Hackulous has announced that it has shut down Installous, the one-stop shop for “cracked” or pirated apps and games on iOS. The team blames “stagnant” forums and the difficulty in moderating them as the reason behind its decision to kill the service, which will undoubtedly be a huge victory against iOS software piracy. At least for now.
If you have a jailbroken iOS device, installing a little app called Installous could open your device up to a world of pirated apps and games. It offered almost every title available in the App Store, only you didn’t have to pay a penny to install them. But that’s no longer the case.
The Hackulous repository, which was home to Installous and its companion app AppSync, which allowed users to sync their cracked apps with iTunes, has been taken offline. A message on the Hackulous team’s website confirms that the service is dead:
Goodnight, sweet prince.
We are very sad to announce that Hackulous is shutting down. After many years, our community has become stagnant and our forums are a bit of a ghost town. It has become difficult to keep them online and well-moderated, despite the devotion of our staff. We’re incredibly thankful for the support we’ve had over the years and hope that new, greater communities blossom out of our absence.
With lots of love,
Hackulous Team
The decision has come as a huge surprise to anyone familiar with Installous. While Hackulous claims the forums were a “ghost town,” Installous itself was hugely popular among a large number of jailbreakers. In fact, some users took to jailbreaking purely to gain access to cracked apps.
While its demise is great news for developers those against iOS piracy, the victory is probably going to be short-lived. It’s likely that another team or independent developers will bring Installous — or a similar service — back sooner rather than later. But for now, at least, you’ll have to stump up the 99¢ for that new app you’ve been waiting weeks for.
Source: Hackulous
Via: iDownloadBlog
