Is using an obfuscator enough to secure my JavaScript code?

Question

I\'m working on building a development tool that is written in JavaScript.

This will not be an open source project and will be sold (hopefully) as a commercial produ

Answer 1

code obfuscator is enough for something that needs minimal protection, but I think it will definitely not enough to really protect you. if you are patient you can realy de-mangle the whole thing.. and i'm sure there are programs to do it for you.

That being said, you can't stop anyone from pirating your stuff because they'll eventually will break any kind of protection you create anyway. and it is espcially easy in scripted language where the code is not compiled.

If you are using some other language, maybe java or .NET, You can try doing things like "calling home" to verify that a license number matches a given url. Which works if you your app is some sort of online app that is going to be connected online all the time. But having access to the source, people can easily bypass that part.

In short, javascript is a poor choice for what you are doing.
A step up from what you are doing is maybe using a webservice backend to get your data. Let the webservice handle the authentication/verification process. Requires a bit of work to make sure it is bulletproof, but it might work