To Ceri:

I've managed to get back to my main email i.e. whiterabbit-uk@hotmail.co.uk, so use that to email me. but also as a back up send the same message to Whiterabbit-moonrising@hotmail.co.uk as I think someone is trying to hack my shorter email.

For the past several weeks if I try to access it in the afternoon, it nearly always says I've tried my password too many times and locks me out, even though I haven't been trying to log in. My password is nearly 80 Alphanumeric numbers & special characters, so whoever's been trying for a couple of months thankfully hasn't gained access. I think it's because of my Steam account, which has a lot of unredeemed games in my inventory that could be stolen if they gained access. I used to have thousands of pounds worth, but over the last year have managed to sell quite a few, but there's still a lot left that I'm sure scammers are trying to steal.

I also keep changing my password, in the hope that whoever it is, will give up.

:)

To Ceri:

I've been locked out of the above email after accepting the use a pin instead of my password. The following day I tried to access my email but couldn't remember the 7 number pin. However, I can access my other email Whiterabbit-moonrising@hotmail.co.uk via a second computer. I think the pin is just tied to the computer I was using at the time. email me on the Whiterabbit-moonrising email

;)

Stephens email: Whiterabbit-uk@hotmail.co.uk

Just revisited this page as I've been reinstalling a lot of my old arcade games. Sadly a lot of the links I posted over the last 18 years are no longer accessible and all of the images of game play have disappeared. Some I posted on Photobucket using a free account. Several years ago, Photobucket decided to reduce the number of images you could upload for free. I'd created several Photobucket accounts as I was always posting images over on the giveaway site and here in the forums. When they reduced the number of images you could upload for free, they locked all my accounts and said if I wanted to see them again, I would have to pay a monthly fee.

I may over time update this post as I think it's an important resource.

Finally, you mat find many of these games over on MyAbandonware HERE

Babble Deluxe and Crossword Writer are both fantastic games that offer hours of fun. Great choices for anyone looking to challenge their mind and enjoy some quality downtime during the weekdays. Enjoy the games!

Action Ball

Great News, one of my all time favorite 3D breakouts Action Ball is finally being released on steam sometime in March this year. The developer released the sequel Actionball 2 back in 2020 and in one of the discussions posted a comment saying that if 100 community members liked the comment, he would release the firs tone. Well, it never got to 100 I think it stands at 64 votes), but he's still releasing it, Yeah!

Chak's Temple

Also, available free is another excellent and unusual breakout called Chak's Temple. The developer made this freeware over a decade ago, yet I still see it being sold on some of the shareware sites. I know it was made freeware because I was in touch with the developer at the time.

I've checked several download sites, but most of the files I downloaded were suspect with up to 20 malware hits. The only site I downloaded a copy that was totally free from malware hits was from My Real Games HERE; I checked it against Virus Total and it was given a clean bill of health. You can see the result of the scan HERE

I've not yet had the pleasure of downloading and installing any games from My Real Games; so cannot say what sort of system they use; suffice it to say that all the free game sites I know of that stock games permanantly or for extended periods all have an advert based giveaway so that they can pay the developers for allowing them to give them away.

It was originally given away HERE way back in April 2007, where it received a positive 88% from 269 votes with 64 comments.

I've started to update some of the comments, adding new links and later images of the games I've mentioned. So far I'm still working on the first comment, which has a lot of different games mentioned. Some of the links are broken, so I will be searching for suitable working links. I've also started to add links to security scans for the games I've links to downloads.

Just an update and trying to consolidate any threads that contain breakout related information.

The link to download custom made levels within the game Ricochet Infinity was closed down a few years ago. It was possible back then to add thousands of fan made levels directly from in game.

Thankfully I found a site created by fans of the game that has managed to save most of the best level sets; and are available to download and manually add to your installed version of the game.

You can find the thread called Ricochet infinity downloadable Level Sets - STILL AVAILABLE as of Nov 2019 HERE

It seems the game is no longer available via Amazon, but you can get it from one of the decent abandonware sites. I've linked to those in the thread above. i.e. HERE

Last year Steam released Action Ball 2 a decade plus old breakout on Steam. I posted a review of the game because it is one of the best 3D breakouts I've ever played and is still among my top ten breakout games I've ever played. If the comments section of the review I've posted updated links to several (originally commercial but now free) breakouts that are definitely worth checking out.

