A couple of points:

1) I said image a vbSEO where you couldn't make your own re-write rules. I was saying that is what over-encrypting does - I was not saying that's what vbSEO did.

2) The product in question is free, an moderately useful as a free mod. But the inability to extend it in anyway is a big draw back. In fact, the encrypted addon item type I had (am having) trouble with is also free. Not really sure what the plan there is...

hum, as the internal policy here is to not discuss external products, i would suggest to keep it to the level of "yes/no encryption"... ?!

personally, if a tool require that you install something more than the default requirements of the engine, we have a problem... most of the newbies will not be able to install such engine without the help of some support staff, they would even have to hire the coder to be sure everything is fine.

... i think that most of the time, if you check properly, the places where they release encrypted scripts also offer installation at a high rate, even if it takes 20 seconds to install ioncube or something else... that is where they do their profit.

I bought a script that was encrypted with ion cube. It ran good for about 18 months. Then the developer disappeared and the script stopped working. The error msg said something like - "You are no authorized to use this program" - but I had bought the program. It was only the support that I had to buy extra.

So I had to remove that script and buy another one.

I can understand someone wanting to protect their property. But, I had paid for that product and lost use of it when the developer disappeared.

I seriously doubt I will ever buy another product that uses ion cube. I felt ripped off. The product had been paid for, but stopped working because of something? Bah. To me, that is like your car company taking the car back after its paid for. Or the car company taking the motor out of your car after its been paid off.

yep, that is the reason why i don't buy anything with ioncubed.....after buying it and using it and then it stopped working....

IonCube FTW!

This encrypting has it's benefits and it has it's downfalls like every other software available. However it is entirely up to the software developer to use the tools in an appropriate fashion. Every comment has been so biased it's not even funny. Consider that IonCube has potentially saved developers millions, yes I said millions, in revenue. The soul developer of a particular project utilizing IonCube is to blame for any grievances between the customers/users using it (the project).

:) IMOP

why are the comments biased ? we simply saying if something is encoded with iOncube then we wont purchase it - choice is ours.
Now why is that biased - i drive a Toyota am i then biased towards Nissan for not buying their jeep instead ?
It all boils down to choice and u say above that it has saved millions for developers - where are these figures coming from because how much has it also lost the developer as well ??

I think my comments have been far from bias. I rant against a particular use of encrypting, and state that I do not believe encrypting itself is bad, and might even someday use it myself.

i believe those figures are false.I can say and wont mention couple of web developer site that i had purchase there product fully licensed, and now they are useless because all i get is errors something in the script that requires info from the developer website and they are no longer up.

there is a difference between encrypting your script and hiding a call-home function in that encryption to verify the usage of a pirated version... which is far from being useful, it's just bandwidth hungry and non-prpductive. these developers always think their site will be up indefinitely, because they are allmighty...

Another point - it's kinda useless to encrypt scripts - for all of the known encoders also decoders exist and since PHP's source is available, it's possible to modify it that instead of parsing the plain code comes out.
At all - the money these encoders cost isn't well spent, it won't keep the "bad guys" out so using them gives just some kind of a fake protection.
A good license is maybe better, either people care about the license, then you won't need an encoder or they don't care, for the second group of people an encoder isn't a huge problem, maybe just a small one finding the right decoder but that's it.

Personally - in a world of injections, XSS flaws and these problems I wouldn't install and run a "binary only" script on a production system for simple security reasons and other reasons already posted - like a stopped development.