Matterdor

It's not that simple. Professional tools like Affinity won't work reliably as cloud software. That doesn't mean that they can't add cloud features such as AI that require a subscription or even convert the software to subscription only (e.g. the recent VMWare changes). If Canva want to move into a more professional market then they will need professional tools that run client side. The danger for the users is that .afpub, etc. are proprietary formats. Any work that they do embeds their processes more in Affinity for the future. If anything, people should be pushing for better import and export from formats like psd as that gives them options to migrate if things went south here. A user would be much happier to continue using Affinity if they knew that they wouldn't be stuck in the future. It would also make sense for Canva to pursue better import and export for the Adobe formats as that would give Adobe customers a migration path across to Affinity. As I said before, I am a casual user. I little while back I had an issue where my daughter needed to use Adobe for school. I was left with no option but to get a Adobe photo subscription because she couldn't share files between work and school reliably. She has finished that course so it's no longer an issue for me but it did shine a spotlight on the issue for me. PhotoPea did a better job of importing PSD files than Affinity photo which was very surprising.

I am by no means a power user. Completely the opposite. I am a software developer that likes to have some graphic and design tools to mess around with. I bought 4 license of all of the Affinity 1 Windows products for myself and the rest of my family and bought 4 Affinity 2 Universal licenses when it was released. We hardly use the software but I believe in the licensing model, and want to support the company because it's invaluable to have affordable competitors to companies like Abobe. I don't need the software and would leave in a heartbeat if the licensing model switched to subscription. With the amount of money that is being reported. It would take something like 30 years to pay off the purchase price. No venture capital company is going to allow that. I can only really see 2 paths forward: Canva purchased the company to use the IP inside of their existing systems. The risk here is that the Affinity Suite itself starts playing second fiddle. The revenue from the Affinity suite needs to increase significantly. That can either happen by changing the licensing model to a subscription one, increasing the price, or increasing the number of users. Or some combination of those. They could opt to do a combination of both of these. Neither a subscription option or a slow death of the products are very appealing to me. I hope I am wrong but right now I am not feeling too confident. Almost all venture capital companies are interested in terms like APE (Average Revenue per Employee) and ARR (Average Recurring Revenue) and subscriptions are what make those numbers tick.

If you need information on the TOTP standard defined in RFC 6238, the algorithms are widely available and I can provide you with additional information. It's only about 20 lines of code IIRC.

I purchased a number of licenses for my family members. I want to get them upgrades to V2 but would like to first move theses licenses across to an account for each of them so they can get the bonus upgrade stuff. Is this possible? Edit - I know that there isn't an official upgrade but there is some free stuff that V1 users get when buying a V2 license.

I just got bitten by this while testing and I am only a casual user. I have bought one V2 upgrade while I wait for the full installer. My wife has V1 on her computer. I fixed up a photo and sent the file to her and she can't open it. V1 version upgrades are a very different situation compared to V1 to V2. Anyone sharing files has to make sure they are all on the same version. With V1 and the generous upgrade model, that wasn't an issue because people could just tell the other person to upgrade to the latest version. Now that upgrade involves a payment.

You don't understand because everyone is different. For example, I have different drives and different folders on my system. I have all of my general utilities under D:\Tools and my development tools under D:\DevTools. I have general purpose software in C:\GeneralApps. This helps me with backups and management of the stuff that I work with. It's easy for me to configure the various applications when I need them to integrate with each other. It's the way that I am comfortable working and fits in my workflow and processes. Affinity is the first serious application that insists on being a Windows App. Can I work around it? Sure, and I have, but that's not the point. You aren't seeing something as a problem for you and are extrapolating that onto everyone else. Sure, it's possible to work around these issues but people shouldn't need to. For me, I really appreciate what Serif has done by providing a very good non-subscription alternative to Adobe. I also appreciate their extremely fair upgrade policy. I have no problem paying for an upgrade. I am going to get 1 license of V2 to support them and hold off on the other 3 until I see what happens with the installations.

There are much better options than that. Changing permissions on folder is not a great solution and it could effect upgrades.

I understand your desire to move to MSIX for the reasons you listed but would you consider a MSI under "advanced downloads" for people who want more control over their installations.

Using an EXE file would be a big risk even if the account was an old one with plenty of posts and a name. There is no guarantee that the person who build the EXE file didn't have a virus on their computer. Software from Serif is different because they have a build and signing process and we are already trusting that process by running their software.

That is the case with the V1 installations too. No reputable software developer should be releasing unsigned installations.

Thanks. This got me working in a way that I can test properly. Note, you don't need to run the original one for this to work.

As per the title. Will V2 always try verify the license on startup or is that only at the time of activation.

For anyone battling to get this working. You can find the real location of the exe file by starting Affinity Photo and then going to task manager. If you right click on "Affinity Photo" in the task manage and choose "Properties", a dialog window will pop up that gives the exe file location next to the "Location:" text. This should work with the other applications too. You may need permission to access this folder but in my case, it worked without any permission changes.

I really hope they reevaluate the choice of installer or at least provide an alternative installer for users. I would like to support Serif by buying the new version but this makes it really difficult to do.

Add me to the list of people not happy with this change. I have 4 licenses and was about to purchase the new version when I noticed this change. I have put my purchase on hold. I don't like the App Store system as I store my applications in different folders based on their purpose. Please give us a regular installation.