As you know a new program by zabkat is brewing up for killing online piracy -- well you have to aim high!
This is a temporary forum for crack tracker, for people to enter their questions and recommendations to shape the future of this program
http://cracktracker.net
welcome to crack tracker forum
Moderator: nikos
I am just curious. In your recent blog post you wrote about slowing sales (and profits) of xplorer2. That was certainly worrisome news both for you (I am sure) and for the users of xplorer2 such as myself. I invested a lot of time learning the workings of it (which is a lot more valuable to me than the license fee), and I am very interested to see continuous development of the program.
I just have to wonder, Crack Tracker, while a useful piece of software, does not seem to be something that can bring much profit. Your target audience is developers, not users. And there are a lot fewer of them. Not only that, being able to keep track of "well known warez sites" is a full time job in itself. And you still will have to continue development of the app.
And if you don't spend all your time looking for mushrooming pirate sites, your clients will soon realize that Google is free and works better.
Please understand that I hold you in the highest regard and this is just an opinion meant to be constructive.
I just have to wonder, Crack Tracker, while a useful piece of software, does not seem to be something that can bring much profit. Your target audience is developers, not users. And there are a lot fewer of them. Not only that, being able to keep track of "well known warez sites" is a full time job in itself. And you still will have to continue development of the app.
And if you don't spend all your time looking for mushrooming pirate sites, your clients will soon realize that Google is free and works better.
Please understand that I hold you in the highest regard and this is just an opinion meant to be constructive.
Read your blog entry on cracktracker, Megaupload feels the strong arm of the law, and even from the beginning I already started imagining you looking like this:
![Image](http://www.thingsifear.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/mr-burns-evil-laugh.jpg)
Well, not so old and yellow, still, pretty much like that.
Can't help but notice how funny your secret belief is that mass file sharing affects software piracy in any way. I mean, yeah, it does, but not nearly as much as it affects the gaming, movie and music industry. That's what big files are all about, not some few kilobytes or megabytes for some software's serial, crack or keygen.
If all file servers were to cease existing tomorrow, software piracy would still freely roam the rich green hills of the Internet because people will simply download the applications from the developers' sites and then share the extremely small files needed to crack de app. Retail software isn't safe either.
I've never tried to sell any piece of software, but as a developer I would focus less on piracy and more on improving the product by listening to frequent user requests. Acting especially against software piracy is futile, so your only meaningful path is to continue improving the applications you created until it is not profitable anymore. Not giving free advice, only my opinion on the subject.
![Image](http://www.thingsifear.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/mr-burns-evil-laugh.jpg)
Well, not so old and yellow, still, pretty much like that.
Can't help but notice how funny your secret belief is that mass file sharing affects software piracy in any way. I mean, yeah, it does, but not nearly as much as it affects the gaming, movie and music industry. That's what big files are all about, not some few kilobytes or megabytes for some software's serial, crack or keygen.
If all file servers were to cease existing tomorrow, software piracy would still freely roam the rich green hills of the Internet because people will simply download the applications from the developers' sites and then share the extremely small files needed to crack de app. Retail software isn't safe either.
I've never tried to sell any piece of software, but as a developer I would focus less on piracy and more on improving the product by listening to frequent user requests. Acting especially against software piracy is futile, so your only meaningful path is to continue improving the applications you created until it is not profitable anymore. Not giving free advice, only my opinion on the subject.
Interesting pursuit nikoz.
You know, it's quite obvious you learnt abit about and maybe enjoyed software cracking before or when you were first programming x2, you know that it is quite an enjoyable experience to make patches or keygens or learn about how the protection schemes of softwares work and also about compression, packers/unpackers and all that, some crackers do it just for fun and only crack apps for them selves and friends, a lot join warez or release groups and end up cracking for profit or access to other warez...
Just sayin' nikoz, what you are doing with cracktracker is a big battle, but don't expect to make a huge difference
Nothing can stop crackers from there curiousity and pursuit of knowing code inside and out.
I also stand by the previous comment in that, maybe it's not such a good idea to focus on the pirating, you should focus more on making your software better for your users. There is always going to be a percent of users who steal just like in the real world. Cracktracker is a good initiative, but you have to be realistic. If you want to use your time to monitor warez related things then fine, do it, waste your time. It's time you won't get back.
You are also probably aware of the game you are playing, you are just bringing extra attention to xplorer2 from crackers, offering bigger challenges - exactly what they want - to have your software cracked (and evetually spread to warez sites) :lol: I mean, it's not fun at all to make a few hex edits and you have a cracked/registered, no ofcourse not, the real fun is the challenge in beating the system.. and your system is exactly what crackers are looking for.. a proper challenge. --- Basically, you are attracting more attention from crackers because of your constant battle of cracks and bettering your protection.
Like I said, there is always gonna be that person who doesn't pay for something. Instead of trying to make them pay, just don't worry to much about it and use that energy and time to find more of the good people who do pay by making your software much better.
You know, it's quite obvious you learnt abit about and maybe enjoyed software cracking before or when you were first programming x2, you know that it is quite an enjoyable experience to make patches or keygens or learn about how the protection schemes of softwares work and also about compression, packers/unpackers and all that, some crackers do it just for fun and only crack apps for them selves and friends, a lot join warez or release groups and end up cracking for profit or access to other warez...
Just sayin' nikoz, what you are doing with cracktracker is a big battle, but don't expect to make a huge difference
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
I also stand by the previous comment in that, maybe it's not such a good idea to focus on the pirating, you should focus more on making your software better for your users. There is always going to be a percent of users who steal just like in the real world. Cracktracker is a good initiative, but you have to be realistic. If you want to use your time to monitor warez related things then fine, do it, waste your time. It's time you won't get back.
You are also probably aware of the game you are playing, you are just bringing extra attention to xplorer2 from crackers, offering bigger challenges - exactly what they want - to have your software cracked (and evetually spread to warez sites) :lol: I mean, it's not fun at all to make a few hex edits and you have a cracked/registered, no ofcourse not, the real fun is the challenge in beating the system.. and your system is exactly what crackers are looking for.. a proper challenge. --- Basically, you are attracting more attention from crackers because of your constant battle of cracks and bettering your protection.
Like I said, there is always gonna be that person who doesn't pay for something. Instead of trying to make them pay, just don't worry to much about it and use that energy and time to find more of the good people who do pay by making your software much better.