Hi,

I'm thinking about protecting my program with StarForce. I know some programs could stand uncracked for long times with that protection. What I don't know is that by now it is cracked or not. It is very hard to find information about that on the net. Anybody has any information on that? Thank you,

Geza

The latest releases of StarForce are yet to be cracked on a large scale. Some 'professional' groups seem to have made more progress than the open community but it still stands as one of the strongest optical-disk-based protections around.

Think carefully before finalising your decision. Using a protector such as StarForce would be seen as cracking a nut with a sledgehammer in many situations: It's not exactly cheap and it binds your product to discs (as it doesn't cover Internet distribution or the likes).

Regards
Admiral

With regards to cracking StarForce, the Chinese and Russian reversing communities have made significantly more progress than the English. Apparently they're more "open" to discussing such matters in public.

Could be they just lack the sue-happy jerks you can find under every rock here in the states.

Thank you for the replies. I'm considering distributing the game online and using the online activation method. The game is not bound to an optical disk, but to the hardware of the game.

As far as I know this is an option as well with the big games that are bound to a disk and you buy in a shop. If the disk is damaged and you call customer support, they give you an activation key that enables the game only on your computer.

StarForce is selling the online activation only protection by the name ProActive. I could not get any information out of StarForce if that protection is using the same level of protection or not.

Do you know any games that use that protection? Thank you,

Geza

You asked: "Do you know any games that use that protection? Thank you,"

One of the biggest blockbuster games released this season...

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones - by- Ubisoft

Strangely, the Starforce protection has already been cracked and you can find it all over the internet...if you know where to search

Have Phun

Thanks. That game is available with the disk based protection. Does it have an exclusively ProActive version as well?

StarForce is saying the exclusively ProActive and the disk based protections use slightly different methods of protections.