Manufactures and sells dongle crack or dongle recovery software and dongle emulators. Learn about product benefits in cases of broken dongles or other mishaps. Removing HASP step-by-step / Removing Sentinel step-by-step (c)1999-2009 SoftKey Solutions Updated 11-May-2009.
A Hardware Against Software Piracy (HASP) dongle is a type of computer hardware device designed to combat software piracy. These devices must be plugged into a computer in order for software to function, and are often used in place of serial numbers or other forms of authentication. Dongles can also be used to create and enforce other business models for software, such as rental or feature-driven models. For end users, dongles can offer both convenience and frustration.
A HASP dongle fills much the same purpose as a product key or activation system found in consumer software, but is usually confined to highly specialized software programs used in a variety of industries. These types of programs, which include professional printing software, forensics software, high end audio programs, and computer aided design (CAD) applications, often carry high per license price tags, making them lucrative targets for the black and grey markets. To combat piracy and prevent organizations from using software on more computers than they have purchased licenses for, some software publishers make use of HASP dongles.
Customers who use this software must connect a specially programmed HASP dongle to a computer before the software will function. Without the dongle, some programs will run in a demo or trial mode, while others will not run at all. Software publishers usually purchase dongles and dongle software from other corporations, and the dongles must be specially tailored for the programs they will be protecting.