pirat
I don’t think Microsoft cares since they shouldn’t be making a lot of money from retail keys anyway. A majority of users get an activation key when they purchase their computer. And businesses use volume licensing. A small minority of people who pirate an activation key is not a lot of money lost in the big picture.
Also with the amount of telemetry going on in Win 11, the data they collect more than makes up for the slight loss in revenue.
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Also, it doesn’t seem to be much more expensive than something like ExpressVPN, though that is pretty expensive at about $13 USD monthly. Way cheaper to buy yearly though. In comparison, Mullvad is a flat 5 Euro (about $5.20 - $5.40) per month. Other VPNs seem to be about $10-$13 per month.
I have not tried them, but always stayed away from them due to aggressive marketing that really put me off. there was a good year or two where I was bombarded with NordVPN ads and sponsors, and still get the occasional advert about them. It may be worth trying though, I have colleagues that use it.