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Has Intuit Made Good on DRM Removal?
M-G asks: "It's tax time again in the US. Last year, Slashdot and other sites were abuzz with Intuit's use of activation software in TurboTax. As a result, many long time TurboTax users, myself included, sought alternatives last year and wrote Intuit to tell them so. After tax season, Intuit said they would drop DRM from future TurboTax releases and other products sold in retail packaging. While I have no reason to assume that Intuit lied, they did violate my trust last year. So, has anyone confirmed that this year's TurboTax is indeed free of DRM? What about products like Quicken?"
I haven't personally used it, but many many people I have talked to have said they took out the DRM and are allowing multiple installs from one CD (especially since they can't track it by CD-key anymore). I would probably wait to see the reaction of someone who used it firsthand, however.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
Intuit, as well as H&R Block I think, offer an online version of their software. For turbotax.com, visit http://www.webturbotax.com
It's free to use, you simply pay for submission. You always know you are working off of their latest "updates", and no DRM will get in the way. It is Non-IE browser friendly too... and you don't have to buy an upgrade every year.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I switched to TaxCut when they pulled these shenanigans and I am quite happy with the program. The only down side is I have to run it on an old Windoze computer. Perhaps someday they will have a Linux port. Anyway, so long Intuit. You blew it and I am not coming back!
I love it because the developers are accessible and willing to listen and respond to feature requests, it runs under wine, and for straightforward taxes, it imports the previous year's data, asks if you've done any of a few major things this year, takes your W2 data, and completes the current year in no time flat.
You can buy and download the thing online, and there's zero copyright protection. They even encourage you to do multiple returns with it, so you can split the cost with a few coworkers without really breaking the rules.
It doesn't install in the boot sector anymore. It now uses protection like Microsoft Windows XP. It generates a unique ID against your CPU or hard drive serial number and MAC address, and you need to activate your copy with that and the original serial number. You can't print or file until you activate your copy, and you can't run it with WINE because it needs to modify kernel.dll to enable its curtained code area, which WINE doesn't yet support/use.
This year, I decided my time was just too scarce, so I went to H&R Block. It cost me about $200 (which I can write off next year), but I got a lot more back than I would have otherwise. I even paid for their little audit guarantee (I'm sure it's about as valuable as an extended warranty at Circuit City, but the $27 seemed reasonable).
Now I'm not endorsing H&R Block specifically, but I'd say most of us profressionals here on /. would be better served by simply having a professional do their taxes for them, whether it be a tax return mill like H&R Block, the neighborhood CPA, or someone else. I can tell you that I'll never go back to doing it myself.
And yes, I'm the type of guy who's more than willing to take his car to the local shop for a oil change and lube for $30 than waste the time on it himself.
My wife and kids see far less of me than I like already. Life's too short to piss it away on oil changes and tax returns. :)
Method of processing duck feet
I have a vague recollection of hearing that Intuit planned to stop using activation in their Canadian QuickTax products as well.
Does anyone know if there is progress on that front?
- I installed it on my laptop in January
- laptop was going to be reimaged so I installed it on my home PC a couple weeks later
- upgraded home PC to SATA drives and started from clean disks
So although I haven't pirated it, I've installed it three times on two different machines. It's worked each time. There was a minor bug with one of the installs, but I went to Intuit's web site and the problem and resolution was listed in the FAQ.I did the math this year, and
was less thanYMMV. Of course, it would been even cheaper to do it all on paper...Advice: on VPS providers
I installed a friend's copy or Turbo Tax Pro and it worked and updated with no problem or password request.
Someone else said they had GUID based protection but as far as I could tell that's complete bull.
I purchased TurboTax in January while I was on the road. I installed it onto my laptop and put all the preliminary information in place. February 2 my state was ready for download and purchase and I received my second mortgage statement so I installed TurboTax onto my desktop, moved the file over, purchased and downloaded TurboTax State, efiled, and had my refund on February 6th from the state and February 9th from the Federal.
No protection on TurboTax on either Federal or State that I saw.
As for Quicken I've been using it since Quicken for DOS and I've yet to see copy protection on it. The downloadable trials have protection on them ala you can purchase it; and the Quicken Basic version comes with the ability to upgrade to Deluxe by purchasing a key from Intuit, but I've never had a problem with copy protection.
I think in THAT arena it would be suicide. If I lost a computer and had to fight a software company to get my finances back I'd be ticked.
My reality check bounced.
Maybe TurboTax has cleaned-up, but others have not:
I bought MathCad to assist with my Calculus homework. Much to my dismay, it also uses the same DRM that TurboTax used. There is a service that has to be running for Mathcad to work, and it created a few surrepticiously hidden directories under system32 and the root. I would not have bought the product if I knew it wanted a service running all the time.
For now, I just enable it when I'm working, and disable it otherwise. And to boot (no pun intended), the entire app requires Administrator access too (I can't fathom why.)
What can I do? There is no groundswell of complaints like what happened to Intuit. Do I call the company and complain? I doubt they will give me a refund. I already purchased the product, so I feel like I've unknowingly funded the digital mafia.
