CALTECH1  I bought a license of PDF Recover and the same day it worked as advertised. I needed to unlock some documents I forgot the general password.

Unfortunately, 2 weeks after when I need to use it again, I am now in demo mode. Impossible to register it again : maximum number of activated licenses reached, no further activations possible, please order more licenses in our webshop !!!!!!

What ??? You have to spend $26 every 2 weeks ???????

No answer to emails so far and the voicemail is in german language...

So far, very frustrating experience.... (bad?)

I now see that others had the exact same problem of registration, may be I should have read them before and not buy this application...

In the meantime I actually replaced my hard drive, but any well written application (all the others I work with so far) should be able to handle hardware changes !!  
(Version 6.0.1)

KLAUSKINSKI  PDF-Recover 4.0.2 could unlock some of my encrypted PDFs, but some not. Better try PDFLab 2.0.3r2 (freeware) which is available via many google links: it can unlock/ unprotect/ unsecure/ etc. all kinds of PDF encryptions by simply re-generating the PDF (that means by saving it as a new PDF) using CMD-R. Just try and enjoy.   
(Version 4.0.2)

RUBAIYAT  I too had problems with broken registration but Ovis quickly fixed it for me. When I move to my new iMac I'll have to get them to assist me again.

It is not very smooth in operation. You have to drag each pdf into the window and click a confirmation, but despite that it does the job.

Nice would be batch processing and to nominate how it renames unlocked files. because it puts a tilde in front of the name, you have to hunt for the copy somewhere else up the top of the folder.  
(Version 4.0.2)

FRANK PARTH  I have to give this only three stars. While it does pretty much what it says, their activation process is really poor. I bought the product, successfully used it twice, then found that they have a very limited number of activations and that when you upgrade/reformat your hard drive it requires a new activation. Within a few months I had exceeded the activation allocation and had to contact them for a new key. That's not a well-designed system.   
(Version 4.0.1)

AMCAN12  I have just purchased online downloadable version of pdf-Recover from Ovis website. Paid by credit card and entered activation info into the downloades earlier today demo, just as stated on invoice page. Activated and all went OK.

Then I checked About - and it shows version 2.0 (2.0.1), not version 3.0 as it should be. So, I thought that maybe demo version is just 2 and I have downloaded package from link provided on my invoice.

Reinstalled and problems - it started in Demo mode regardless successful activation just few minutes earlier. So, I went to Registration, filled blanks and hit Activate - after about a minute activation was denied showing error message telling me that I must buy another license as I exceeded number of allowed activations... And of course newly downloaded version from link on my invoice still shows version 2, not 3....

What gives????!!!!

Not only that I was ripped off by getting version 2 instead of version 3 but I was denied activation after reinstalling software.

Reinstallation and reactivation on the same machine should not be a problem as many of us for one or another reason reinstall OS and applications.

Shame to Ovis / UNIVERSE Software GmbH - I want working version 3, be able to activate it on the same machine every time I need to reinstall it or I want my money back - I feel reallt cheated by German company today...  
(Version 3.0.1)

THEBRYCEMAN  PDF-Recover is fantastic. I have tested it with a few of my files and (40bit an 128bit encrypted) and it openend them all... Actually that is a bit scary! Still for fast PDF recovery this does an excellent job!

Product Activation is a little cumbersome (but probably necessary). However, I recently I had an activation problem and the staff at Universe Software / Ovis were incredibly fast to respond and fixed my problem straight away.

Highly Recommended.  
(Version 3.0.1)

BEN NOWAK  Dear Anonymous,

don´t forget that your "workaround" does not work for example for PDF forms. You cannot print them without losing all form fields. Thats why you need solutions like pdf-Recover.  
(Version 2.0)

ANONYMOUS  Preview 1.1 under Jaguar does something similar:

It opens PDFs that don't allow printing. But Preview 1.1 ignores this "feature".

Not only can you print from Preview 1.1, but if you "print to PDF" you get a new PDF without the print protection.  
(Version 2.0)

DAVID ASKARI  I have ran into PDF forms and such with were made for some changes but they don,t work right and contacting the government (author) is not practical. So this software allows you finish these defective PDF files. I don,t see why comments refer to the worse case about stealing peoples work. This software makes impossible bad PDF files fixable. (naturally you need a PDF editor to as mentioned by the author)  
(Version 1.2.2)

UNIVERSE SOFTWARE  James,

you are right. As we explained explicitly in our description, pdf-Recover will help you when you lost your PDF master password. It´s not to remove a user password you have to enter in order to open a PDF document. Most of all PDF files you create will have a master password set. That´s why pdf-Recover will help you with 99 % of all files, because it also manages 128 bit encryptions within a heartbeat. And that´s not an easy thing...  
(Version 1.2.2)

JAMES DOWNWARD  I am not sure this program can actually recover a password protected file.

I duplicated an existing unprotected PDF document and used Adobe Acrobat Verson 5 (Macintosh) to modify the file to require to a 128 bit encripted password to be entered to open the file. With this password in place, pdf-Recover 1.2.2 in demo mode could not open the file and generated an error saying it could not open the password protected file. If I removed the password but left in the document access restrictions against copying and editing the file, pdf-Recover in demo mode duplicated and removed those security settings from the first page of the document (demo mode).

My conclusion is that if the PDF document is requires a password for opening it, the document security will not be broken and no security settings can be changed. If however, the document can be opened, the security settings can be removed from the pdf document. This is not surprising as a PDF document is just a text file and presumably using a text editor, a portion of a "secure" document could be copied and pasted into another PDF document, and that section displayed, printed, or copied.  
(Version 1.2.2)

TOBEY BUCHINSKY  I just performed a test on 10 documents. It worked perfectly. I am very pleased.  
(Version 1.2.1)

ANONYMOUS  I decided to use the "trial" option first. I wanted to open an eBook that would not open after I wiped my system. The software screen simplys says "Working on Document" and never changes, even hours later. So, I don't think it works on Adobe ebooks and such.  
(Version 1.2)

ANONYMOUS  This is sold as a tool for legitimate purposes but the main market is likely to be with those who wish to make unrestricted copies of other people's PDFs.

I hope Adobe DO fix this weakness soon.  
(Version 1.2)

PAULA  ...but when will Adobe change this ? And what about billions of PDF documents populated before?   
(Version 1.2)

FRANK  Adobe will change its system and this will be useless.  
(Version 1.2)