Is elicenser tolerable?

[robotmonkey]

I'm so happy that you aren't a developer...

Well, it's pretty obvious that he isn't, because it's a pretty one sided view. Yes, in a perfect world, we would only shift dll's in our folders on our harddrive, the reality is though, that developers have to protect their software against pirating. It seems like this eLicenser/dongle stuff is pretty effective, at least you always read that it is. So Steinberg and others see it as a good way of protecting their software.

OMG, you really have no idea, do you? Basically all the eLicenser/iLok stuff is cracked. If it is not, then probably nobody cares about the software anyway. That kind of stupid CP does nothing but annoy those who actually buy the software. And yes, I have seen/had problems with eLicenser. Sometimes it has casued a lot of grief.

The fact is, devs who keep implementing annoying and non customer friendly cp schemes deserve no support.

[chk071]

OMG, you really have no idea, do you? Basically all the eLicenser/iLok stuff is cracked. If it is not, then probably nobody cares about the software anyway.

I know from a reliable source that none, read, NONE of the cracked Cubase 6 versions work flawlessly. eLicenser has been reported to be a very good copy protection, even the guys who used to crack Cubase (H2O group), and now, oh surprise, work on the eLicenser stuff, say it is very good.

[Ingonator]

That kind of stupid CP does nothing but annoy those who actually buy the software. And yes, I have seen/had problems with eLicenser. Sometimes it has casued a lot of grief.

Not directly related to your post but one problem about such discussions at forums like this is that people who either never used a dongle or are one of the few that had problems are talking in a way like every other user has/had (or will have) problems too.

Personally i started using an eLicenser around 7 years ago (currently with multiple licenses) and never had any real problem that was not solved within very short time (with e.g. installing the latest update of the eLicenser software, or removing and re-connecting the dongle).


Ingo

[samsam]

^ That's like saying the trouble with forums is that some people post different opinions to your own.

There are plenty of people on the thread posting about no problems.

[osiris]

I think, if you're a developer, no crack protection is 'stupid'.....

[Ingonator]

^ That's like saying the trouble with forums is that some people post different opinions to your own.

I you read my post carefully you will see that this was not my intention.

My intention was to say that some people seem to use their own negative experiences to make general statements that imply that all others should have the same problems or that others should avoid using a certain product.

On the other hand there are people that obviously never actually used a dongle but appear in any thread concerning dongles and tell others how crappy they are and that all companies using them are the evil in person.

At the beginning of my post i mentioned that this was not exactly a direct reply but more a general statement which is just my own opinion of course.

BTW as i posted multiple times (also in other thread on this topic) i am NOT a fan of dongles (i prefer more simple methods too) but i have learned to accept them as for me there is no replacement for some of the dongled synths i use. As already mentioned in earlier threads too i had more problems with some C/P protections than with the eLicenser dongle.


Ingo

[robotmonkey]

I think, if you're a developer, no crack protection is 'stupid'.....

It is not stupid only if a)it is actually effective and b)does not make paid software more annoying to use than a cracked version. It is very easy for any dev to check these things but we still get annoying CP.

The fact is that almost all the problems I have ever had with any music software have always been related to CP.

[zvenx]

........
The fact is that almost all the problems I have ever had with any music software have always been related to CP.

you are probably a very lucky lucky person then.
all software has bugs to varying degree and if almost all your problems have been related to cp and not bugs in the program itself, you are one lucky person indeed.
rsp

[robotmonkey]

........
The fact is that almost all the problems I have ever had with any music software have always been related to CP.

you are probably a very lucky lucky person then.
all software has bugs to varying degree and if almost all your problems have been related to cp and not bugs in the program itself, you are one lucky person indeed.
rsp

The key difference of course is that when you have a bug in music software then this would rarely stop you from working. Of course there are bugs occasionally but I have never encountered a bug that would be so severe that I could not work around it. Most of the time these are minor annoyances (and I haven't encountered much of them anyway).

But when you have a problem with CP you are screwed.

[ghettosynth]

Sometimes you just have to weigh your options and accept that you will indeed have to learn to tolerate the intolerable.

I've had a Steinberg/Syncrosoft USB e-licenser for years now (touch wood). I have had no problems with it so far, but I remain suspicious of it because I'm a techno-savage. But that is a direct financial relationship between me and Steinberg. I'm pretty sure that provides me some protection.

However, if I was faced with decision of whether or not to purchase a piece of software that required yet another USB e-licenser - particularly one in which a third party maintained the licenses, rather than having a direct licensing relationship with the vendor - I'm pretty sure I'd have to take a pass. The primary vendor has a financial interest in making sure that your legal licences are honored -they want to sell you more gear. But the third party license "manager" has no such incentives - they sold you the dongle and that's the extent that you're going to give them any more money. They can screw with you as much as they want or can. Not saying they're going to, but they are at this very minute.

Yeah, I agree. I recently faced this decision as well and decided to just go with disk authorization for a product because the failure hassles that people were reporting with iLok seemed over the top. I don't like it, but, it seemed the lesser of two evils. I still might switch to ilok in the future, but I doubt it.

[jancivil]

if I was faced with decision of whether or not to purchase a piece of software that required yet another USB e-licenser - particularly one in which a third party maintained the licenses, rather than having a direct licensing relationship with the vendor - I'm pretty sure I'd have to take a pass.

Me too. I have one thing that required this, an account at iLok before I could fully install the product, which didn't seem to be quite transparent... I don't have time in my life for something like this iLok fuckup of late.

[cyphersuit]

i have ilok 1, ilok2 and elicenser. elicenser is the easiest one for the user. painless. ilok instead....

[Lotuzia]

Ilok seems to have returned to a stable state recently ( Yesterday actually, after several improvements during the week ). Probably for a long time.

It was a hard week, and hopefully they'll learn a few things about that. I remember other softwwares instruments having trouble for more that a week, but, admitedly, what is annoying with Ilok is that you can have a lot of instruments dependant of it.

I had no trouble myself, as I did not have to sync the iloks, or install new plugs or transfer licences, but those who had problems really had it.

Imho Pace should be much more carefull and test everything thoroughly before making such moves. Apparently, only the plug ins who had major update versions were touched ( ie version 2 of a plug in if you had updated from version 1), and also the new licences.

It's a bad thing for users, for developers, and a bad thing for "dongles" overall, because people will make the confusion between the different systems available. I certainly hope this will not happen again, and that they will find a way to test anything they intend to release in the future.

Somebody said that "everything was cr_cked anyway etc etc". The only thing I can say is that Ilok2 has never been, and that Xils units have not either, or so badly for certain that some people think there are bugs when there are not Even the serial protected plugs gave p_rates hard times it seems, and those who update these versions do this at their risks of loosing everything and not beeing able to revert to the previous versions. So, there are true benefits imho for legit users to use legit software.

Fwiw

LtZ

[4damind]

Never had a problem in 8 years or so and they update this stuff regularly to fix problems or improve things.
I personally prefer eLicenser over iLok and yes... I think it's tolerable.

[JasonSpatola]

If I were a developer, I would offer my stuff only via credit card payment, and somehow link both full name and credit card number to the license as nobody gives that information to strangers (maybe I would even write the credit card number and full name into the code via a little script). Occasionally the plugin would ask for the xth number of the credit card number to be entered as a confirmation.
And shortly before the credit card of the customer expires (which I would know as one has to enter the expiration date when paying by credit card), I would ask them for a symbolic payment of 1 euro or dollar with their new credit card and they would get a new copy with the new card details tied to it.

I mean absolutely no offense, but that sounds horrible.