Dinkey Pro/FD version 7.5 released

We're excited to bring you version 7.5 of the Dinkey Pro/FD SDK. Almost two years in the making, this release expands the capabilities of Dinkey Pro/FD in many different ways, allowing you to protect more software on more platforms than ever before.

Detailed technical information about the changes in this release is available in these update notes. For a full list of changes to Dinkey Pro/FD, please see the Dinkey Pro/FD version history.

Protect Linux Software on ARM Systems

The biggest addition to Dinkey Pro/FD 7.5 is full support for Linux on ARM platforms such as the Raspberry Pi. This was previously available to a small number of customers, but is now included as standard when you request the latest SDK version. All API libraries are available for both 32-bit (Aarch32) and 64-bit (AArch64) environments, allowing you to fully protect and licence your Linux software on ARM devices using the API protection method.

The SDK includes API bindings for Java and Python, as well as general purpose static (.o) and dynamic (.so) libraries for languages like C++. Also included are 32-bit and 64-bit ARM ports of all developer tools (DinkeyAdd, DinkeyRemote, DinkeyLook) and end-user utilities (DinkeyChange, DinkeyServer).

Protect macOS Apps on Catalina and Beyond

The latest version of macOS, Catalina, is the first to support only 64-bit applications, prompting developers to phase out their 32-bit code. We've followed suit: all parts of Dinkey Pro/FD SDK 7.5 for macOS are 64-bit and support OS X 10.10 Yosemite onwards, including Catalina. This updated, 64-bit codebase also means that API libraries for use in your own applications now meet the requirements for notarising your app, including Hardened Runtime requirements.

Need to support legacy Mac OS X versions or 32-bit apps? No problem, version 7.5 libraries and utilities for these are available on request.

This release also introduces GUI versions of DinkeyAdd and DinkeyRemote, providing an improved user experience for developers who only write code on and for macOS. You can now protect software, program dongles and issue secure remote update codes without the need to edit JSON project files.

Shell-Protect More .NET Applications on Windows

The release of .NET Core 3.0 introduced support for Windows desktop applications, prompting many developers to start transitioning their existing .NET Framework apps to target .NET Core. To help you make this transition with your protected software, we've upgraded .NET Shell protection to work with .NET Core 3.0, 3.1 and the latest preview of .NET Core 5.

.NET Framework is still required by DinkeyAdd to Shell-protect .NET Core Windows apps, but we've updated DinkeyAdd to work with any version of .NET Framework from 2.0 onwards. This means that developers who target only one framework version don't need to install a whole other framework version to add protection. With the ever increasing size of Visual Studio, we hope you'll appreciate the extra disk space!

Shell-Protect Linux Software on x86 and x64 Systems

There's still one part of the Dinkey Pro/FD SDK we haven't mentioned: Linux on x86 and x86-64 (also known as x64 or AMD64). New to the Linux SDK in version 7.5 is support for Shell protection of native binaries and shared libraries on these platforms. Great news for Linux developers, and for Windows developers looking to port their protected software to Linux, who were perhaps put off in the past by having to implement protection via our API.

Your Feedback

As always, we'd love to hear your comments on this new release, as well as your suggestions for future releases. You can get in touch using any of the methods listed on our contact page.