...

...

...

You could also timestamp the software so that it only runs for a given length of time. This will encourage people to upgrade regularly. ;-)

...

...

Or to reset their clocks. Which is what many of us do when software is about to "expire."

...

However, why not use "beacons"?

chop chop chop I have been using some shareware that simply has a built-in counter. Once the counter runs out, you have to register. I would suppose that one could hack the code to find the counter, assuming you could decompile it (or wanted to). Personally I think this is a decent solution to the problem -- the counter on this particular software let you use it 50 times. That's adequate to determine whether you want to keep it or not. Of course, if you saved the .zip file to disk before you installed it, you could delete the copy and reinstall the .zip. But everyone knows this. Jazzmin Sommers