License Confirmation Application?

Question

If I apply a licensing restriction for my application, say, when I first launch the application, should my application check the restrictions (maybe there is an encrypted license file) every time? How do you develop this part? What is the best way? Basically, I would like to somehow save processor cycles (encryption means decoding blah blah). I hope you understand my concern.

Answer 1

It really depends on how you want to handle it in your application, and what type of actions you want to take for the user.

if you are only checking the first boot, you will need to save the success / failure of the check somewhere, so that your application finds out whether it is legal or not. This becomes a problem, since you need to check that your system is ONLY that actually stores / updates this source of information.

Answer 2

Depends on which application it has.

If this is a desktop application, after checking the license key ... you can specify a little somewhere so that your software knows that it works in licensed mode. Make sure the bit is somewhere outside the application folder (this way, if someone directly copies your application to another machine, your software will know that it is no longer licensed).

If you are trying to make a web application, an encrypted license file somewhere in your site’s directory seems like a popular solution. The file contains the type of license and domain name ... then your web application checks the license for each request (a bit of overhead, but you can quickly make this code a zipper).

Answer 3

It depends on how securely you really want your licensing to be. I would recommend checking the license key every time the application starts - this should not be too expensive an operation in terms of CPU / memory. If you perform the check only at the first start, then it is quite susceptible to hacking, and the key can be removed and installed on another computer again and again.

Answer 4

Typically, most third-party licensing solutions, such as FLEXnet or RLM, suggest that you check application licenses every time the program runs, at least. Usually it’s not too expensive to do just that.

In some cases - and you must determine if this applies to you - it may make sense to do license checks more often. For example, some software products license software components separately, checking the license for this component each time it is accessed. Using commercial applications, as mentioned above, it is not so expensive, so this is often done.