weird comments. Would you feel the same about your rented Steam games no longer receiving updates?

WarOnPrivacy2• 8 months ago

I don't often try to get previous versions from the developer. While there are strongly ethical and consumer-centric software houses, I have been long conditioned to expect predatory behavior, usually with some degree of incompetence.

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.

lobito258• 8 months ago

I couldn't find any copy of the pro version for linux.

WarOnPrivacy2• 8 months ago

Yeah. I yield. I looked for a while and I couldn't either.

NautilusWave• 8 months ago

Doesn't JetBrains offer perpetual licenses for specific software versions? How do they host all the old versions?

FileZilla Pro "Perpetual License" – A Warning to All Users

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