Software cracking

thumb|Demonstration in support of "fildelning" (file sharing, including of warez), in [[Sweden in 2006.]]

A key generator, commonly abbreviated as keygen, is a computer program that generates a product key and/or serial number necessary for product activation of an application software. Keygens may be legitimately distributed by software manufacturers for licensing software in commercial environments where software has been licensed in bulk for an entire site or enterprise, or they may be developed and distributed illegitimately in circumstances of copyright infringement or software piracy.

modification of software, often to use it for free

credit sequence added to cracked software

A crackme is a small computer program designed to test a programmer's reverse engineering skills. Crackmes are made as a legal way to crack software, since no intellectual property is being infringed.

program that modifies computer game memory to allow cheating