IonCube Loader is a tool, that's needed to run files which are protected with ionCube PHP Encoder. The latter is an application that is used to make PHP code human unreadable, to protect it from reverse engineering and unauthorized usage. A large number of script-driven applications, in particular forums, content management systems and e-commerce solutions are encrypted with ionCube PHP Encoder, so when you obtain a script and you find that ionCube is among the website hosting environment prerequisites, you need to make sure that your website hosting server has the tool pre-installed. While it is not that hard to install it if you have your own server, it is almost impossible to do that on a shared web hosting server due to the fact that the PHP environment will have to be precompiled and all clients on the server shall be affected.
IonCube in Shared Hosting
IonCube Loader is supplied with each and every Linux shared hosting that we supply and you can enable it anytime with just a few clicks, so you will be able to take advantage of script apps that require it. You're able to do this from the PHP Configuration area of your Hepsia Control Panel and all it takes to enable or deactivate ionCube is to click a button. The change takes effect in a minute, which means that you'll be able to proceed and install the application that you need right away. The same section allows you to change the PHP release which is active for your account, as we support numerous versions on our advanced cloud platform. In case you switch to a version that you've never used so far, you'll have to activate ionCube Loader again. More advanced users will be able to use a php.ini file in a specific domain folder so as to set a PHP release different from the one for the whole account or enable/disable ionCube Loader.
IonCube in Semi-dedicated Servers
Because all semi-dedicated server accounts are set up on our advanced cluster platform and ionCube Loader is available on it, you'll be able to use any script app that needs this software tool to work effectively. With a couple of clicks in the Hepsia hosting Control Panel you'll be able to activate or deactivate ionCube for the PHP version that is currently active for the account. Since we support multiple releases of PHP concurrently, you will need to do this any time you switch to a new release, but when you revert back to a version that you've already used, our system will remember your preference and ionCube Loader will already be activated. In case you have multiple sites inside the same account and they need different releases of PHP, you are able to set up a php.ini file in each domain folder and with several lines of program code you will be able to define both the PHP version and the status of ionCube irrespective of what is selected for the website hosting account as a whole.