IonCube Loader is a tool, which is necessary to run files that are encoded with ionCube PHP Encoder. The latter is an application which is used to make PHP code human unreadable, as a way to protect it from reverse engineering or illegal usage. A lot of script-driven applications, particularly discussion forums, cms and electronic commerce solutions are encoded with ionCube PHP Encoder, therefore when you obtain a script and you find that ionCube is one of the web hosting environment requirements, you should ensure that your web hosting server has the tool pre-installed. Although it's not that difficult to install it when you have your own server, it is close to impossible to do that on a shared web hosting server for the reason that the PHP environment should be precompiled and all of the clients on the server shall be affected.

IonCube in Shared Web Hosting

IonCube Loader is available with all shared web hosting plans which we supply, so when you require it to install and run a script app which requires it, you can activate it with a click inside the Advanced area of the Hepsia Control Panel. As you are able to switch the PHP release which is active for your account in the same section, you will have to enable the instrument for each new version that you set. If you are more skillful, you'll be able to take advantage of a php.ini file in a domain or subdomain folder and set the PHP version as well as the status of ionCube Loader for this particular site only, without affecting the entire account. This way you are able to operate both new and older script apps for multiple sites within the same account - something that you can't do with lots of other web hosting providers available on the market.