Licensing Clarification for Portable Use in a Small Business.

[antiman9]

Hello FreeFileSync team and community,
I’d like to begin by saying how much I appreciate FreeFileSync. I’ve been using it personally at home for quite some time, and I’ve donated to support its development because I truly value the software.

Separately from my personal use, I’d like to ask about potential business use. I work in a small repair shop with two technicians, and one of our regular tasks is backing up customer data before performing Windows re-installs. We are considering using FreeFileSync for this purpose, ideally from a portable live-USB rather than installing it on each customer’s machine.

In this scenario, FreeFileSync would only ever be operated by the two of us in the shop, no one else. Before making any decisions, I want to ensure that this setup would be compliant with your licensing terms. I understand the standard license is intended for single-machine use, so I’d like to ask whether portable use in this small business context is permitted, or if there is a specific license option that would apply.

If there isn’t a license option that currently covers this type of use, would there be an acceptable way for us to pay to use the software in our business? We want to make sure we’re fully compliant and supporting the project appropriately.

Thank you very much for your time and for providing such a reliable tool. I want to make sure that any business use is handled correctly and respectfully before going forward.

Best Reguards,
Alexander

[xCSxXenon]

Portable is only available in the Donation Edition. https://freefilesync.org/faq.php#editions

I would recommend you remove the storage drives and back up data via internal machines. Seems like more time, but implementing the use of OS images and deploying them locally on the internal machine makes up for it. Even if you don't, having a FFS config tailored to this task allowed me to "trim the fat" on data backups, and have a graphical view of the data to see if a user had data stored in some weird non-default location, saving time and ensuring all data is saved.

Version 13 of FFS removed commercial use from the standard/free version, so I left everything on version 12.5 when I did it. This means you can use FFS free edition to back up the data, or purchase the business license to use the latest version(s). I don't mind when features are locked behind paywalls, to each their own and it's not my software, no matter the price. What I hate is when features are, for all intents and purposes, deprecated. We have fully supported software that has a portable package, and commercial use is offered, but no legal way to use both. If you think using the donation edition would work, don't. It has detections in place and will nag you after it sees "too many" devices tied to it.
viewtopic.php?t=10664

[antiman9]

It's not really practical to be pulling apart hundreds of laptops just to do simple windows re-installs. It adds to complexity and labor cost and I'd much prefer to just have something I can boot on-device and use that way, we very rarely have to pull a drive unless we're moving to a new machine and typically by that point I'm already doing a full image from the old one.

I suppose I can use the deprecated version but I just really want to be able to support this project while still having access to the nicer features of the business edition. We're not a multi-million dollar corporation and the single machine limitation is a bit more restrictive than we'd prefer, I mean I do have a bench machine that we could probably use for the situations where we DO have to pull a drive and we're not imaging, but again it'd be pretty niche and not at all worthwhile.

I didn't plan to use donation edition for business, but it would be nice to have something that is sort of in-between for the little guys to use.

I can't seem to find a download for the older pre-v13 builds of free file sync. Any idea where this can be obtained? I'm more than willing to purchase a license even if only vestigial in function.

[xCSxXenon]

https://freefilesync.org/archive.php

[Plerry]

Am I missing the problem?
I suppose you have at least one local server or central computer in your repair shop.
Why not install your FFS Business edition on that server /central computer.
On your customers laptops enable network sharing.
Then simply always run FFS on that server /central computer, to sync the customers data from the their laptop to the server /central computer or some other accessible storage medium or vice-versa.
That seems to be in line with the Business edition license: installed on a single machine, only running on that same machine.

[antiman9]

Am I missing the problem?
I suppose you have at least one local server or central computer in your repair shop.
Why not install your FFS Business edition on that server /central computer.
On your customers laptops enable network sharing.
Then simply always run FFS on that server /central computer, to sync the customers data from the their laptop to the server /central computer or some other accessible storage medium or vice-versa.
That seems to be in line with the Business edition license: installed on a single machine, only running on that same machine.

Because simply put we often can't trust the version of Windows running on the customers machine, would you let a potentially infected system have unrestricted network access to your central server? (With customer data, no, it needs to stay offline completely.)

It makes much more sense for us to use something like WinPE or Linux where you can boot a live environment, connect our (easy to secure erase) 4TB drive and then transfer data off the system before doing a full wipe and re-install of Windows.

From a simplicity, security, and ease of use standpoint it doesn't make sense for us to use a singular machine. It's so much better for us to just plug in a drive, boot, transfer, wipe and install, transfer, finish. We've got imaging tools on a bootable drive that makes this process significantly faster than taking the systems apart.

