The Future: Software on a Stick

Why isn’t more software sold on sticks these days?

F-Secure sent me their latest offeing, F-Secure Internet Security 2006, on a USB dongle. I don’t know if this how you buy it in stores but it makes a lot of sense. Why isn’t all software delivered like this, instead of on CD-Roms? Or is it and I’ve just missed it?

Advantages:

• Coolness: It would be much more fun to have a drawer full of colorful dongles than a boring sleeve-book of CDs. Handing freebies out at expos would be easier too.
• Piracy. I’m sure it would be crackable, but how about if the key were stored on the USB drive? You wouldn’t want to get into having to have the USB drive inserted in the computer for the program to run every time, but if it was possible for the key drive to leave its fingerprint on the computer this could perhaps be used as a way of making software harder to crack. I have no idea how this might be done.
• Portability. With the rise of USB drive-based applications via the likes of U3, wouldn’t it be great if you could take your Adobe Photoshop or whatever with you? Say you have to work on another computer, you just insert your USB drive and run all your favourites from there. No installation, no more serial numbers, no infraction of EULAs. This is the U3 idea, but so far that idea doesn’t seem to encompass bigger programs, nor does it embrace the idea of using both USB drive and computer in tandem. Say I’m using Photoshop on my desktop, with all my settings and plugins there, why couldn’t I tell the software ‘OK, now I’m hitting the road with my USB drive. Load all my recent stuff onto the drive along with any relevant serial numbers until I tell you otherwise.’
• Flexibility: You could run the software from the USB drive if you preferred, before actually installing it.

And just in case you haven’t seen it, check out this list of software that can be run off a stick.

Comments

[Everett]

Disadvantages:
-Unlike optical discs, flash drives are not dirt-cheap. (Yet?)