You can find the review HERE

Both the links for the games above have been dead for a long time, but I've found alternatives:

Crossword Writer

Babel this is a Zylom game which you can either play online or download. The only site I could find that still runs Babel Deluxe for free is HERE, however, to play it you have to install iWins game manager to play it.

B.T.W, both Ionball 3 and Energy Invasion have since been released on Steam since I posted about them previously.

Other breakouts that may be worth buying if you are really into breakouts are the 3D breakouts Grey Cubes (only £0.79/$0.99) and
Breakout Invaders (£2.79)

I've been revisiting some of my old breakouts recently, and have even contacted a few of the developers asking if there is anything in the works. for example, Caromble is still in early access despite being four years old now. I originally gave this a thumbs down in my Steam review becasue I felt there was issues with the bat being too sluggish (resulting in lots of lost balls, plus the ball physics was way off IMO. Well I'm happy to report that after a recent play through I can say both of those issues have been sorted by the small development team, who I believe work together most Friday evenings on fixing bugs and adding more content to the game. I must say I'm actually really impressed with what they have achieved and would highly recommend the game.

Sadly, two of the decent breakouts that were available on Steam have since been removed for various reasons. The first was Ricochet Infinity, which I still consider one of the best breakouts ever made due in part to loads of original power ups, a massive variety of brick types and a decent level editor as well as lots of ball types and bats, each with its own peculiarity and the availability of literally tens of thousands of free levels (via level sets ranging from a few levels to over a hundred) directly from in game. Amazon purchased the license from Reflexive Arcade several years ago and kept the upload site open until earlier this year. Those custom levels are no longer available because Amazon shut the site down. They have also removed the game from sale for now. You can still buy it via sites like Big Fish games,(HERE) but the game has been cut in half because of the inability to access all of those levels. If you can find anyone who downloaded them previously and still has the game installed, it is possible to add them to your game as you literally just drop them into a level folder. I actually have some, but not all. I downloaded several thousand levels years ago before Infinity was released and all of those levels from previous versions of Ricochet still work with infinity, though they are not as exciting and varied as the Infinity levels as there were many more brick types and backgrounds available for infinity. I'm sure someone somewhere will have uploaded some of those level sets, trouble is finding them.

Another excellent breakout that has been removed was Reaxxion, that had a brilliant bat mechanic, which enabled you to create balls from the bat and then rebuild the bat by collecting drops of mercury that were dropped from the bricks you'd destroyed. Other original ideas in that game such as collecting some of the balls which then were converted into a special more powerful power up made it a must buy for any breakout fan. That is also still available from the big name distributors such as Big Fish (HERE).

The only other 'really' decent breakouts available on Steam are Shatter and Ionball 2: Ionstorm, though
Ionball 3 that was released last year looks decent, but I've curtailed my spending on games significantly over the last couple of years (after spending over £40 000 on games since joining Steam in 2009) so haven't had chance to play it yet. It sort of reminds me of Luxor Evolved the ball popping and last in the series of the Luxor match three game with respect to its neon like graphics.

Just bringing this back to the front page as we have just been given a Shmup (Sat 1st sept 2018. :)

The following are some breakouts released on Steam over the last few years. There are more, which I'll add as and when I find them.

Simple Ball Extended Edition
Breakout invaders
Magical Brickout
Pingball VR
Ze VR
Ark Box Unlimited
Grey Cubes
Mondrian - Abstraction in Beauty
Evil Orbs
Caromble!
Brick Breaker
NANOS
Ball of Wonder
VReakout
Block Blowout
Constricting Cubes
Ionball 2: Ionstorm
Ready, Aim, Splat! (VR)
DeathMetal
Kuraburo Kai
HoloBall

Not released yet:
Energy Invasion
Ionball 3

:)

Thank you, WhiteRabbit.

Here's more Shmups and similar games to find on Steam. most are decently priced. With the changes made to the giveaway site, to get to the correct Steam page you will need to copy paste the links I've provided. Hyperlinks no longer work properly. some security measure I think.

