Blindly searching the web for cracks & keygens is about as smart as using Limewire to search for antivirus software – something not well-advised. Undoubtedly and unfortunately, the number of crack sites with overtones of a malicious agenda heavily outweigh sites that just want to serve up the honest goods. Having said that, there actually are quite a few creditable ‘crack’ sites that won’t try to bombard you with full-screen popup ads, or commandeer your computer into a spam-loving Kraken or Srizbi Botnet army. We’ve done the hard work for you, and present a list of “clean” crack sites for all the latest warez.

Be aware that the site reviews herein only include information about each site, not the contents of the ‘cracks’ themselves. Always use a reputable antivirus and antispyware program on cracks & keygens before using them.

My Recommendation: Due to security flaws and exploits, avoid using Internet Explorer when browsing potentially harmful websites (such as any of these on the list) – use Firefox instead. Better still, for added safety use these two Firefox add-ons: NoScript and AdBlock Plus. Sorry, but you’ll have to copy/paste the links into your Browser window – I don’t wish to be a “known associate” of most of these sites.

Recommended (Clean) Crack Sites

While these websites are deemed adware/malware free, always be skeptical of their “affiliate links” to other crack sites. Stay within each sites’ listings and avoid external links which can be dangerous. Otherwise, these sites listed below are a good resource for cracks, serials and keygens.

Malware / Spyware ? NO Popup Advertising ? NO

www.smartserials.com

www.keygenguru.com

www.serialkey.net

www.zcrack.com

www.subserials.net

www.serialportal.com

supercracks.net

www.serialcrackz.com

www.serials.be

www.cracktop.com

www.cracksfm.com

www.cracklib.net

Malicious Crack Sites To Avoid

Avoid these websites at all costs – many contain some form of unwanted drive-by download. Some are classified as ‘database websites’ (i.e. aggregators) that link the cracks (sometimes through site searching) to more menacing sites.

newcracks.net — Newcracks offers a variety of annoyances such as third-party cookies, adware/spyware, browser exploits – not to mention a plethora of trojans in the downloads.

cracklooker.com — Cracklooker in itself isn’t a direct threat; however, they don’t host any cracks themselves, and search queries will direct users to sites that should be avoided.

astalavista.ms (or any ‘astalavista’ domain or variant thereof) — Same as above. Searching on Astalavista will display results from sites that should not be visited. Best to avoid. Other Astalavista domains are even more dangerous.

crack.ms — Browser exploits and hijacks, popups, trojans, backdoors – you name it, it’s here.

thebugs.ws — Contains some very harmful affiliate links.

needcrack.us — McAfee says, “When we browsed this site, we found direct links to an address that made unauthorized changes to our test PC.” Marvelous.

cracksearchengine.net — Not a direct threat (it’s a crack meta-search site) that aggregates search queries from less reputable sites. Clicking on search results can be harmful.

anycracks.com — Makes unauthorized changes to the PC. Marked as an ‘exploit server’.

mscracks.com — The works! Ad popups, browser hijacking, trojans in the files and bad affiliate links.

keygen.in — Same as above.

Dailykeys.com — Bad affiliate links and files are purposely infected with trojans/virii.

bestserials.com — Even Google confirms that “this site may harm your computer”.

crackfound.com — Ad popups and bad external links.

cracks4u.com — Affiliate links are on the bad list. Trojans and other malware are purposely added to the crack files. Avoid!

getcracks.com — Same as above.

keygen.ms — This site itself is harmless (aside from some popups); however, the actual crack files are linked on unscrupulous sites whereby an entire gamut of problems can arise.

crackhell.com — Their in-site search links to warezdownloads.com (not a good sign), and most of the affiliate links (which take up the better part of the homepage) should be avoided.

crackspider.net — Does not host any files – search results include those “Oem software” scams, or crack download links to abominable sites such as mscracks.com. Avoid.

crackzplanet (net/com) — Malicious executables are commonplace among the available cracks.

andr.net — Browser homepage hijacking and adware/popups.

asta-killer.com — Categorized as an ‘exploit server’ with active threats.

This is not an exhaustive list. There’s likely to be hundreds more that are similar.