With the advent of software’s such as WordPress, it has become increasingly simple for people to build websites of their own. Be it an amateur or a professional, people are turning towards WordPress as a means to an end as it allows you to build a professional website for a business without needing expertise in coding.
This is made possible due to the easy to use behavior as well as thousands of plugins and themes made available by the WordPress team as well as the community.
These plugins and themes are made to integrate different functionalities in to your website which results in a better user experience. Developers work on these plugins and make them available on the store for website builders to use.
Generally, there are three types of plugins and themes: free, paid and freemium. Users can opt for the free versions of these plugins and themes and integrate them in to their website, but they offer very limited functionalities. Therefore, most users opt for the paid versions and select a plan based on their business usage.
However, it is commonly observed that people use nulled plugins or themes on their websites. A nulled plugin is pirated version of the theme or plugin which has functionalities offered by the paid version of the same theme or plugin. However, using such nulled versions can have a bad impact on your website. Let us understand why.
Exposure to Security Vulnerabilities:
Whenever you download and install any pirated software on your computer, your security software usually flags it as some sort of virus and warns you not to use it. Same goes with nulled plugins and themes. This is because you have no idea as to what sort of malicious code may be lurking behind these plugins.
Hackers might give you access to such plugins under the façade of offering premium features but may inject malware in to your device during the process which will leave you open to attacks.
Privacy At Risk:
While using nulled versions of plugins and themes, you can never be sure of what’s under the hood. When you give access to your website to such software’s, they get access to your servers and database as well. Therefore, all confidential information such as banking details, personal details can be accessed by them and sent back to the hackers. Therefore, you take a huge risk of breaching your privacy when you use such software.
No Access To New Updates:
As you are using nulled software, you wont get any support regarding them through WordPress. As a result, you forego the right to have automatic updates in case the plugin has any vulnerability thus exposing your website to further risks.
No Access To New Features:
This situation is similar to updates. Unless and until you have paid for a plugin you won’t get any access to the new features through the WordPress portal. You will have to use an obsolete version of the plugin and won’t have access to any support either. This can later be a major pain in the event of a cyber attack.
SEO Will Take A Hit:
It takes a lot of time and energy to build a decent SEO for your website. And website owners are very familiar with how fickle these SEO ratings are. One hit to your website can topple all this hard work in an instant. Using nulled software might result in spam links appearing on your website which can plummet your SEO. So beware.
Unwanted Advertisements:
Hackers can implement backlinks in to these nulled themes and plugins which will result in unwanted advertisements popping up on your website. While these may not be visible to you, they will most certainly be visible to your visitors. This can affect your website’s SEO as well thus hampering your organic growth.
You Might Run In To Legal Problems:
While most of the software available is open source, some of the code might fall under various license’s which may not be free to use. By using the nulled versions of such softwares you leave yourself open to lawsuits, in case the developers spot you using pirated versions of their product.
No Access To Documentation:
When installing any new plugin or theme, it is integral to read its documentation in order to understand how it works, the procedure to install it and so on. However when you use nulled softwares you don’t get any access to such information and will have to rely on the source from where you download such softwares. This will leave you open to security vulnerabilities in turn targeting your website.
A Hit To The Developers:
Whenever you download a nulled plugin or theme, you are indirectly stealing some money from the developer who developed the software in the first place. While you may argue that you don’t have the money to pay for the software and its license, you are also discouraging the developer from innovating further on the software.
They may feel that people will just use pirated versions of their work which will affect their revenue. A lot of work needs to be put behind when developing any software and when you pay for its license, you are contributing to its growth. Therefore keep in mind to support developers by using only paid and licensed versions of their software.
Use Free Alternatives:
The WordPress store contains thousands upon thousands of plugins and themes provided by the community which you can integrate with your website.
If you feel the need to use a specific feature that is only available in the paid version of a plugin, you can search the vast repository of WordPress where you are bound to find a free alternative to the paid version. This way you don’t have to pay for the feature as well as you safeguard yourself from any vulnerabilities.
We hope that through this article, you were able to understand the dangers of using nulled plugins and themes. We advise you to shell out those extra bucks and opt for the paid versions of these softwares as they are a better and safer alternative.