Gal-x-e http://store.steampowered.com/app/473510/ £1.59

Lew Pulsipher's Doomstar
http://store.steampowered.com/app/504750/ £6.99

............................................................................................................[/size]
Zenodyne R http://store.steampowered.com/app/466820/ £6.99
[center]

RX Squad http://store.steampowered.com/app/494120 £1.59

Galactic Fighters http://store.steampowered.com/app/513960/ £0.79

Bitmaster (itch.io) https://comigo.itch.io/bitmaster $0.99

Solar Shifter EX - http://store.steampowered.com/app/363940/ - £5.99

Starship Command (Itch.io) - https://evglabs.itch.io/starshipcommand $5 or more

Starship Corporation - http://store.steampowered.com/app/292330/ - £14.99

Star Drifter - http://store.steampowered.com/app/485330/ - £0.79

Super Space Pug - http://store.steampowered.com/app/466840/ - £0.79

Stardust Galaxy Warriors: Stellar Climax - http://store.steampowered.com/app/389650/ - £6.99

Space Codex - http://store.steampowered.com/app/469890/ - £079 (£0.39 till Oct 3rd 16)

Star Chronicles: Delta Quadrant - http://store.steampowered.com/app/383330/ - £0.79

Space Pirates and Zombies 2 has just gone on sale for the next 48hrs on steam. You can find the deal HERE.

The game is still in early access, so what you see in the following videos HERE, HERE and HERE, is not the final game. I have not checked through all of the content of each video so cannot guarantee any inappropriate language that I may have missed.

In SPAZ 2 you must survive in an evolving post apocalyptic Galaxy. The zombie threat is defeated, infrastructure has collapsed, fuel is scarce, and scavenging means survival.

Initially the Galaxy contains hundreds of fleets, each trying to survive. AI captains do everything the player can. The player is not special and is not the center of the Galaxy.

As resource scarcity becomes critical, ships come into conflict just to survive. Factions may form for protection or split due to starvation. Old friends must become fodder.

Stronger factions establish and defend territories, set up resource hubs, and establish star bases. Weaker factions may resort to banditry. Each captain is unique, persistent, and shapes the Galaxy.

When factions meet, combat is usually the result. While the strategic side of SPAZ 2 is about exploration, territorial control, and faction building, the action side of SPAZ 2 is about ship construction, tactics, and salvage.

Combat creates damaged ships and dead crew, but it also provides new salvaged parts. All the parts in SPAZ 2 are modular and randomly generated. If you see something you like, break it off an enemy, grab it with your tractor beam, and connect it to your ship. Ship construction can be done live during battles, though sometimes beating an enemy to death with their broken wing is also fun.

Back on the star map, battles will attract other captains looking for salvage. Take your new parts and run. Upgrade, repair, and prepare to fight another day, for darker threats are about to emerge.

Key Features:

1) ... Two hundred persistent Captains that are able to do everything the player can, including forming dynamic factions, building structures, controlling territory, and going to War.
2) ... A true living galaxy that is not player centric. It will develop differently each game through the interactions of the agents.
3) ... Build your own faction from nothing.
4) ... Randomly generated modular parts. Build the mothership that suits your play style, on the fly, in seconds. Every part has its own unique stats that contribute to the mothership. Every part has its own hull integrity and damage states. Every part is a real, working, ship component.
5) ... Strategic ship building. The mass, location and shape of parts all matter. If a part blocks a turret, it will not fire. If a ship is too long, it will turn slowly. Too many engines will mean too little power for weapons. Every design choice counts.
6) ... A fully physics based 3d environment where everything is destructible, takes damage from impacts, can be grabbed and even thrown at enemies with the tractor beam.
7) ... Natural movement and controls. Movement is on a 2d plane and screen relative, much like an FPS. The combat feels like huge pirate ships battling on an ocean. Focus on tactical positioning and manage system power to unleash hell at the right moment.
8) ... Epic ship to ship battles. Tear the enemy apart piece by piece over minutes, instead of seconds.

