Thoughts on Ilok?

[The Noodlist]

Got 3 iterations, never had any issues, a time saver when installing a fresh OS.

I'd avoid soft Ilok, it's not worth the hassle when system issues occur. I formatted a drive with some PSP licenses on it, luckily, I was able to use a disk backup and send the licenses to the cloud.

[tactile_coast]

Definitely avoid ILOK if you can.

Its an outdated user hostile protection system that requires genuine users to hold the risk of a very aggressive licensing mechanism whilst providing zero protection to developers (the security mechanisms have long been cracked and regularly exploited by pirates).

Based on personal recent experience there are severe consequences for genuine paying customers when inevitably the licensing software does not work as intended. At the best this for me has included loss of licenses due to trivial changes in hardware/component failure, at the worst it has necessitated purchasing entire replacement system drives to rebuild an ILOK corrupted primary partition.

[plexuss]

Definitely avoid ILOK if you can.

Its an outdated user hostile protection system that requires genuine users to hold the risk of a very aggressive licensing mechanism whilst providing zero protection to developers (the security mechanisms have long been cracked and regularly exploited by pirates).

Based on personal recent experience there are severe consequences for genuine paying customers when inevitably the licensing software does not work as intended. At the best this for me has included loss of licenses due to trivial changes in hardware/component failure, at the worst it has necessitated purchasing entire replacement system drives to rebuild an ILOK corrupted primary partition.

You forgot to say "IMHO" and "YMMV".

[BONES]

I'm starting to not like it. I'm thinking of ditching certain plugins that have it. It can be a pain sometimes.

Care to elaborate? I am a total convert. For a long time I avoided it like the plague but I eventually relented and I've discovered that iLok makes everything so much easier than most other copy protection systems. When I had an issue with a license, they fixed it for me overnight. No complaints here at all.

I just wish with iLok I could deauthorize on a webpage and not the clunky app.

What's clunky about the application? I find it dead easy to work with, no more or less hassle than a website. And I buya new computer everyyear, so I almost certainly use it a lot more than you do.

(I know if hardware is beyond revival that you can ask for the lost activation from vendors, so if you have a lot of ilok apps that sounds like a funtime )

When I had a problem, their solution was a simple reset. They deactivated all my licenses and it took me about two minutes to go through and reactivate them. I can't see why they wouldn't do that for anyone, given that you can't activate anything you don't have a license for.

I'm not looking forward to upgrading, or doing reinstall with iLok apps.
I think Plugin Alliance and MeldaProduction do it right. (As do others)
My 2 cents.

I find iLok no greater chore than most and it gives me a lot more control. e.g. I can deactivate licenses myself, whereas with some software I have to email the dev and convince them to give me more activations, which can take a couple of days.

I don't avoid plugins with iLok, but I dislike it. It's annoying and messy and adds extra steps when trying to demo, etc.

That's the one thing that annoys me, you can't delete licenses, even demos.

ILok support was useless and says it's up to the vendors to reset all the license even though it is their program that f**ked up.

I had the opposite response - they reset everything just to fix one license. I don't even understand how a vendor could get involved. They issue the license, it goes into your account and that's the end of the vendor's involvement, I'd have thought. Activation would be iLok's problem and no-one else's.

[cryophonik]

My thoughts on iLok are that I never think about it. It’s been sitting there politely on that USB hub next to my Syncrosoft dongle way back in that dusty corner behind my computer for nearly 20 years just simply minding its own business and never bothering me.

[Andreya_Autumn]

Here's a take I don't hear discussed a lot: Even a transactional relationship should be a relationship of trust.

I buy software from, say, FabFilter, they just send me a plain text licence key. Same with the majority of devs. I appreciate that because it creates an experience of *being trusted*.

Fabfilter aren't dumb and obviously know how easily I could walk over to my studio neighbors computer and copy-paste the key to his machine. I know that too. They know that I know. Etc etc. They still do it this way, and I like that experience. The fact that they're willing to show me this trust also makes them seem more trustworthy to me in turn.

On the other hand iLok (and other licence managers/installers/bloatware) create an experience of being a bit more distrusted. No matter how smoothly this stuff works that experience will always remain, and the most positive I will ever feel towards any of these is neutral.

I'm kind of neutral towards iLok nowadays. I have Gullfoss and a couple Liquidsonics products that felt worth it to me. And it has worked so far.

Maybe companies feel they can't make decisions on such wishy-washy grounds as these. Fair enough if so. Customer experience is a part of what they sell though, and my sense is that it benefits companies to show trust. I'm not a market analyst though... I wonder if there are any real stats on people's attitudes towards these things, anyone know?

[MJACau]

On the other hand iLok (and other licence managers/installers/bloatware) create an experience of being a bit more distrusted.

It does come down to trust and respect for you customers, iLok as 3rd party interloper doesn't. Because it's the philosophy your a consumer not a customer. Two very different things.

What's clunky about the application? I find it dead easy to work with, no more or less hassle than a website.

BONES That why I think if iLok had Web based authorization/deauthorization that would make me feel more trusted and in control, we all do that for online banking. (Using second level verification)
And it eliminates that need to contact every vendor you have with iLok protection if my system dies or get stolen, that servers me as a customer. A trusted customer.

I would prefer a web page or phone app to do authorization/deauthorization, than the current iLok licences Windows application that also run a PACE windows service on my system in the background.
iLok basically is saying you can't trusted so I will install a rootkit on you system, it is as neurotic as Autodesk's Maya licence manager it runs basically like a rootkit.

Both these companies come from a time of distrust, It's antiquated we have moved on to better systems.

[BONES]

This "contact every vendor" nonsense doesn't happen. iLok just clear all your activations so you can reactivate. Because that's iLok's purpose - activation - licensing is definitely down to vendors but if your iLok account shows those licenses, iLok will reest your activations if you have a problem. Or they did for me.

