Over the years I’ve purchased and used software on various computers that I’ve owned over the years. Because I hold a bachelor degree in computer science I understand some, but not all of the issues. This problem is generally limited to the computer realm.
As a ham radio operator I’ve also learned about the dependency on computer software, mostly for programming frequencies into the radio, but also for firmware updates, but this is more noticeable in the radio scanner realm. If you want to program hundreds or even thousands of frequencies into a scanner, you need to use software to even be mildly efficient, this is amplified with scanners that do trunking and DMR.
I 2018, my local police department went from analog DMR, I wanted to continue to be able to monitor them for situational awareness for my town. I bought a Whistler TRX-2, the radio was a little steep in price, but i bought it, you know, buy once cry once? A competing scanner by Uniden required additional fees to unlock DMR or other stuff… whistler’s software, called EZScan, is the only way to program this scanner with software. The company has gone belly up and their website is offline! Fortunately I got a copy of the software and saved it before their site went offline, but have yet to successfully install it on my new-ish computer for radio operations (wish me luck).
If you are in the market for a new scanner, or a used scanner… avoid Whistler.
They’re still great, the scanner still functions, you can still program it through the front panel and, you have the software, with software. Without software your experience might not be what you’d like. This my most recent case of Abandonware.