Beware of the "Free Maps" offered on the internet for Garmin.

[Ed Carlson]

A word of warning on the supposedly FREE Garmin maps floating around that are really hacker Garmin maps. They are often hacked maps from Garmin licensed mapping, and they are often riddled with spy-wear, identity theft and password mining tools, and other fun-fun stuff.

Many "Hacker Garmin maps" are from the Eastern Block old Soviet countries and ID theft is prevalent there, they are very good at it, and they like to find new and fun ways to get it in your personal computers...like through your GPS.

Another thing is Garmin takes there mapping and licensing and software intellectual rights very very seriously. OK..Lets say you download a Hacker Map..install it and latter decide to do a new update from the Garmin web site, or send a unit in for warranty or repair. They will automatically scan it in the update and diagnostic process, and if non licensed Garmin maps that are hacked show up, they will prosecute you...they are dead serious guys, Garmin don't mess around when it comes to there intellectual property rights.

Just a word of warning. What may appear Free, well it might be good...or...more likely it has a nasty bug in it, and them things buried in it...you just don't want them in your life.

[pulleye16]

I will definetly being doing some more research on this but It seems to be a very popular HSOforum amongst GPSer's(????) Thanks for the Heads up ED, as your right, downloads from the internet can be scary if your not familiar with that service and could be a front for hackers.

Kirsch-

I'll be hitting up MNTRAX today to look at your product. I didn't know it had lake contours and that a huge selling point to me, just have to check if the lakes i fish are on their. New version I heard will be coming out in March???

[Kirsch]

Typical release cycles for the TRAX series is one update in the Spring to kick off the new year such as NDTRAX 2010 and MNTRAX 2010 and then any updates potentially one last time in the fall before hunting season. There is no guarantee there will be more than one and if you buy MNTRAX 2010 in the Spring, you would get a free update if it changes in the fall or at anytime if desired. A person can watch the Kirsch's Outdoor Products site under News to see if any updates have come out.

Some states, such as ND, change a lot as PLOTS land changes by as much as 10-15% each year, while some states may change very little. Updates also include any additional features which have been added such as Tax Forfeit land in Minnesota will automatically be included in MNTRAX 2010.