Excel Software's (www.excelsoftware.com) AppProtect, protection software for Mac OS X and Windows, has been revved to version 4.0, which has been enhanced for Mac OS X Yosemite.

It applies protection with a human controlled or automated online activation process to a compiled application in minutes without programming, according to the folks at Excel. It supports MAX MSP 5, 6 or 7 music applications or Unity games. AppProtect works with OfficeProtect to generate a protected application from an Excel spreadsheet.

AppProtect wraps a Mac or Windows application with an activation process that requires a computer unique password or Serial Number on first launch.  The software vendor can generate passwords from AppProtect or automate the process with an online activation server.  Excel Software offers vendor accounts on the Safe Activation service.  A vendor can self-host an activation server on their website with Desktop License Server or WebActivation.

In addition to manual or online software activation, AppProtect 4.0 can generate dongle enabled applications.  Desktop applications can require that a USB dongle be present in the computer to run.  Developers can create their own USB dongles with MakeDongle.

AppProtect has the ability to embed static data files into the executable with performance enhancements to support applications up to 1GB in size with a faster launch time.  For an application constructed from an interpreted language or that requires external data files, the unprotected files are no longer visible to the user.  This process protects the source code, allows a secure license to be applied and simplifies the user experience since the entire application is distributed as one file.

AppProtect on Mac or Windows supplements the standard protection available to all applications with additional, optional layers of protection. Each protection layer works independently so the developer can customize the protection for a specific application.

AppProtect can be used to protect a standard Mac OS X application (.app), Windows executable (.exe) or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (.xlsm).  A single user license is US$295 on either Mac OS X (10.7 or later) Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1) or Mac OS X 10.7 or later.  The product includes royalty-free distribution rights for any number of protected products or licenses.  AppProtect includes a printed or PDF User Guide and popup help screens that allow anyone to protect and license an application without programming skills.