Should I be worried about obfuscating my .NET code? [closed]

Answer 1

I think to some extent we should ALL be worrying about our IP :)

Good question though as its something I am keen to know more about (I currently do not obfuscate).

Having had some discussions with my manager at work, he said he doesn't obfuscate, but does NGEN on install, apparantly that should be enough to stop Reflector working on your assemblies, but I have no idea if this is true and to what extent, so please don't take it as gospel :)

Good question :) +1

Answer 2

Obsfucation is limited in it's effectiveness, it might keep the casual guy away. The most effective obsfucation is making only the smallest amount of code available to the user. If you can, make your app run depend heavily on a fat server.

Answer 3

easy for me - if you need to protect intellectual property - obfuicate - if not dont.

Easy to do with the right tools.

Answer 4

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'd rather focus on putting out an awesome product, getting a good user base, and treating your customers right than worry about the minimal percentage of users concerned with stealing your code or looking at the source.

Answer 5

We don't use obfuscation for "non public" applications but we use it for public available applications. The obfuscated app contains plenty of highly sophisticated code which took us an exorbitant amount of time to write and that's the reason that let me think that obfuscation is a must - at least in that case.

Answer 6

Agree, most people who know how to code even a little bit do not need to steal your code!