[MJACau]

Because that's iLok's purpose - activation - licensing is definitely down to vendors but if your iLok account shows those licenses, iLok will reest your activations if you have a problem.

When ever I ever hear anyone say the word BUT, what ever that person said before the word BUT doesn't mean a thing. Remember that trust virtue.
I don't trust them on my system.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

All in all, this has been the most mature, sane, balanced conversion I've ever seen on iLok (or any CP really) on KVR. I feel like KVR's really grown up! Either that or Hink has been busy.

[kritikon]

I personally avoid all iLok products. It goes back years ago to bad old PACE days. They were akin to a virus on your PC and a company with a pretty hostile customer policy. So I vetoed them personally as a company I won't ever again do business with. Doesn't happen often and they have to be pretty bad companies and I have to be personally burned by them to embargo - only ever happened with PACE and Sony. Neither of which I will ever buy anything from ever again.

My loss. I'm sure there are some great plugins that use iLok - in fact I know there are but I won't buy them. I did relent a wee while ago just to see how it all was - Softube freebie. Looking back, I have no idea why I was so dumb to let my guard down for a simple freebie that A) I didn't like and actually thought was a hoax (that saturation knob thing that bumps dB by 2dB to con you into thinking it's sounding better), B) added so little to anything I do musically.

Actually, the iLok authroisation went OK, it did what it said on the box and the Softube rubbish was far worse than the actual iLok. I didn't notice iLok slowing down my performance or anything else malign. But I did notice it was >200MB d/l and that's just not acceptable for a mere authroisation gadget. I slapped myself for being so silly as to relent with iLok and deleted everything. Won't go back as they're still PACE and I fail to forgive a bunch of twats who are probably still a bunch of twats. I can happily hold onto a grudge for life if that company offended me enough - which PACE and Sony both did.

If I were ever to forgive iLok I think I'd prefer their dongle than the PC authorisation. Strangely I've come across people who slag Steinberg for dongles but use an iLok dongle...
Now of course even Steiny have forsaken dongles - but I never had any issue with dongles per se - actually I quite like them if one has to have copy protection at all. my beef is only with PACE. It seems their sw is far more stable and less virus-like nowadays, but...once a cnut, always a cnut.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I personally avoid all iLok products. It goes back years ago to bad old PACE days. They were akin to a virus on your PC and a company with a pretty hostile customer policy. So I vetoed them personally as a company I won't ever again do business with. Doesn't happen often and they have to be pretty bad companies and I have to be personally burned by them to embargo - only ever happened with PACE and Sony. Neither of which I will ever buy anything from ever again.

My loss. I'm sure there are some great plugins that use iLok - in fact I know there are but I won't buy them. I did relent a wee while ago just to see how it all was - Softube freebie. Looking back, I have no idea why I was so dumb to let my guard down for a simple freebie that A) I didn't like and actually thought was a hoax (that saturation knob thing that bumps dB by 2dB to con you into thinking it's sounding better), B) added so little to anything I do musically.

Actually, the iLok authroisation went OK, it did what it said on the box and the Softube rubbish was far worse than the actual iLok. I didn't notice iLok slowing down my performance or anything else malign. But I did notice it was >200MB d/l and that's just not acceptable for a mere authroisation gadget. I slapped myself for being so silly as to relent with iLok and deleted everything. Won't go back as they're still PACE and I fail to forgive a bunch of twats who are probably still a bunch of twats. I can happily hold onto a grudge for life if that company offended me enough - which PACE and Sony both did.

If I were ever to forgive iLok I think I'd prefer their dongle than the PC authorisation. Strangely I've come across people who slag Steinberg for dongles but use an iLok dongle...
Now of course even Steiny have forsaken dongles - but I never had any issue with dongles per se - actually I quite like them if one has to have copy protection at all. my beef is only with PACE. It seems their sw is far more stable and less virus-like nowadays, but...once a cnut, always a cnut.

You brought back memories of the bad old days when the damn tpkd.sys would constantly crash Windows! It really truly used to suck. Don't blame anyone for swearing them off for good after that. And you're [kind of] right: it's gotten a lot better and less virus-y, and hardware dongle is the way to go. If PACE hadn't burned you (and a lot of other people) so badly in the past, you'd find it's an otherwise fine protection method these days. Seems like they bit off more than they could chew back in the day, made some bad decisions, and learned from them, resulting in a better product. Great plugins. I don't blame you for boycotting PACE, but your impressions are correct: it's nothing like what it used to be.

[rj0]

Over 10 years with an iLok dongle, across multiple computers, so far so good-).

[BONES]

the word BUT doesn't mean a thing. Remember that trust virtue.

You need to work on your comprehension, because in this context, but means that it's a new proposition that qualifies the original. e.g. The sky is blue but the clouds are fluffy and white. I could have easily used "and" without any material change to the meaning.

I don't trust them on my system.

Knock yourself out, buddy. The world is full of idiots, one more ain't gonna make any difference.

[Batwaffel]

So here's what I will say about the 20 years I've been using iLok. This is based on my personal experience.

I'm a fan. It makes everything easier. I've never had a major issue with it and in the past 7 or so years, it's been running flawlessly. The biggest thing for me is getting things up and running quickly. If I have to do a complete format for whatever reason, all I have to do is install the plugins, put in the dongle and I'm good to go. It takes me much longer to be up and running plugging in license codes or even worse, companies that require you go to the website with a code to get a response code to put in the plugin to get it registered. I have an obscenely huge spreadsheet with all the information on licenses that I have to go through if I need to reinstall for whatever reason. It also is handy when I'm on the road. Plug it in and done.

I get why some people might not like iLok but I prefer that method over the alternatives.