Can you suggest a better method of protecting their software?

I have no idea also and honestly I don't care. Competitors had such a working feature already several month ago. Besides that and the activation bull there is nothing new that is worth mentioning...
There is nothing revolutionary in writing double layer, bitsetting and an updated manual as even freeware is able to do this for several months. They even failed to adress old (known for over a year) major bugs... Must I say that the virtual drives are still freezing my onboard Promise RAID Controller 378? Must I say, that the virtual drives are crashing "MemoriesOnTV" with the MPEG2 plugin installed? This is just ridiculous...

I know that Alcohol v2 will be released when Venom has finished coding of Daemon Tools 4 but no new feature can compensate such a crap like activation. It's pandoras box and I am not willing to open that bas....

Again, Quality and progression sells, not copyprotection...

Yes, by implementing new features at a reasonable price as fast as possible.

It is just that easy.

Activation makes no sense, because once a patched version is out noone cares about it except the people that have paid for the software. People that are using a patched version won't even notice the activation. So it would have been more than enough to keep it with the serial protection to prevent Joe Sixpack from using an illegal copy. If Joe Sixpack knows where to find a serial, he will be able to find a patch for the activation as well.

I hope, you get my point.

I absolutly agreee...there is no need to protect their software to such a degree, there will always be a minority that do not respect the authors of software...however there is always a majority that will.
By applying there authorizing crap is just a minor deterant and band aid for the issue, furthermore deter people from using it

Alcohol v2 is promised since more than a year, right?

What will be the features? Will there be ever a release version?

Hey Kamikazee,

Apparently, your memory is not so good. MS released Win 98 and it was so buggy that eventually they had to re-release it as Win 98 SE to keep people from mixing up the repaired version of Win 98 as opposed to the original buggy one. Besides, most of us no longer rush out and buy the latest OS. The smart ones let the OS mature for about a year or two and then buy it so that those with more money than brains can work out the bugs.

I agree with all you have said, but I would say that it deters people from buying it.

Alcohol v2 was NEVER promised. It is a rumour that was started in the German Alcohol forum.

I can't see how you think this is a better way to protect their software.
It's fairly obvious that you don't like activation. I personally don't blame you.
But, saying that releasing more updates at a reasonable price will prevent theft of their software is pure lunacy.

Disclaimer: This is not about bashing Alcohol-Soft. I like the software as software, but I dislike it as a spying tool that forces me to go online while sending (probably sensitive) information through the web and regulating me as a legit user, while non-paying users are not regulated in any kind.

Well, speaking for myself (lunatic ) as a customer I prefer frequent updates and a good price over waiting a year for simple bug fixes, an online activation and one feature that is long overdue. I'll prefer spending my money on projects where I can see my money working as a kind of an investment, instead of seeing my money turning against me.

It is the same with the content mafia all over the world. They are charging hillarious prices for sub-par products and won't stop sueing and pooing people until there is no money left to spend on a law class action suite. My personal conclusion: I won't spend a single € on these people and that includes that I am not even interested in their products anymore.

If I would have known - when licensing in the first place - that the terms and conditions of Alcohol-Soft would be dramatically changed this way, I would not have ever bought a license.

Activation means: "Guilty until proven innocent" and that is not the regular judical practice over here in Europe (well, not yet...).

Your wrong it was released because during the time period between 98 and 98SE, technology was taking off like a rocket, They released SE to fill a void not because 98 was all that buggy. MS didn't like the gap in years between 98 and 2000 and XP, thats why they released SE and then ME.

It makes no difference what you or I think, technology is moving forward, the applications must move forward with it....if it wants to survive.

Absolutely true.

Are their any major improvements with the next release of Blindwrite?


Maybe I'll tell my friend to purchase BlindWrite instead of Alcohol120%, I'm still in doubt.

As it is right now, nothing can be worse than Alcohol. Nothing but trouble with the new online activation.
If you just add some more RAM to your PC, the program refuses to work because of the hardware change. So every time something changes in your PC, you will need to contact them and WAIT for them to respond before you can use the software (which you paid for) again.
And what if their activation site goes down? Or they go out of business? The only people that will then be screwed are the paying customers.
People at Alcohol Soft just don't seem to understand that the online activation doesn't stop pirated versions, it just encourages even paying customers in using these versions.

And don't expect any help on their official forum, because they just close/delete all topics about activation.

And to the Alcohol Team: Your newest release is already cr*cked and spreading around on the internet. Quit wasting time on useless activations, the cr*ckers will always find a way to get around it. You of all people should know, since your software is designed to bypass protections.