You can actually get The Renegades of Orion 2.0 via the Otakumaker Bundle 17 at the moment, which is available HERE till 26th October next month. Also included in the bundle are five other games:

Pills4Skills
The Grandfather
The Lady
Volstead
Alien Run

The total cost of the bundle is less than the cost of The Renegades of Orion 2.0 at only $1.49 whereas on Steam the game is $1.99 pl;us you get the other games. If you are into giving games as presents to friends and family, Otakumaker have some very generous offers. You can get two keys for each game for an additional $0.50 and 5 keys for an additional $1.50 and 10 keys for each game for an additional $3.50.

I'll be giving away a lot of games once the review site that Whizzy (giveaway name) Mavadelo (Steam name) has created for me is ready. So such deals are perfect for me. I've already been purchasing bundles from this site, but only recently started to get 5 or 10 bundles. I have over 10 000 spare Steam keys, so it's going to take a long time to give them away. :)

Renegades of Orion 2.0

You can check out Renegades of Orion 2.0 via the Steam store by copy and pasting the following link into your browser. Clicking on hyperlinks now only take you to the home page even though the address is correct for the games page:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/434780/

A long time ago in another dimension called the astral plane, began a great battle. The battle was between Forces of Light against Renegades of Orion.

The Black Magicians and Reptile Creatures. They fight to be the kingdom of Earth. During this battle there was a transfer of consciousness of a fighter who had the most power of cosmic light. He's called Shen!

With intention to join the troops of Orion and to fight the renegades. Take the divine crystal to raise its power. If you falter the devil catches you!

In the new version The Renegades of Orion 2.0, Now there is a crystal (Divine crystal) which guarantees more power. He appears randomly.

There are more demons, some totally take your power. Other makes you go back to the beginning of the stage or even before that.

The dynamics to remain free of these demons and gain power through the crystal to make sure you skip the level.

"Another good detail of the game! Enemies and obstacles (except bosses) always arise from random and unpredictable in every time you play."

Here are some more Shmups and other related shooters that are on sale over on Steam until the 3rd October. I'll be leaving these up even when the sales end as they are related to this post. I may consolidate the whole thread once I've added the shmups released over the last several years. At least those available on PC.

For some reason, linking directly to the Steam page from these forums no longer works, so I've had to remove the codes that allowed you to click on the name of the game. instead I've had to post the direct links, but clicking on these will only take you to the sales page and not the actual game. To do that you will have to copy and paste each link into your browser to see the Steam page. The giveaway site have added something to the forums that won't allow direct links, but only to the home page.

I will see if I can find an alternative method when I have time.

Shmup Love Boom - 70% off £0.59
http://store.steampowered.com/app/387110/

Renegades of Orion 2.0 - £1.59
http://store.steampowered.com/app/434780/

Void - £3.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/503710/

1917 - The Alien Invasion - £3.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/470060/

War Birds: WW2 Air strike 1942 - £1.39 (50% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/451670

Bladestar - £2.44 (65% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/424760/

Infinity Wings - Scout & Grunt - £0.99 (50% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/448790/

Freespace 2 - £3.49 (50% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/273620

Uriel's Chasm 2: את - £0.99 (75% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/414580

Zotrix - £2.49 (75% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/343280/

Zotrix - Solar Division - £6.99 (Tower Defense in space)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/351720/

CDF Starfighter VR - £8.49 (15% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/433190/

Naval War: Arctic Circle - £3.74 (75% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/200050/

Fair Strike - £0.69 (75% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/352120/

Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War - £3.35 (30% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/273600/

Space Codex - £0.39 (51% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/469890/

LUFTRAUSERS - £1.74 (75% off till 3rd Oct)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/233150/

Hi Delenn, yeah, sadly Scubaguy passed away some years ago (not sure if you knew), though I don't know what happened to Lockett or Webmaster?

I so miss Lockett, webmaster and, especially, Scubaguy. ;(

P.S. See, StrayCat, it worked. Thanks!

It's about time I started to update this thread; especially considering Shmups are still one of my favorite arcade genres.

Just found the following bundle called Fall Gamebundle, that includes 3 space based games two of them shmups and one strategy game. They are Battlestorm, The Fleets of Sol and Astrokill. You can pick all three up for a little over $3.50. I've added a few more space oriented games to the Shmups thread, all from bundles that are live at this time.I've only checked the indie Gala and Game Bundle sites so far. There are at least 60 bundles live at the moment. most bundles retails for much less than $5, so you may find some excellent shmups if you check through the indie bundles that I've linked to in the Weekly round up of games thread over in the Game discussion sticky section. The three space games are worth more than that the cost of the whole bundle alone, in fact, the cheapest of those three games Battlestorm costs more if you buy it directly from Steam. All games come with Steam keys. You can find the deal HERE.

