Not illegal (like you won't go to jail lol) but strongly frowned upon...
True. Piracy is against the law but not "illegal". It is illegal to distribute copyrighted material but not really to download it. I assure you that the cops/FBI/CIA have much better things to do than deal with someone who downloaded an application. Most of the people who pirate apps would not pay for them anyways even if pirating was not an option, so in the end, the companies do not loose nearly any money and actually get some advertising.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2