Your post is not correct, you do not need to contact us each time you make an adjustment to your ram you simply need to log into your account and switch activations in the same way as if you were switching between PC´s see http://forum.alcohol-soft.com/index.php?showtopic=18348

Do you swap your ram out 4 times a day or what ?

In any case our email responce time to a problem is ususaly less time than it takes you to make a cup of tea.

Hum you read my post .. and why not, the support team are there to answer questions concerning the software not peoples moanings about the need to activate.

You see you miss the point, we know about the cracked versions who does not, the online activation has nothing to do with cracking down on cracked hacked versions.

I take it as now you know we will delete posts in our support forum that are not related to problems associated with the software, you thought you would come here to moan.

But please moan with your facts correct and not just moan for the sake of it...

Hey Phoenix, you 'forgot' to quote the above with a decent reply

As you are a member of our support forum you will have seen the posts concerning this, in the unlikely event that Alcohol go out of business, all purchased users will recieve an email that will contain information on how to continue using the software, this information would also be made available on web sites such as this and our own support forum. so there is no need for concern in this situation.

Once again you forgot to mention something. It's quite pathetic to ban me from your customer forum for postings I made here on CDFreaks.

Here's the PM I got. Since I don't have anything to hide I'll just copy/paste it here.
Well done, you just passed the test! I knew you were gonna do this, because that is exactly the kind of attitude of the Alcohol people. Only fanboys allowed, and remove all the rest.
Nice going, maybe this posting gets me a complete ban from your forum, since you're so predictable. But I couldn't care less. Emails from your forum are already being deleted by my spamfilter

I believe every customer has the right to complain if he's not happy. If you don't want that on your forum, then just don't run a forum until you can handle it.

From your so called 'guidelines':
You require ALL posts to be POSITIVE? This is a joke right? If everyone was happy then there should be no need for a support forum.

I'm actually quite happy that I'm no longer a member of your fanclub (our 'community' as you like to name it). That's why I like to 'moan' here, people don't get banned here for their opinion.

Peace

Well, it is a support forum. NOT a bitch and moan about activation forum.

I just can't stand this "We already got your money, now shut up and leave us alone" attitude of the Alcohol people.

Oh and btw Phoenix, why don't you just admit that you were offended by my postings here, instead of saying that you 'received a number of complaints'. It's always easy to blame someone else for your (immature) actions.

It is when someone uses removable hard drives and then has to re-activate every time a hard drive is switched, they didn't take that into consideration at all, it didn't even cross their mind.

Its nice to know a member of the BlindWrite Team use our software

In answer to your question

You simply need to log into your account and switch activations in the same way as if you were switching between PC´s see http://forum.alcohol-soft.com/index.php?showtopic=18348

Yes I understand that I must log in.. the problem is I must log in each and every time I switch a hard drive and that is a pain in the butt that is highly unacceptable since Alcohol is the only piece of software that requires it. I guess it picks up the hardware change from just one hard drive. (I'm not switching pc's only hard drives) I am well aware of the link and was quite surprised at the hoops I now have to jump thru.

I don't only use Alcohol, I could list them all but I won't. One of the responsibilities of any responsible tester is to make sure that all software plays nice together, where would Blindwrite be if it didn't play nice with it's competitors, and i've got something to use on my 64 bit hard drive.

So every time you switch a removable harddrive, you've to log into your account.

Sorry phoenix, but the Alcohol120% development team really has to think again.

You defenitely just lost two future customers.
BlindWrite here we come.

With all due respect, but this is not your business. If someone feels like swapping HIS/HER hardware four times an hour, seven days a week and 365 days a year it is his/her descision only. This is absolutely not your business. I am sick and tired of such a behavior like this.

This is not the point. Your response time can be as fast as lightning - the fact that a customer is forced to contact you to get his fully legal licensed software to run is just not acceptable.

Since the activation IS part of your software you should care and take your time to answer questions and concerns regarding the activation (positive as negative as well). If there would be no silly activation, there would be noone that would complain about it. But hey, this is not my business either...


So whats the point then? Activation does not target illegal copies?

Let me assure you: You force your paying customers to use unsafe patches to get rid of a silly activation, that never worked as it should. Well, maybe it did work, but it didn't prevent the spreading of illegal copies. Maybe it gives enough information to sell it to a marketing company huh?

Completely true.




Again, I agree. Why should we contact you?
That's complete madness.


Correct. It's still not clear for me what the activation is for?
At the moment it doesn't contribute anything, it only upsets PAYING (future) customers.




Who knows?

I got the good thing: A dutch and a german in unity.

I never thought that this would be possible.