You'll never know if they or any other software proprietor removed the spying software because their software's complete corresponding source code is a secret, all you get is a binary. Tax software doesn't need to be proprietary, people should be willing and able to pay for the guarantee and be able to share and modify the program. If you don't pay someone willing to sell you a correct tax computation guarantee, you would have no recourse if the program messes up your taxes. For a reasonable fee I think most people would be willing to buy the insurance.
Digital Citizen
This year, I purchased the software and found no problems with activation at all. The software installed without connecting to the Internet just fine.
My purchase was especially inspired by a company responding to consumer feedback and I choose to reward such a decision with my $.
For the masses out there that are students, you can use the web version of TurboTax for free (including filing, and some states are also free) if you are 22 or younger (or in the military, or over 62). Check here. I've used TurboTax for the Web for the last few years and it's very nice. Even if you don't qualify you can try it out for free, they don't charge you until you either print or e-file.
There are also other web-based places that have different qualifications for free filing (eg. income restrictions, etc.). Go to www.irs.gov and click on "Free File".
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
I work for Intuit and can confirm that the DRM in turbo tax in definately gone.
I think long time users who left should give Intuit a little credit for listening to their loyal customers and come back, afterall most other companies would have just ignored the complaints and left the DRM in.
From my experience the DRM is still present to a degree. Rather than tieing a single install to a single machine via some sort of server registration they have gone to some sort of on disk DRM. The criteria for triggering it has also gone up, but eh conseqence has changed. Instead of hosing your license they make you re-install from the disk. It happened to me. Start tax regurn, realize you are missing some forms, save, close, install free* norton anti virus, start up turbo tax, get message about configuration chagneing and needing a re-install.
This does solve part of the principal problem of installing and handing of the disk never to be seen again, the source of most turbo tax piracy. (you just need to make sure you are done before passing it around), but I dont' know if there is some unique ID on the disk that prevents e-file or the print process checks against a central service before printing.
Now combine this with intuits nasty habit of sending you an unactivated copy in the mail of turbotax in late november it can get nasty. Word of advide: Either throw the disk out before you get in the house or make sure it's the demo disk you are thowing out and not the retail version. And have your wife call and act confused if you do, social engineering is much easier from a female who can play the "oops.. i don't know what I am doing" game well (even if they know exactly what they are doing).
--Shemnon
How could it modify a system DLL. Or rather, why would you let it modify kernel.dll? That's a core system file?
If that's what they do, no thanks.
At the time I earned $200,000 per year before tax. My accountant filed my taxes for me and I thought no more about it, until a month or so later, I got a letter from the IRS with a check for $10,000 - and a note saying that my accountant had made a mistake! If it were not for the IRS guy, I would have overpaid my taxes by 5% of my annual income!
After that experience I decided to do it myself, and promptly downloaded TurboTax, which was easy to use and cost much less than $600 (I am not specifically advocating TurboTax, it was the only software I tried).
"TurboTax for the Web does not work with the Web browser you are using."
Using Firebird 0.6
(Karma = auto -1)
My Dad uses Quicktax (made by Intuit) here in Canada, and it still requires activation. I guess there wasn't enough of an outcry here.
A better question on the subject of taxes can be found here.
So, how will/did you file your taxes?
Installed with no annoying hoops to go through. I didn't try to pirate it. Get the $20 cheaper version. It sometimes hard to find at Best Buy but it is there. Nothing really useful in the expensive versions. Who needs some guy in a video telling you how to save money on your taxes if you make 6 digits? I would think 6 digit salary types have accountants.
E.g., why governments don't apologize for atrocities, because they get hit with reparations lawsuits.
There were other free ones listed there as well, so why dish out all that money to Intuit? My philosophy is that if your taxes are so complicated that you need all these little wizards, then you're probably better off working with a professional; the rest of us can use one of the inexpensive options on the IRS site.
Wait a min.
I bought TurboTax Basic, as I do every year. (I guess I didn't have my tinfoil hat last year) I opened the box, took the CD out of the paper sleeve, installed it, and started my taxes. They have been finished and printed a month ago.
I didn't bother to look at any of the papers inside, so a quick check... There is no Key or serial number.
Just how does a hash of my hardware lock an install to one PC?
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
I've been using TurboTax for about six years. I had absolutely no reason to change. All that Intuit needed to do to keep me as a customer was not do anything to tick me off.
Last year, because of the product activation nonsense, I switched to TaxCut. I discovered that the products, while not quite clones, are very, very similar in operation and feature sets. Apart from DRM, there would have been very little reason to choose one over the other.
Now I'm a TaxCut customer, and I have absolutely no reason to change. All H & R Block needs to do to keep me is not tick me off.
Bye-bye, Intuit. It was nice while it lasted, but I'm gone.
Guess the people at Intuit that admired Microsoft's product activation forgot that Intuit doesn't have a monopoly on tax software.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
ZoneAlarm will notify me if TT or IE are attempting to access the network. That's how I tell if there's spyware. DRM - just copy the CD and see if it works. Then destroy the copy...
Using one proprietary application to prove another's trustworthiness doesn't strike me as sound reasoning. I think you're still better off with the freedoms of free software.
Digital Citizen