UPDATE: Get the LATEST FREE edition here.
We deeply regret to announce the discontinuation of CryptoPrevent’s free edition.
When CryptoPrevent first began in 2013, it was a unique and effective product aimed at stopping a new and unique threat, and as the years have passed the free edition has been invaluable not only to the protection of countless users, but also to the growth of the product and to this company as it spread by reputation, effectiveness, and at no cost for anyone to use.
As for the malicious software known as “ransomware” that necessitated the first versions of CryptoPrevent, the last 5 years have also seen massive increases in distribution and infection rates, with percentages climbing each year at enormous rates, such as the reported 6000% increase in 2016. To search for “ransomware” with the word “percentage” or other words like “increase” or “statistics” and you’ll see it has dominated more traditional forms of malicious infection.
Although there has been a cost for us, at one time this was absorbed by our premium edition (offering automatic updating and other added convenience features to the free protections.) In fact, sales of the premium edition also allowed growth in staff and resources, and this made providing support possible, as well as driving many improvements to the product that keep it worth your dollars today in a now saturated market.
For these reasons we continue to watch the free edition of CryptoPrevent grow, which still provides all protection features for free, and this increased usage has also greatly increased the resources required to offer the free edition. While we do wish that we could continue offering a free edition, we feel that at this time we should refocus our resources and efforts solely on paid product offerings.
What will happen to the free edition?
Existing copies of CryptoPrevent will continue to provide the current protections as expected, but will not update beyond version 9.1.0.0, the final update for the free edition. You will still be able to download this final version of the free edition from 3rd party download mirrors such as MajorGeeks.com or Softpedia.com, however we will no longer offer the download from our website.
An existing installation of the free edition can be updated to the latest version at any time (without losing your pre-configured settings) by purchasing a license.
What happens when a purchased CryptoPrevent license expires?
In the past CryptoPrevent reverted to the free edition after the expiration of a license term, which still allowed usage of the protection features but disabled automatic/scheduled updates as well as other non-protection and convenience features. With the free edition now discontinued, we do not want these systems left unprotected even for a minute, therefore CryptoPrevent will remain a fully active product after the expiration of the license term, although any support or updates will be discontinued.
To be clear, an expired product license will lose the ability to receive product and definition updates as expected, but all protections and features will remain fully functional after your license expires. This effectively makes CryptoPrevent a one-time purchase, with updates included throughout the purchased license/subscription term only (some software vendors will refer to this as an included “product maintenance” period.)
- Please note: When definition updates are disabled due to an expired license, you will no longer have the ability to enable or disable the Extended Hash Definitions option. The currently selected option when the subscription expires will remain in effect unless you re-subscribe to enable update functionality.
To restore update functionality and receive the current version of the software, with any newer features since your license expired, you can purchase a new license at any time.