The following are several other space oriented games you'll find in one of the several Indie Gala bundles that are available at this time. You'll find Indie Gala
Idie Gala Prime Bundle includes Nightork Adventures - Beyond the Moons of Shadalee - Pilot your spaceship through procedurally generated dungeons Fight against evil demons, to save the galaxy in 30 missions, or IACTURA - It is your job to save the planet from its decay. Only you can prevent an extraterrestrial species from taking over all of humankind. G Prime - a gravity gripping steampunk slingshot simulator. Space Ranger ASK - a classic arcade shoot'em up game, featuring asteroid blasting, spacemen rescues, UFO destruction, asteroid mining and Boss fights! Two excellent real time space battles waged with waves of fighters and massive battleships are available in the form of Haegemonia: Legions of Iron and it's stand-alone expansion Haegemonia: The Solon Heritage are available via the Anuman Interactive bundle and you'll find even more space oriented games in the The Indie Gala Mogul bundle for example RX Squad a side scrolling smup (ground based). You can find the Indie Gala bundles HERE

There's another bundle on the Game bundle site that is soon to end called The LaborDay Bundle that also has a decent Shmup called Nordenfelt, which you can find HERE and see on Steam HERE. The usual cost of that game is £5.99/$8.99 but you can get it and nine other games for $3.73 (approx £2.88)

AStrokill

Battlestorm

Fleets of Sol

Haegemonia: Legions of Iron

Haegemonia: The Solon Heritage

bringing this to the front page due to a brreakout being given away on sunday 21st august 2016

Well, it is true that you should give games of all kind a try, regardless of whether you are an expert payer or not. I think it’s simply about trying new things, especially when they’re available for free.

Just updating this thread. The suffering link provided above actually goes to the front page of the web site. as it was 5 years ago, it's now buried , so I searched and found the appropriate page, which can be accessed HERE.

Area 51 can be found HERE

Exmortis has been mentioned earlier on in the thread (on page #2).
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/3903/page/2#post-46828
The prequel and the sequel are also online.

Exmortis (3 Episodes)

Description: A browser game with a horror theme which enfolds in a post-apocalyptic setting.
Note: The game is not suitable for kids.

Exmortis , Browser Game:
http://www.fizzy.com/games/exmortis

Exmortis 2 , Browser Game:
http://www.fizzy.com/games/exmortis_2

Exmortis 3 , Game Demo & Commercial Version (92 Mb):
http://www.fizzy.com/games/exmortis_3

King's Island (4 Episodes)

Description: A browser point-&-click Action-RPG.

King's Island.
http://www.ageofgames.net/en/games/kings-island-series/kings-island-1.html

King's Island 2:
http://www.ageofgames.net/en/games/kings-island-series/kings-island-2.html

King's Island 3:
http://www.ageofgames.net/en/games/kings-island-series/kings-island-3.html

King's Island - Kaptivo's Rage:
http://www.ageofgames.net/en/games/kings-island-series/ki-1-kaptivos-rage.html

-----
[Resources Accessed: July 2013].

Thanks so much for the explanation. I guess that the bottom line is its better to know what you're doing but for people like me, some tricks can come in handy. And I guess the longer you take to uninstall, the more likely it is that things will get left behind or that you'll have problems.

"Wasn't it for this kind of situation that the GoTD from April 24 was offered?
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/soft-organizer-3-04/#more-39400
I don't understand computer things but when I install things now, it shows a registry tree and claims to uninstall all of it. The comments also suggest at least one other "monitored installation" programs. I've wondered if you've compared them to your system of monitoring, Mikiem. "

Sorry to take so long...
Unless you run a fully portable app, there's no easy way to reverse all the changes that are made to Windows -- the 2 exceptions are using virtualization apps like TimeFreeze, or restoring the disk partition. I say *fully* portable because many apps that call themselves portable only mean that they'll run without 1st running an install routine -- they'll still cause new registry entries &/or changes, & they might create or change files/folders. Sometimes those additions &/or changes are really pretty minor, and other times they're not.

