Hey, lookit!

Keygens are little programs that help you figure out your registration key for commercial software, based on your name. When you bought the software, the seller took your name and distinctly scrambled it into a code; in order to prove to your copy of the software that you’ve paid, you enter your name exactly as you first entered it and the registration code (key) associated with your name. It scrambles your name in the same way, and if the two scrambled names match, it agrees that you’re a legitimate user.

Keygens take just the “scramble your name in the same way” part of the software and embed it in a little interface that lets you look up your code without contacting the seller again. Usually they contain a bit of cheerful bleepy-bloopy music, and I enjoy listening to that sort of thing.

There are apparently scurrilous rascals who use keygens to “prove” that they paid for commercial software even when they haven’t. (I am shocked — shocked! — to learn that there is unauthorized copying on the internet.) Because of these lowlifes, keygens are sometimes characterized as tools for defeating copy protection, and so just downloading the keygen utility itself to listen to the music could be illegal in some places.

What KeygenJukebox brilliantly does is present all of this marvelous music for your enjoyment without giving you the ability to look up your registration code. Share and enjoy!

Just listened to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago and my opinion is “meh”. Tumblrnauts, you may now start foaming at the mouth.