FakeDate vs. the Rest

Why another date cracker?

At the time we created FakeDate, there were already several date crackers floating around. All of them were written with the best of intentions, and this is the best thing you can say about them ;-) . They did nothing but set the date to a hard coded value, start the specified application, wait about 5 seconds, reset the date and quit. This method actually works in most, but by far not in all cases. Moreover, it has some annoying disadvantages.

Special cases

• Some programs don't check the date only when they're started, but also at arbitrary points of program execution, e.g. when they update something in a database.
• As said before, there might be a program running that sets the clock periodically, e.g. via the Internet. In this scenario, it's not enough to fake the date once - you have to fake it again and again, until the application quits.
• The hard-coded waiting interval may be too short when programs take a long time to load, for example because they are started from a network or use a CD-ROM drive.
• We've seen applications that call other applications which also check the date, and pass parameters to them. No chance here with the existing date crackers...

So, what now?

FakeDate takes a different approach, which is still fairly simple, but handles all of the above-mentioned cases. Read the FakeDate tutorial for more details.

Comparison