Ebook Content Protection

Applies to HTML Viewer, IE Browser publications.

Some people can leak your ebook / publication pages by using screen grabbers and other screenshot utilities. HTML Executable provides you with some content security features: you can use the Windows built-in content protection feature in your ebooks that will stop screenshot utilities and also create a blacklist of software programs that are not allowed to run.

Enable Publication Content Protection

To prevent screen captures, ebooks made with HTML Executable can use the window content protection feature available in Windows. This feature enables applications to protect their own onscreen window content from being captured or copied through screenshot utilities.

The feature is only available on Windows 7 (Desktop Window Manager and desktop composition must be enabled: see this link for instructions about enabling it for instance) and later.

The “Enable Publication Content Protection” option turns the protection on: if someone tries to take a screenshot or capture the screen with a video recorder software, the window will become black:

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This feature is not compatible with Java applets or built-in Adobe Reader ActiveX control.

If Content Protection cannot be activated, show an error message and exit publication

Since the Content Protection feature works on Windows 7 and later only, it will be ineffective on Windows XP and Vista. If you don’t want your publication to run without Content Protection, enable the option.

An error message will be displayed if Content Protection fails: “Unable to activate screen copy-protection”. You can customize the message thanks to the resource string named SErrorCopyProtectFailed.

The ebook then exits.

Forbid software programs / blacklist

You can make your publication stop if some software programs are detected (for instance, screen capture utilities, screen recorders, screen grabbers, file monitoring software…).

You manage the blacklist of forbidden software programs: if one software program listed is detected at runtime, the ebook / publication will display an error message and quit. You can configure regular checks: in that case, the list will be checked every X seconds.

The blacklist accepts either process names or specific words that will be scanned in all window titles.

  • To add a software program, click Add: you are prompted to choose between process name or word/text in window title. You also provide the text to detect (case insensitive). For instance, to detect a software whose EXE filename is screencorder.exe, choose process name and enter screencorder.exe.

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  • You can import and export the list from/to XML files thanks to XML Tools.

  • When you start a project, the list is filled with default values retrieved from the file named defforbidprog.xml available in the same installation folder as HTML Executable. You can customize the default values by exporting your current list to the defforbidprog.xml file (administrative rights may be required).

  • To empty the list, click Clear.

  • To reset the list with default values from the defforbidprog.xml file, click Reset with default list.

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