Wow...now thats what I call input! :eek: Cheers, :) Frank

Thanks for the info Farzad. Both my apps are NNTP news related. You can check them out at my website http://www.x3software.com Fran

Thanks for the link Shane. :) Fran

You are absolutely correct Erik. And you have (In a way) validated my opinion. Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Cheers! Frank

Dave, I can see how your situation is different. And, for the life of me cant imagine why someone would post your code on CodeGuru. Thats amazing to me. I also agree with you that the "ultimate" protection is to make your software valuable enough that people will "Want" to own it rather than use a chopped copy. But, we have to be realistic. I've spent hours trying to figure out ways of making my software "crack proof". And, I've come to a conclusion. That is, there is only 2 ways to do that. Maybe I'm missing something, so I'll accept comments on this... 1. Use 2 versions of your software. Trial versions and Registered versions. Of course the cons of this are increased development times, and multiple build versions to deal with when upgrading. But this is the most secure way. There is no code to crack, and no Key to Gen (as it were). :) 2. Use a registration validation server. Similar to what ID Software is doing with Quake3 Arena. Gamespy also uses this model, but theirs if for other reasons. I think the cons to this type of model are obvious. No internet connection, no program. And, you have to deal with breakdowns in the traceroute, and server outages. End result is upset customers. So, which is the best. If there is such a thing in this arena. No matter how good your product is, no matter how much time/money you spend on your registration system, this type of thing will happen. I think its sad. :( Cheers, Fran

Hi! Well, I've just been notified that two of my programs have keygens available for download. I look at this in two ways. 1st. It sucks. For obvious reasons. 2nd. Wow...somebody actually liked my software to waste a bunch of time tearing it up to figure out the registration algorithm. So, my question is...short of re-writing all my programs to use a shareware/release version (stripped down) and creating dual releases...how can we prevent this sort of thing? Its obvious that we as software developers are vulnerable to this sort of thing. How do we make our software crack proof? Fran