To the information - New! Move UAD Activations to Your Computer

[DAW-Miez]

for information - good news for all UAD users

I was very pleased to receive this e-mail,
with kind regards from Stefan.
-Thanks to UAD-

[Thor.HOG]

Does this require that after “converting” to UA Connect-based licensing that UA Connect must always be running to use the products? Meaning, once you’ve locally licensed them, can you load a UAD plugin into the DAW session WITHOUT UA Connect running?

I haven’t updated UA Connect yet and won’t until I find this out

EDIT: The real question is, “If you remove UA Connect AFTER you move the license to the local system, can you use the plugins, or does UA Connect replace the ‘PACE’ functionality, and is thus required to run the plugins?”

[DAW-Miez]

Hello @Thor.HOG ,
i still have “iLock Licence Manager” and “UA Connect” running, but I don’t need “USB iLock” anymore for my 3 computers and also without internet.
Kind regards, Stefan

[Thor.HOG]

Thanks. I’ll presume (based on UAD’s iterative steps towards more and more invasive marketing efforts) that UA Connect will have to be constantly running now. I’ll just hold off until some other requirement forces me to update UA Connect.

Thanks!

[DAW-Miez]

A small excerpt from the latest UAD Connect v 1.5.0.3163

[Thor.HOG]

Thanks, my question explicitly regards the functionality requirements when the new “local licensing” option is select, and if UA Connect is REQUIRED to be running in the same way PACE was REQUIRED to be running just to load the plug-in. I think the only way to find out is to try it, which I’ll do on my test rig first
Thanks again for taking the time to send that info over!

[alexis]

Hi, what is it about UA Connect you don’t like @Thor.HOG ?

[Thor.HOG]

It’s too invasive from a privacy perspective. Irrespective of what UAD may say on the web site, empirical analysis of traffic from the tool shows multiple, persistent connections to Mix Panel, NewRelic, Sentry.IO, and almost everything you do is logged to AWS logging components. I block the traffic, but I don’t like it. There’s no options for privacy, either.

Even without the “local licensing” feature, there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever that it needs to be loaded at all times. Yet, just adding a plug-in forces UA Connect to load and connect to all those 3rd party analytics sites. I simply don’t trust processes that force adoption for no technical, operational reason. I know there’s no operational requirement because I’ve moved UA Connect to a disk image and only launch it when I’m forced to update something. Everything runs perfectly without is, so that doesn’t leave many reasons remaining

[alexis]

Hey, thanks @Thor.HOG .

That UA Connect pops up everytime I boot up, I just say no I don’t want to start it and it seems to be quiet after that.

Maybe it’s still spying though, I dunno.

[MrSoundman]

I uninstall UA Connect immediately and only install again it if I need to update or activate one of their plugins. As I already have an iLok for other products I’ll just leave the licenses there for now.

[Thor.HOG]

@alexis

That UA Connect pops up everytime I boot up, I just say no I don’t want to start it and it seems to be quiet after that.

Yeah, what I find is that it’s quiet, but then you load a project with a UAD plugin, and then you see the silent “UA” appear in the menu strip tools.

I’m probably overreacting; it’s more “forced adoption” that I don’t like, particularly when I think it’s sketchy.