As a fan of retro games, you must have come across MyAbandonware. The website promises to kindle your nostalgia by supplying endless MS-DOS-era games.
The website started as a predecessor of oldware.net and currently boasts an impressive repository containing thousands of retro games. But is MyAbandonware safe to use? What are the legal and ethical considerations for downloading such games? Are you and your device safe?
In this article, we’ll answer all these questions in detail.
Is MyAbandonware safe to use?
Let us start by answering whether you should download from MyAbandonware. We’ll take the help of various reputable security vendors and review platforms for this assessment.
Virustotal
MyAbandonware’s domain name performed exceptionally well when we scanned it on VirusTotal, better than other websites. Only one security vendor flagged it as potential spam, while the rest others declared it to be clean.
threatYeti
Another reputable security vendor, threatYeti by alphaMountain, declares the domain a low-risk platform. Let us quickly take a look at some other security vendors below.
Sucuri
When we analysed MyAbandonware on Sucuri, we found a Low-Security Risk warning. Also, Sucuri tells us that major hosting companies do not blacklist the website. This is a major green flag.
Comodo Valkyrie
Yet another security vendor, Comodo Valkyrie, declares the domain MyAbandonware safe. However, the vendor is still uncertain about the website’s reputation, and we can see a question mark before this heading.
Trustpilot
Next, we wanted to check some user reviews. So, we headed to Trustpilot. However, we were disappointed that this website only had three user reviews and a rating of 3.4/5.
We cannot assess the customer review with such meagre data, so we headed to another website for this purpose.
MyWOT
On MyWOT, MyAbandonware scored about 91% on the website security score and a rating of 4.5 based on 11 reviews.
Most reviews here praise the website, and only a few people mention issues such as ads.
Even though all the vendors and reviewers have green-flagged MyAbandonware, you should be careful while downloading from this website. No website on the internet is truly secure. To protect your device, you should follow these instructions:
- Use a reliable antivirus software: Always scan the downloads thoroughly before installing or playing them. You should also regularly update your antivirus software.
- Run the game on a sandbox first: Before installing it on your computer, run the game first on a sandbox.
- Avoid giving system access to games: Usually, the old games do not require high-level access to system settings and files, but if the game is asking for one, immediately uninstall it as it is a telltale sign of malware.
- Check out several forums before downloading: Head to various forums and social media platforms like Reddit and check out the game reviews before downloading it on your system.
Also read: Is RoPro safe?
Is MyAbandonware legal?
Now, here comes a tricky part. You may ask why there should be any legal implications for downloading a game with no copyright claims or a quite old game.
However, even after the developers forfeit the copyright, the games are still under copyright laws. It will take many decades for the real expiration of copyright.
Downloading some title from MyAbandnware might be illegal.
Will you land in some legal trouble, then? We highly doubt that. First, the companies can sue thousands of you in different countries, but at what cost?
Secondly, the developers are not earning revenue from those games as the systems are way more advanced now, and nobody plays these games anymore. Only a few hundred to a few thousand may download the games, and that too only to rekindle their nostalgia.
However, as we are humans, personal ethics might raise some questions. As a law-abiding citizen, you should not meddle with the copyright laws, although, in this case, it will not harm you.
The third consideration is the cybersecurity aspect covered in the previous section. You can use a USB drive to install the game there and play the game on a retired PC with no internet connection. This is probably the best way to secure your privacy.
In conclusion, MyAbandonware may be safe depending on the game you want to install. Keep in mind the legal and ethical implications, and if possible, take all the cybersecurity precautions before downloading and installing from such websites.
Also read: Is Journal Lapse app safe?
