Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Website: http://www.ssware.com
Price: Starts at $149
Curbing software piracy is one of the toughest tasks that a software or web developer faces. Imagine you've invested several months of work creating a software product. It's very important that you properly license every copy you provide to your customers. Otherwise, the software is liable to be pirated, and your hard work will be spoiled quickly. It is in this scenario that you will find CryptoLicensing for .Net very handy. Developed by LogicNP Software, the product ships with several features with which you can protect your applications quickly in a cost-effective manner.
You can download a fully functional trial version of CryptoLicensing for .Net from the LogicMP website (http://www.ssware.com/cryptolicensing/cryptolicensing_net.htm). I installed the trial version within few minutes on a system with 512MB of RAM. The product can be used with Windows Forms and console applications as well as with ASP.NET, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), components, and controls. Moreover, it can also be used for licensing .NET Compact Framework, which includes hand-held and mobile applications.
CryptoLicensing for .Net employs the latest cryptographic technologies for generating unique licenses. For instance, developers can create licenses that are tied to specific machines and also create them so that the licenses must be activated via the Internet using the license server deployed by the client, which generates network floating licenses.
Additionally, the product can create serial keys, which are shorter in length, and supports the generation of separate design and runtime licenses. The vendor provides a lightweight API with which developers can integrate their software and provides an option to specify several parameters to enable various functionalities, such as an edition name for the application (e.g., Professional, Enterprise).
CryptoLicensing for .Net lets you create evaluation licenses for applications by using various parameters, such as expiry date, maximum usage, and unique days. These licenses can also be extended beyond the trial period by using a date-tampering feature. The product provides additional options, such as issue of on-demand licenses, creation of subscriptions for software, license revocation. An interesting point to note is that CryptoLicensing for .Net enables you to integrate your application with payment gateways such as PayPal and ShareIt, which facilitates automatic order fulfillment and license delivery through special licensing servers.
LogicNP Software provides comprehensive documentation, which contains step-by-step tutorials along with a reference guide and video demonstrations (http://www.ssware.com/cryptolicensing/demo/basic_net.htm). Even with the documentation, it still took me a little while to get familiar with the various options in product's UI. The vendor provides excellent support (http://www.ssware.com/supportoptions.htm) through email, a discussion forum, a knowledge base, and articles.
Based on my experience using CryptoLicensing for .Net, I have no doubt that it will enable developers to create secure licenses for their applications as the product. LogicNP Software nicely fills a niche space in the licensing software market segment. If you develop and distribute .NET-based software or web applications and want to protect your software from piracy, I suggest you take CryptoLicensing for .Net for a test drive.
Anand Narayanaswamy ([email protected]) is a Microsoft MVP who works as an independent consultant based in Trivandrum, India. He is the author of Community Server Quickly (Packt Publishing) and runs http://www.learnxpress.com and http://www.dotnetalbum.com.
