program self-deactivation and protection with Qt

Hi,

I would like to give someone my software for testing and I don't want them to run away with it, so I'd like to protect it somehow. I'd like the program to become inactive after it has been run (used) for 5 times. I already know how to make the program to self-destruct, but I don't know how to make it count how many times it has been started. Does Qt have support for this kind of counting? This is usually done through cookies, I think, but cookies can be deleted. Is it possible to make the program itself count how many times it has been used? The other way to do it would be to check the date and delete the program on a certain day, but again, computer clock can be changed.

I'm thankful for any ideas you might have for protecting a software. What is the best method?

Thanks!

Cookies are for web pages and web browsers. But regardless, wherever you store the data, it can be deleted, or your program can be patched to ignore that data by pirates.

For example, you can open a file, read the counter, increment by one and write that value back. Other people can alter the value too, so you need to find a way around that.

Or you could just use a ready-made licensing solution.

Thanks!

So, it seems that Qt does not offer any special solutions for software protection?

Correct. If it did, there would most likely be a work around already and you'd find program such as "Unprotector for QtProtect protected applications" or such like.

The first task for a hacker is always "What protection system did they use?" and "Is there already an unprotector for that system?".