Thoughts on Ilok?

[MadDogE134]

let them hate... if not this... would they not find something else to hate? most certainly so... it is the way of the world now it seems. sad really

[rickmcmillen]

Ilok and Pace really suck. I used to sell PT and Waves and other plugins that used ilok keys. We used to sell ilok keys @ $30 then $40. I owned 9 of them myself & had over 2300 auths over the years. Their customer support is horrible forcing the dealer to have to deal with customer issues because the website responses from "customer service" was short & designed to keep you away. As there are now many schemes to protect software the iLok was one the worst ideas.
Ive never had issues companies like Native Instruments. And I'm now trying to install some software thats using the virtual ilok scheme. I'm still having problems with getting the ilok to auth. Read again the guy who posted this again.
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Its an outdated user hostile protection system that requires genuine users to hold the risk of a very aggressive licensing mechanism whilst providing zero protection to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]

Ilok and Pace really suck. I used to sell PT and Waves and other plugins that used ilok keys. We used to sell ilok keys @ $30 then $40. I owned 9 of them myself & had over 2300 auths over the years. Their customer support is horrible forcing the dealer to have to deal with customer issues because the website responses from "customer service" was short & designed to keep you away. As there are now many schemes to protect software the iLok was one the worst ideas.
Ive never had issues companies like Native Instruments. And I'm now trying to install some software thats using the virtual ilok scheme. I'm still having problems with getting the ilok to auth. Read again the guy who posted this again.
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Its an outdated user hostile protection system that requires genuine users to hold the risk of a very aggressive licensing mechanism whilst providing zero protection to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.

sounds like blödsinn

[goettel]

Any draconian copy protection / DRM only hurts genuine customers, iLok is no different.

[plexuss]

Any draconian copy protection / DRM only hurts genuine customers, iLok is no different.

I'm a genuine customer. I don't feel hurt. Sort of blows up your comment. LOL

[goettel]

So you aren't hurt by having to run through hoops that those pirating software don't?
Them feels.

[jamcat]

I feel iLok machine authorization is very stable and secure.

iLok dongle is a bit of a risk because you can damage your USB port if you bang your dongle or you could lose it, especially when you're on the road.

iLok Cloud doesn't feel very stable or secure because if your internet goes down, you're screwed (high probability on the road), and you don't have local autonomy over your own licenses, so they could just go *poof* if some database somewhere gets corrupted, or someone decides you no longer have enough social credits.

[aMUSEd]

So you aren't hurt by having to run through hoops that those pirating software don't?
Them feels.

Much better than having a computer compromised by malware that is undoubtedly mining all sorts of useful information from the warez kiddies computers

[jamcat]

I'm just really impressed that goettel waited 15 years until he finally had something important to say. And that was it.

[vanerio]

I think the only case scenario where iLok is a valid tool is for those who travel around and go to different studios.

However, that does not justify, in my opinion, the abusive and intensive system of detecting legitimate licenses on your PC. For me, this system is not fair when pirated versions consume less resources and allow more freedom for the user. That is called punishing the legitimate user and for that reason I will never buy anything with iLok.
BTW, I DON'T use any pirated software for ethical and security reasons!!!

[DCrown]

Quite a lot of my favourite plugins use iLok. I have iLokLicensemanager and dongle.
About 5 years ago there once was an issue with an update and also a general bigger update frequency
back then was annoying sometimes (start daw, iLok plugins couldn´t be selected/loaded, close daw,
update iLokLicensemanager, start daw again).
I dig some iLok plugins and don´t want to miss them, so I don´t complain.
Since a lot of devs use iLok I can also accept the fact that iLok eats some cpu and maybe also ram resources
while using daw, you can check in Task Manager. But if there were more plugin-managers who used resources
at the same time, it could become an issue, but iLok is the only manager afaik.

[revvy]

The argument that side versions don’t make you jump thru hoops is a bit f**king rich. They also don’t make you jump thru the hoop of actually paying, do they.

So are snide versions easier? Duh, yeah, right?

[wvshpr]

I try to avoid buying iLok protected plugins and also prefer to use non-iLok plugins in my projects. I don't want to deal with the hassle if my iLok breaks and I'm about to finish a project on a deadline. I know there's machine activation and cloud, but I use two machines and one of them is not connected to the internet. So USB key it is.

An iLok protected plugin has to be completely unique and special for me to buy it. Luckily, there are a lot of alternatives on the market.

The other reasons why I hate iLok are transfer fees and the audacity of Zero Downtime. GFY!

[Johnnyjohn]

I wish the would refresh the GUI at some point, looks really outdated by now

[cdbaksu]

I have had zero issues with iLok.

Every "horror story" I've read about it involved poor internet coverage.

And I can kind of understand and feel for the 2000s, but now-a-days not having access to the Internet is pretty rare.