I needed an IRC client for Windows, and mIRC came up in searches as #1 recommended. It said something about “registration” during the installation, but I ignored assuming that registration is optional, which it usually is. Not with mIRC though. It turns out “registration” is not optional at all, and costs $20. Without it, one can run mIRC in “evaluation mode” for 30 days, after which the evaluation period expires, and it is no longer possible to run mIRC. So, basically, mIRC now costs money, but the authors don’t want to call it “buying”, they prefer to use ambiguous euphemisms like “registration”. They are, of course, totally entitled to do that, but it just feels as if they were trying to conceal the fact that mIRC is no longer free for as much time as possible. Not cool.