The original KiCad domain name (kicad-pcb.org) was recently sold to an unnamed third party that is not affiliated with the KiCad Project or members of the KiCad Development Team. This sale was unexpected and may pose a risk to KiCad users. The new owners may simply post advertisements or (worst-case scenario) they may host malicious versions of the KiCad software for download.
How this happened:
The domain name was originally registered in 2012 by the then project lead Dick Hollenbeck. As KiCad did not have a formal entity at the time, he registered it in his own name through his company
SoftPLC. When the KiCad Project formally became a registered project under the Linux Foundation, we attempted to secure the rights to the original domain name from Dick without success.In the meantime, Digikey Corporation purchased the kicad.org domain name from squatters and donated it to the KiCad Project.
If you host KiCad videos on YouTube or content on a blog that has links to kicad-pcb.org, please update them to kicad.org as soon as possible. This will decrease the visibility of the old domain-name and limit the damage. You can also contact tech sites that post reviews of KiCad or otherwise have links to the old site and ask them to update their links.
When installing KiCad, please always verify the installation signature. Starting with KiCad version 5.99, all installs are signed by KiCad Services Corporation.
Read more on KiCad.info and Hackaday.
