E-Licenser rubbish...!!!

[Mystic]

I also personally prefer u-he and even NI protection over elicenser, ilok, codemeter. But we were talking about what has been or not cracked.

iLok has it better than eL because of multiple authorizations and ability to move stuff online, unlike elicenser.

You only get multiple authorizations if the company allows it. Many companies, like East West, do not and you have to purchase more licenses.

Many of those are not available as well for computer based licenses. Some, but not all. It's a step up from elicenser though.

[ZeePok]

What sucks for me is that, obviously, you have to occupy a USB port. Fortunately, my keyboard has a USB hub, so i can stick if there which is pretty handy, because it keeps my front USB ports unoccupied. Apart from that, i can understand that people are a bit scared to lose their licenses. Especially the USB eLicensers are pretty fragile. I have 2, and both already have the plastic blown off on the edges, because the construction with 2 parts is made so that it has to break sooner or later due to the tension. I fixed that by wrapping sellotape around it, which works quite well.

Anyway, i don't hate dongles, but i don't love them either. There's loads of companies who obviously think they can do without, so it would be nice to do without it really. Especially for portable setups like Macbooks and the likes it's pretty sucky having to have a USB stick plugged in.

 
Here's a tip to avoid stress on the dongle by plugging in & out.

Plug the dongle in a short USB extension cable. Works for me! .
 

[LawrenceF]

I don't get the regular complaints about dongles.

There is so much great dongle free software out there now that nobody ever has to use a dongle if they don't want to, so don't buy anything that requires a dongle. People regularly complain about iLok and eLicenser like they're mandatory to use to make music when it more just seems to be the case that we want everything our way all the time.

Buy a dongle free daw and only use dongle free plugins. Seems easy enough to me.

[bmrzycki]

Buy a dongle free daw and only use dongle free plugins. Seems easy enough to me.

If more people actually did this and voted with their wallets the dongles would disappear over time. As long as customers continue to pay for these crippled, shackled, annoy-ware "solutions" they'll keep using them. Support the companies that don't use them.

[AnX]

Buy a dongle free daw and only use dongle free plugins. Seems easy enough to me.

That's exactly what i do. There's nothing im missing from the choices i have.

[chk071]

What sucks for me is that, obviously, you have to occupy a USB port. Fortunately, my keyboard has a USB hub, so i can stick if there which is pretty handy, because it keeps my front USB ports unoccupied. Apart from that, i can understand that people are a bit scared to lose their licenses. Especially the USB eLicensers are pretty fragile. I have 2, and both already have the plastic blown off on the edges, because the construction with 2 parts is made so that it has to break sooner or later due to the tension. I fixed that by wrapping sellotape around it, which works quite well.

Anyway, i don't hate dongles, but i don't love them either. There's loads of companies who obviously think they can do without, so it would be nice to do without it really. Especially for portable setups like Macbooks and the likes it's pretty sucky having to have a USB stick plugged in.

 
Here's a tip to avoid stress on the dongle by plugging in & out.

Plug the dongle in a short USB extension cable. Works for me! .
 

Good idea. The dongle is more or less stationary here now though in the hub of my keyboard.

[chk071]

Buy a dongle free daw and only use dongle free plugins. Seems easy enough to me.

There are some products which are just too awesome to view that as an option.

[rod_zero]

I think dongles have been dissapearing, waves, arturia have moved. And iLok offerr dongle.less activation option.

[LawrenceF]

Buy a dongle free daw and only use dongle free plugins. Seems easy enough to me.

There are some products which are just too awesome to view that as an option.

True. Life is chock full of choices. If company X makes something you just "gotta" have, the awesome thing, and it requires a dongle, you'll have a dongle, or you just won't use it.

Just (not you personally, in general) don't expect all companies to bend to personal preferences and ditch the dongle. Like with PT where people have predicted it's demise for 20+ years, dongles aren't going away anytime soon either.

