It isn't always that simple. I had some counterfeit usb-to-serial chips that worked fine until the real manufacturer updated the windows driver and simultaneously made it hard to install old drivers. Risk is risk.
As I understand it, Prolific didn't just make it hell to use the clone PL2303 chips but also the older revision of their own chips which was being cloned - their newer drivers disabled both just the same. Which suggests that using any chip from Prolific is risky no matter where you source it from.
