If you have a website that’s based on a content management system like WordPress or Magento, the first thing you need to have is a theme or a template, which is basically the same thing.
You must choose a theme because that determines how your website looks and how the visitors will perceive you, your brand, or your product.
And you surely want a good-looking theme in order to effectively market your product.
When someone is searching for a theme they usually end up with 3 choices:
- Buy a premium theme
- Download a free theme that is commonly featured by the CMS
- Download a nulled theme
Maybe you’ve heard about folks talking about installing nulled themes on their website because they pay no money for a commercial theme which is most of the time a premium theme that can be bought for up to hundreds of dollars from professional web developers.
But what exactly are nulled themes, really?
Nulled themes are those kinds of themes that have been modified to work without a license key and are the web equivalent of pirated software.
You might be thinking – nah, dude, I’ve been using pirated software my whole life and I’ve never caught a virus or had my accounts hacked. I know what I’m doing, so Hakuna Your Tatas –
If you are this type of folk, lemme tell you that, unfortunately, you are wrong about this, and nulled themes are bad for various reasons.
1. They Are Illegal
Nulled themes are illegal, simply because they are a good that has been stolen by removing the license key and other copyrighted materials. It wouldn’t have needed to be nulled if it was free, right?
There are a lot of websites where you can download nulled themes, apparently for free.
A simple googling of the “nulled themes” keyword will reveal them in a matter of a second.
2. No Product Support
Product support is a crucial aspect of its quality. Let’s think about that for a second.
When you buy a product, particularly one that is related to computers, you expect to receive a warranty and support from the manufacturer in case something is not working properly.
But, if you don’t buy the product, you get no support.
Now let’s say you are lucky and have installed a nulled theme that works just fine.
What about bugs?
There is no perfect code. Any piece of software turns out to have bugs sooner or later. Be it compatibility bugs or logical bugs, it’s still a bug which you’ll have to deal at the end of the day.
By not having the licensed theme, you won’t get any bug fixes.
Are new and cool features important to you?
Most themes authors add new features to them regularly, but you probably won’t get any of them because you didn’t buy the product.
What if the latest feature added to that particular theme turns out to be what you’ve been searching for the whole time but you won’t have it because you’re using a nulled theme?
Sucks, I know.
3. Security Breaches
This is a really, really bad aspect of using a nulled theme.
Almost every nulled theme has something fishy about it, in addition to being illegal.
Those websites that are giving away pirated premium themes are infecting the source code with some nasty things you surely might not want to deal with.
But why would they do that? Here’s why:
- To get one or more backlinks from your website unknowingly
- To redirect your website to spam links
- To add advertisements to your website
- To get access to your website and all of its confidential information
- To get your website down
- To leverage you and your company
These are just some of the many reasons why someone would infect the code of a theme and they will get you into serious trouble.
Is it worth it?
No, surely not.
It’s a major risk for you and your brand to use something that’s illegal and has serious security issues.
Stick with featured themes or buy premium ones that can be bought for $50 or so.
Use clean and quality products and you will see that they pay off in the long run.
Let me know what you think about this article in the comments section below.
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