[LawrenceF]

If more people actually did this and voted with their wallets the dongles would disappear over time. As long as customers continue to pay for these crippled, shackled, annoy-ware "solutions" they'll keep using them. Support the companies that don't use them.

Well... as logical as that sounds (and it does sound logical on the surface) it, like with politics, assumes 'facts not in evidence' that most people using them actually hate or dislike them that much... which may not be true.

There's actually some benefit for some, especially when some software licenses are limited to only one system and you have more than one system.

That's the main issue with iLok discussions, that the people who hate iLoks are more vocal and because of that they always assume that means they are the majority, and frame the arguments based on that assumption.

I'd much prefer not to have to use iLok to use Mach 5 but I don't hate it. I plugged it into the back of my desktop and rarely even think about it.

[chk071]

Buy a dongle free daw and only use dongle free plugins. Seems easy enough to me.

There are some products which are just too awesome to view that as an option.

True. Life is chock full of choices. If company X makes something you just "gotta" have, the awesome thing, and it requires a dongle, you'll have a dongle, or you just won't use it.

Just (not you personally, in general) don't expect all companies to bend to personal preferences and ditch the dongle. Like with PT where people have predicted it's demise for 20+ years, dongles aren't going away anytime soon either.

For sure it's a business decision. If you see, or suspect that dongle protection harms your sales, you'll surely look for an alternative. I always said that all the crying about Steinberg, their raised update and product prices , and dongle protection is completely pointless, because that all shows that sales figures are healthy. With Arturia, you have an example of the opposite case. (Software) product prices cut in half, turning away from dongle protection, even concentrating more and more on hardware. That all shows that the sales figures are not as expected, so they decided to take measures which in their eyes should help to boost sales. Talk is cheap, the wallet is really what determines a company's sales and business policy.

[LawrenceF]

True. These are private companies (Slate, Steiny, whoever) and our speculation about how much more money they'd make if they ditch the dongles is just that, pure speculation. For all we know some companies might have made more money after moving to iLok because some people using cracks might have bought the latest version since they couldn't find a crack anymore.

We have no idea.

Is Waves making more money since they ditched iLok? Nobody here knows that either way afaik or if that was even their motivation for ditching it. But that's what the net is kinda for, to play backseat CEO.

[EnGee]

Yesterday I could replicate exactly the same setup in both the desktop and the laptop. I can now turning them on with the same projects. I even don't plug anything at all when updating the projects, I just send them wirelessly to the desktop. Lovely and painless setup

I've got rid of (uninstalled and might sell) all e-licenser, iLok and Waves software. I'm not missing something at all. For the hardware (Blofeld and Casio DP), I record them as audio directly so no need to plug/unplug them. Now my priority is to compose/arrange not to mix or master. This make it easy to choose the important tools for me.

[Hink]

Samplitude gave users the option of the codemeter or serial number (I chose the latter), Magix bought Yellow Tools Indy which also used another codemeter but not it pens with my samp serial number and I dont use the Antares stuff anymore or Waves GTR the I used ilok for so all three dongles are locked up in my software lock box. Samplitude gives me zplane and elastic audio (not to mention talk of melodyne soon) so that's why I drooped Antares.

The truth is I'm getting older, I am running out of GAS and Samplitude has fantastic plugins of it's own. I have grown tired of re-installing stuff when I make changes and frankly that is the best thing ever. I know it's not limited to Samp, most DAWs have great FX an DP plugs and i think most people could do fine with what their DAW comes with. Granted the same is not always true with instruments but I am still happy with VSTi's I have had for years.

I have never had any problems with dongles but frankly being able to streamline everything is a blessing, for me the best decision I made was 9 years ago when I switched to Samp. I'm not saying Samp is the best out there but getting to know my host the best I can has cut down on my need for 3rd party plugins and many, many hassles...just food for thought

[ls1xxx]

No problems with my Dongle over here!