*I meant to ask about the portable donation version 12.5, I don't see anywhere I can find that version. Like worst case I guess I just need to make a bootable linux setup with 12.5 free then?

[antiman9]

FreeFileSync is exactly what we need for our shop. Running it from a portable ISO or USB is the most secure and efficient way to handle customer data, since we can boot into a clean environment, filter out malicious software or unwanted programs, and avoid exposing our central systems to potentially compromised Windows installs. The problem is that the licensing model doesn’t line up with this use case. A site‑license or portable license option would solve it perfectly, and I’d be fine paying in the $50–$100 range for an up‑to‑date build that supports this workflow. Right now the software is ideal, but the licensing is precisely the wrong fit for small shops like ours.

I want to support the project and use the software I just need a way to do that with a license that fits, I'm more than happy to pay for it. Please.

[Plerry]

> ... would you let a potentially infected system have unrestricted network access to your central server?
No, you would not give a potentially infected system unrestricted network access to your central server, but conversely, because FFS would be running on your central server, you would give your central server file access to your customers machine. If you just copy the customers files, but do not access or execute any of them, you should be perfectly safe.

> It's so much better for us to just plug in a drive, boot, transfer, wipe and install, transfer, finish.
Makes sense.
However, your use case is not a synchronization, but rather a form of full file backup and restore.
Essentially a full, unfiltered file copy.
Although FFS is capable of doing that, you would not be using the true strengths FFS, being that FFS is able to determine what needs to be copied and only copying that.
For your use-case it seems FFS is actually overkill; any file manager (e.g. Windows File Explorer) is able to do the job.

[antiman9]

If you just copy the customers files, but do not access or execute any of them, you should be perfectly safe.
However, your use case is not a synchronization, but rather a form of full file backup and restore.
Essentially a full, unfiltered file copy.
Although FFS is capable of doing that, you would not be using the true strengths FFS, being that FFS is able to determine what needs to be copied and only copying that.
For your use-case it seems FFS is actually overkill; any file manager (e.g. Windows File Explorer) is able to do the job.

Not to sound rude, but it is really bad idea to link potentially infected machines to anything at all, there are still forms of malware which can move laterally through a network, I absolutely will not permit any customer data to ever be put in a centralized place where it can be easily manipulated, exfiltrated, etc. Besides, setting up a custom network share for every single machine we repair is inefficient and silly from any security standpoint.

Actually I picked FFS because I DON'T want to copy every single file on the machine, but specific files that matter, while discarding possibly malicious executables. I want to select specific folders and copy them if they exist, so that specific program data (like quickbooks.) gets moved automatically.

Yes, I already image the entire system anyway, because data is irreplaceable, but I still think it best to have the option of not being limited to a singular machine for this program. It's just downright silly.

The issue isn't that we can't just copy-paste like we've been doing, This is to streamline my work so instead of spending an extra 30 minutes doing this by hand every time, I can spend 2 min launching ffs, which frees up so much more time for me to do work on other machines and fix other devices while it transfers in the background, and when it comes to data I much prefer to have FFS because of its logging features too. It's literally exactly what I'm looking for.

By having it on a bootable usb, I can do multiple data backups at a time, so if we're slammed with a lot of re-imaging (which actually happens more often than you'd think, I had to reload like 20 machines for the local non-profit school.) I can get it done in a much more reasonable amount of time with consistency.

I get that you're trying to help with examples of use-cases but the single-machine limitation is basically what completely hinders everything I want to actually do with this software and limits the potential.
At this point am I better off just writing a crappy batch script to do what I want? I already have custom .ffs files for recovery on my own machines that does all of this, I'm basically asking permission to pay money for this program to use it at work in a way that actually makes sense for us and to help reduce the amount of labor spent manually moving these files.

[homiline]

Hello FFS team,

Is there any update on this?

I have the same use case: a small business, more of a hobby, where I need to compare, clean up, or synchronize data on customer PCs or notebooks.

So I also need a business license with portable use. A business license per device doesn't help me. I need a business license per user (as offered by competing software).

Please reconsider your licensing model. Thank you very much!

[homiline]

Hello community,

is there nobody else (except antiman9 and homiline) who needs Business licensing on a per-user basis and with portable usage?

From a small IT business perspective, this is a very common workflow: technicians use the software on different customer systems (often offline or via live environments like WinPE/USB) rather than on fixed machines. A per-device model is therefore not always practical.

I understand the reasoning behind the current licensing model, especially regarding controlled usage and redistribution. Still, there seems to be a gap between home portability and real-world field use in small businesses.

Who else has this use case? Please reply in this thread if you are affected. Thank you!