[Urgo]

For mIRC's first 20 years when you bought it, the license was for all future versions for life. In ~2016 though that changed and they expired all previous lifetime licenses. Now you get a license only for a year.

I know I shouldn't be upset as I did get a ton of use out of mIRC in the 90s/2000's and they probably didn't expect it to still be around and updated to this day, but expiring something sold as lifetime just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They should have honored all previous lifetime licenses and just made new ones follow the new rules.

You can see the changes on various pages here [1] pre 2016 and post 2016

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160215000000*/https://www.mirc...

[Suppafly]

>In ~2016 though that changed and they expired all previous lifetime licenses. Now you get a license only for a year.

That almost alleviates my guilt over having used it forever without paying for it.

[SomeUserName432]

> For mIRC's first 20 years when you bought it, the license was for all future versions for life. In ~2016 though that changed and they expired all previous lifetime licenses. Now you get a license only for a year.

That does not seem to hold true..

I do recall that the older licenses expired, but my current active mIRC license was issued September 2018.

[indrora]

> now you get licenses only for a year

I have been using the license I bought in 2010 for the last 15 years now. I have, since then, ended up purchasing several licenses for friends and none have had issues updating. I recently just reinstalled using that 2010 license.

He will retain the information for a license for up to a year to retrieve it again

[Urgo]

Looks like this no longer is included in the FAQ, but here is an archived copy directly on mirc's website about the lifetime license going away. It looks like the lifetime ones were downgraded into 10 year ones. It looks like at least when this FAQ was live you could email him and ask for a new one for free once it did expire so that was nice, but unsure if that is still being honored as the FAQ has now been removed [2]. He did try to make you feel bad about emailing though asking.

Full text copied from [1] for ease of reading

>> Question: I have an old registration that is not working, can you help? Answer: When I originally offered a lifetime license in 1995, it seemed like a kind and fair thing to do. However, I did not expect that I would still be working on mIRC twenty-five years later. The lifetime license means that I am still supporting and providing updates to every user that has ever registered. This has become gradually more difficult and has reached the point where, sadly, it is just no longer possible. If your registration is over ten years old, if you can, please consider registering again. Your continued support for mIRC would be really appreciated. If you register again, you will receive an updated registration automatically. If you cannot afford to register again, or would rather not, that's okay, just email me. However, please be aware that it will take time for me to reply.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20201001000000*/https://www.mirc...

[2] https://www.mirc.com/pfaq.html#registration

[reverendsteveii]

That's enough to make me glad I never bought a license before and excited to never buy a license again. After all, why should I enter into an agreement that can be unilaterally voided by the other party?