By monitoring software in a way that doesn't permanently effect your Windows install, e.g. using TimeFreeze or similar, using a VM, restoring a backup afterwards etc., you can get a look to see how many changes you can expect -- it's also useful if you're making an app portable, want to bypass the installer routine, or as a soft of guide you can use to make sure most of the app you monitored has been removed after later uninstalling it. When it comes to fully removing an app though, if there are too many changes to easily undo, having them all listed doesn't do you much good, if any...

If for example you monitored the install of AVIToolbox [a giveaway on another site], you'd see that the app itself creates 2 registry keys with just a few entries, an add-on creates a single key with most of the new, ~2.3k entries, & the rest are made up of Windows' stuff you can ignore, like Most Recently Used listings. In that case getting rid of the add-on key reverses maybe 90% of the registry impact. Better yet, just running the app without installation would probably generate the single key the app needs to run. Kingsoft Ofc OTOH adds almost 30k new registry entries spread across a good many keys. Those with Kingsoft in the key name are easy to get rid of, likely only belonging to & used by the app itself. The remaining keys are a far different story -- some would have to revert to their state before you added Kingsoft Ofc, if it's been a while since installation many would have to be verified [they may no longer refer to Kingsoft Ofc at all], and most all of them would have to be read through in your logs to decide how to handle them. Few people, if anyone is going to read through a text file listing 30k entries. You could try a Find & Replace in Notepad to simply add a "-" to delete the keys, but that would do nothing to put things back the way they were, & wouldn't account for any software you added after installing Kingsoft Ofc that uses those keys. The result might or might not have unintended consequences, assuming it worked.

An uninstall app like Soft Organizer might then be a better choice to remove Kingsoft Ofc, provided you had it monitor the original install. The monitoring apps I use, InstallWatch Pro & a few versions of Regshot, all give you an easy way to save the records & results but nothing else -- Soft Organizer will make the decisions for you, removing the registry keys & values along with Files & folders its internal rules say are safe to remove. It'll probably remove more than the Kingsoft Ofc uninstall that's built into the app, but it won't remove everything, because its rules error on the side of caution, & it may get something wrong, because those rules can't account for every possibility.

It gets iffy partly because it's the nature of Windows to share stuff with all your installed software, for example rather than each app knowing how to print, each individual program just tells Windows: "Print this", & it does. Installing software often includes files that *can* be shared with Windows & your other software, but uninstall software can't actually know whether any other software also uses those files or not, so it leaves them alone just in case. Windows itself also adds files &/or registry entries when you install & run a program or game, & uninstall apps leave those alone. Windows may limit you to a single component that does a particular job, so installing software can replace something, but not add it along side of what's already there. In that case *reversing* an install would mean reactivating that file or component Windows used to use, but that's not something uninstall software can know about, so either the new component is left in place, or it's removed & nothing is set to do that job.

Long story short, the best approach I think is a proactive one, more carefully weighing the proposed benefits & realizing there's some cost before deciding to add whatever app, because most often there's no way to completely reverse every change. It may be hard to resist temptation, but for me it's easier than trying to lose the 30 lb.s I put on because I didn't say no to those 2nd helpings of desert -- software's kinda the same way, much easier to add than get rid of.

I'm going to pass on KingSoft Office Suite because this version won't fully function after my subscription expires. I'm not going to waste my time creating documents that won't be usable if I don't pay for a subscription. I'm not opposed to subscription software as long as it's reasonably priced and it provides reliability and functionality that I can't get elsewhere for a lower price. I currently have yearly subscriptions to RoboForm and IObit's Advanced System Care. Roboform is $9.95 per year for all your devices and Advanced System Care is $14.95 per year for 3 PCs.

I wish that all software companies would offer reasonably priced non-commercial household subscriptions that allow household members to install and use the software on all of their supported devices. The software could be protected by associating it with the MAC address of the household's LAN and the CPU IDs of the devices on which the software is installed. Use of the software outside of the LAN could be allowed for a reasonable number of portable devices such as cell phones, tablets and laptops that have been properly registered while connected to the household LAN.