EX4 protection

Small off topic. MT main coder about new program type: "You can write independent programs, data feeds, analyzers, and so on.Advantages in complete independence from attachment to charts, active accounts."

PS: About ex4/5 protection is useless topic. Nobody will spend time in do it. Only have reason to do it if is the acclaimed holy grail...

@VEEFX -- Thanks for the explanation...

In the end, do you think all brokers stack MT4 against the retail trader or it depends on the broker?

Do you think brokers can configure their data stream differently for different accounts? In other words, at what granularity can they manipulate results? Do low-risk traders fly below the radar screen and are left alone, or are all traders treated the same?


I would disagree. All the time people wish to modify indicators and EAs to add features or change behavior or fix bugs. That's why whenever someone shares an *.ex4 then in the next post someone else asks for the source. My sense is that most decompilation was NOT done for evil reasons -- rather, there are a lot of people who know MQL and they simply want to modify an app they like without having to create something similar from scratch.

If people don't share code is because nobody like see how your free shared work is sold for somebody. Anyways who can crack a protection only is interested in games or other more requested stuff.

Really FF collaboration dead long time ago. You only have compare 2 years ago threads and currents

Frankly, most brokers don't have to do anything as majority of algos freely available on the internet have proven to fail. They know hence they just wait for retailers to blow their accounts... the few so do get this right then it depends if they are able to control their overall book exposure across all their account base. If they can absorb the risk, why bother.... let the losers feed the winners and keep the profitable ones happy and satisfied customer.... but if there is truly a systemic microstructure edge that is being tapped, I bet they will do EVERYTHING to stop you from being consistently profitable... including coming up with excuses at withdrawal time. There is a very specific reason why some brokers write this in their TOS... "No scalping allowed", "no multi-feed arbitrage type strategies allowed", "Hedging as a trading strategy is not allowed" or some such verbiage to cover their interest. Intra-day profiting from MT4 is very hard imo. Anything above H4 is probably the way to go.... and I was using 32 timeframe combinations just to give the enormity of the scale and with over 350+ parameters (not external input to avoid them knowing) that I would recompile atleast 2-3 times every day. They simply could not understand my algo because it was designed to take over 500K signal combinations just on one monthly candle across 28 pairs.... And the most important thing imo is to track each trade against it's "scale" for targets and by scale I don't mean the standard ATR crap. it's based on hard core raw data without using any technical "calculations" based on price or indicator values. I did not use ANY indicators that would vary it's output based on tick movement.

With that said, my experience with MT4 has only been with the US based brokers I mentioned and the very few "unregulated" ones that allow US traders. As I said, I would not trade with any other broker unless they are able to provide me with hard evidence of who is taking the other side of my trade in a TRUE ECN environment, it cannot/should not be the broker as your counterparty. That is major league conflict of interest. I believe only Global Prime in Australia provides the actual trade ticket from what I gather. By that definition, to me, every other broker falls under the bucket of "they don't have your best interest in mind". The basic concept of A and B book is just soooo wrong on so many levels that it boggles my mind how retail traders are dumb to allow this shit to continue for so long in this industry where 99.99% lose or will eventually lose. I stand by my immense research on minimum 3yrs of profitability within a minimum ROMAD of 1+ is REQUIRED to even consider yourself a WINNER!

Interesting -- I'll buy that. Thanks for your answer...

I don't have your extensive knowledge or experience with brokers -- I'm relatively new to Forex and as a US client struggle with brokers. But I hear what you are saying and will take it to heart. Even with the cards stacked against us -- I still like trading and enjoy the challenge. For me it's a hobby that keeps me out of trouble. There is also the hope the next day will bring some brainstorm or epiphany I can incorporate into my EAs -- which keeps the intellectual juices flowing. Hope is a good thing -- uniquely human. Though it often / usually doesn't work out -- it's still a good thing to have.

Glad we got something out of this interaction. Currency Market (or the underlying design of it) is the most intellectually challenging framework I have come across.... but then some would say, why over-think and over-complicate - just make the trade and see if you win or lose. That may be the case in a single un-correlated instrument but nothing in currency market is singular even with the creation of price itself.. anyways, I am done here!

hey, so the question remains, did anyone come up across anyone that cracked a .ex4?

Yes. I then scrambled it and put it on some toast with salt and pepper. Tasty.