Alcohol 120%
| Alcohol 120% / Alcohol 52%
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| Basic data
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| developer | Alcohol Soft |
| Current version | 2.1.0.20601 (July 4, 2019) |
| operating system | Windows from XP |
| category | CD / DVD emulation, burning program |
| License | proprietary ( shareware ) |
| www.alcohol-soft.com | |
Alcohol 120% is a CD / DVD emulator with burning function developed by Alcohol Soft. Alcohol 52% is a reduced version of this software that only contains the emulation functions, but no burning function. Both program variants are sold in a paid version with product support, for which a license must be purchased after a test period of 15 days. Exclusively for home users are both Alcohol 52% Alcohol 120% as well as in a free version ( Free Edition available).
Alcohol uses rootkit techniques to hide from copy protection programs.
criticism
Even with the official installation packages signed by the manufacturer, attempts are made to install the suspicious spyware software Smart File Advisor , which is permanently active in the background after setup, regularly reports a list of installed programs to an Internet server and opens the Windows dialog Open with ... , which is used to link a file type with an application, is replaced by a separate dialog. In the paid versions, the user must explicitly deselect the additional installation if he is not interested, but it is activated by default for every update installation regardless of the selection made. In the free versions, the additional software must also be installed and cannot be uninstalled directly via the Windows program management without also uninstalling the main software.
Skills
Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% can create images of CDs and DVDs , either in the in-house "Media Descriptor Image" format or in other known formats.
In addition, Alcohol can emulate up to 31 ( Free Edition : up to 6) virtual drives into which CD / DVD images can be integrated ( mount ), which may make burning to a blank CD / DVD unnecessary. Alcohol 120% can burn images to recordable CD / DVD blanks. It supports simultaneous burning on multiple burners. From version 1.9.8.7117 the program is also able to burn to Blu-ray Disc .
From version 1.9.7.6221 the so-called "Xtra Assistant" is integrated in Alcohol 120%. This function allows the user to use the program as a burning suite such as B. to use Nero . To do this, he opens the wizard and adds his files to the compilation in order to then create an image in MDS or ISO format.
From version 1.9.8.7117 a module called ACID , a modified version of the program YASU (Yet Another SecuRom Utility), is integrated in Alcohol 120% . This enables the user to hide the virtual SCSI drives and to bypass the "blacklisting" of some copy protection methods ( SecuROM and SafeDisc ). Current versions of ACID are only available to Alcohol Soft customers.
German sales versions
In Germany, Franzis-Verlag sells various department store versions of Alcohol 120%, which, however, cannot circumvent most of the software copy protection procedures used today in order to comply with German copyright law. The publisher uses its own names for these versions and, in contrast to the developer Alcohol Soft, does not offer free updates. For example, the program version 1.9.6.4719 was sold in Germany as “Alcohol 120% Classic Edition Vista”. While the retrofitting of the Blu-ray functions was made available as a free update (version 1.9.8.7117) for Alcohol Soft customers, this version is only available in Germany as a new full-price product called "Alcohol 120% 5.0 BluRay".
Franzis-Verlag also uses the designation Alcohol or variations of the Alcohol logo for some other programs that do not belong to the Alcohol Soft product range (e.g. Alcohol 120% Audio Converter , Alcohol 120% Music Recorder , Audio 180% ). The developer distances himself from some of these compilations and does not provide any product support.
Supported file types
- .mds, M edia D e S criptor (native image file format)
- .mdf, M edia D atagram F ile (own metainfo format)
- .bwt, blindread image file
- .b5t, .b6t BlindWrite V5 / V6 image file
- .ccd, CloneCD image
- .bin / .cue, binary image and cuesheet
- .iso, ISO images according to the ISO-9660 standard
- .isz, Compressed ISO image
- .cdi, DiskJuggler image file
- .pdi, Instant CD / DVD image file
- .nrg, Nero image file
Dealing with copy protection technologies
Alcohol 120% and, with restrictions, also Alcohol 52% are able to bypass certain copy protection procedures such as SecuROM or SafeDisc . Since programs with such capabilities may not be advertised or sold in Germany, only a function-reduced version adapted to German law is available in department stores there.
For legal reasons, the alcohol programs cannot create backup copies or virtual images of video DVDs whose content is encrypted with the Content Scramble System (CSS).
Supporting documents and comments
- ↑ Changelog Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52%
- ↑ An older version with support for Windows 95 and 98 (1.9.5.3105) is still available, but is no longer updated and only partially supported.
- ↑ Source of supply for the Free Edition of Alcohol 120% specified by the manufacturer
- ↑ Source of supply for the Free Edition of Alcohol 52% specified by the manufacturer
- ↑ Mark Russinovich : Using Rootkits to Defeat Digital Rights Management (English), February 6, 2006
- ↑ Malware scan of sfa.exe (Smart File Advisor)
- ↑ Note on Alcohol 120% Director's Cut in the official Alcohol Forum ( Memento from March 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive )