? Macrium Free Edition to be retired

FWIW:  https://www.macrium.com/product-support-policy .

Louis

Have used Macrium Free for many year for backing up C: drives and its proven invaluable for us,

So now the Free version is no longer going to get updates, how much of a problem is that really for our basic use ?

Is it likely to be prone to infections ?   Would running Backups like Restores from the program on a USB key be safer than the program kept in the Windows Programs folder  ?

Macrium is provided by a reasonably sized company, but wonder if  some of the other open souce backup programs, though seemingly good, may not be as well protected ??

There is no reason why Reflect free should not be used by private users after support ends. Unless M/Soft adds something to Windows that prevents it from running Reflect would continue to do its thing. I plan on using it indefinitely.

Thanks, will keep using it 

As will I

Thanks

i made the purchase because I use it and find it useful.

There is nothing wrong with purchase; depends on your circumstance. Example: if you have a home business and your computer is a workhorse with critical data, definitely go for the paid version, for the support if nothing else. For my circumstance, there would be no security difference between the paid or free version, so I will stick with the free version. I respect Reflect; I have used their free software for years with never one failure on more computers than I can remember. Never a glitch. Updates are dependable, and the software does exactly what I need. I tried several others over the years and every one failed at one time or another.