Firewalls preventing product activation

I'm looking to implement a basic product activation scheme such that when the program is launched it will contact our server via http to complete the activation. I'm wondering if it is a big problem (especially with bigger companies or educational organizations) that firewalls will block the 开发者_高级运维outgoing http request and prevent activation. Any idea how big as issue this may be?

In my experience when HTTP traffic is blocked by a hardware firewall then there is more often than not a proxy server which is used to browse the internet. Therefore it is good practice to allow the user to enter proxy and authentication details.

The amount of times I have seen applications fail due to not using a corporate proxy server and therefore being blocked by the firewall astonishes me.

there are personal software solutions to purposely block outgoing connections. Check out little snitch. This program can set up rules that explicitly block your computer from making connections to certain domains, IP's and / or Ports. A common use for this program is to stop one's computer from "phoning home" to an activation server.

I can't tell you how prevalent this will be, sorry. But I can give you one data point.

In this company Internet access is granted on an as needed basis. There is one product I have had to support which is wonderful for its purpose and reasonably priced, but I will never approve its purchase again - the licensing is too much of a hassle to be worth it.

I'd say that it may not be common, but if any one of your customers is a business it's likely that you will encounter someone who tryes to run your software behind a restricted internet connection or a proxy. Your software will need to handle this situation, otherwise you will ahve a pissed off customer who cannot use your product, and you will lose the sale for sure.

If you are looking for a third party tool, I've used InstallKey (www.lomacons.com) for product activations. This thing has functionaility that allows for validating with and without an internet connection.