So let me get this straight - unless you lose the darn thing, as long as you can send them the defective or broken iLok, you can always get your software re-authorized - worst case, having to buy a new one if it isn't under warranty anymore - right?

I use ilok for only one plug-in which has since come out with a different protection scheme - PODFarm.  After a horror report on ilok (I believe from your experience yorpal) I will never buy another ilok plug-in.  Yes, that limits my choices, but there are always other alternatives.  (A side benefit of this "rule" is that I'll save money on plugins!)

yorolpal


Yup...that's almost right.  But let's say your iLok just quits working and you send it in and they can't find anything wrong with it.  What then??  I don't know. 

My gut feeling, especially in light of WAVES leaving them is that ol iLok is going to be dying out...and sooner than later...and that they know it and don't have a clue as to what to do about it.  I'll betcha a dime to a donut that they aren't even in business in 2015.

But I'm a rambler and a gambler and a sweet talkin ladies man.

Thanks Ol Pal.


I agree w/ you - hopefully Waves and Brainworx are just the first in a movement generalized desertion.


In the meantime, I'm still waiting on the iLok 2 I had to order to actually get the Lexicon Reverb I won last week. I think I'll keep the iLok 1 for demo licenses of products I want to try and transfer the rest on the new one.

  I can honestly say I have never had a problem with iLock. I think they need to be more flexible and have a way to temporarily get folks running with some kind of virtual dongle in a case where a legit customer has iLock failure, without any additional cost.  As far as dongles go, the one I hate is codemeter, that's what SSL uses. You can choose virtual dongle or codemeter stick. I originally went with the virtual dongle. My old PC died shortly after.    When I got my new machine built and ready to go I figured it would be a simple case to get my SSL buss compressor up and running... NO..To reinstall, you need to deactivate the old install in your profile at SSL. Even though I had my old hard drive installed and accessible there is no way to deactivate or import the old license.    Time to write SSL support. A few weeks went by before I received a very stern response telling me that it is corrected in my account and not to expect any assistance if it ever happens again.   Realizing the risk, I tried the codemeter USB stick and it was not as stable or reliable as the iLock and that codemeter software always running drove me nuts. So much I downgraded to the PCIe card version.
In a nutshell yea, iLocks policies suck but to a much lower degree than codemeter and IMO SSL customer support is abysmal, just sayin'