PROVIDING LIMITED VERSIONS OF APPLICATIONS

• US 20140351954A1
• Filed: 08/06/2014
• Published: 11/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Brownell, David M., Heinz, Gerard J. II, McCuller, Patrick G.
• Granted Patent: US 9,940,119 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1063 Personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1064 Restricting content processing at operating system level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/125 by manipulating the program code, e.g. source code, compiled code, interpreted code, machine code
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/53 by executing in a restricted environment, e.g. sandbox or secure virtual machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2137 Time limited access, e.g. to a computer or data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments for providing limited versions of applications. A limited version of an application is automatically generated from a full version of the application. The limited version has a smaller data size than the full version. The limited version of the application is sent to the client computing device in response to a request for a trial of the application.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program executable in at least one computing device comprising a processor and a memory, the program comprising:

code configured to automatically generate a limited version of an application from a full version of the application, wherein the limited version of the application excludes a portion of the application that is predicted to be unaccessed during an evaluation period;

code configured to receive a request from a client computing device, the request being associated with the evaluation period; and

code configured to send the limited version of the application to the client computing device.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein limited version of the application has a smaller data size than the full version of the application.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the limited version of the application further excludes another portion of the full version of the application which is identified as harmful to a configuration of the client computing device.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program further comprises code configured to reorder code of the limited version of the application based at least in part on a code access sequence predicted for the limited version of the application.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the limited version of the application is configured to commence execution in the client computing device before the limited version of the application has finished being sent to the client computing device.

6. A system, comprising:

at least one computing device comprising a processor and a memory; and

at least one service executed in the at least one computing device, the at least one service comprising;

logic configured to automatically generate a limited version of an application from a full version of the application, the limited version having a smaller data size than the full version of the application;

logic configured to receive a request from a client computing device, the request being associated with a trial of the application; and

logic configured to send the limited version of the application to the client computing device.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the logic configured to automatically generate the limited version of the application from the full version of the application is further configured to automatically generate the limited version of the application based at least in part on an expected use of the application during the trial.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the expected use corresponds to execution by a first configuration of the client computing device, and the limited version of the application excludes at least one portion of the full version of the application which pertains to a second configuration of the client computing device that is different from the first configuration.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the logic configured to send the limited version of the application to the client computing device is further configured to sequence data corresponding to the limited version of the application according to a predicted code execution sequence.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one service further comprises logic configured to determine the predicted code execution sequence through code profiling of the limited version of the application.

11. The system of claim 6, wherein the limited version of the application is configured to be executed in a secured environment of the client computing device that denies access to at least one secured resource of the client computing device by the limited version of the application.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one service further comprises logic configured to send code that implements the secured environment to the client computing device.

13. A method, comprising:

receiving, by at least one computing device comprising a processor and a memory, a request from a client computing device for a demonstration version of an application;

automatically generating, by the at least one computing device, the demonstration version of the application from a full version of the application; and

sending, by the at least one computing device, data corresponding to the demonstration version of the application to the client computing device, wherein the data corresponding to the demonstration version of the application is sent according to a sequence established based at least in part on a code access profile for the demonstration version of the application.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising sending, by the at least one computing device, data for transforming the demonstration version of the application into the full version of the application to the client computing device.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the demonstration version of the application is configured to commence execution in the client computing device before the demonstration version of the application is fully sent to the client computing device.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the demonstration version of the application is associated with a maximum running time.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the demonstration version of the application has a smaller data size compared to the full version of the application.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein automatically generating the demonstration version of the application from the full version of the application further comprises automatically generating, by the at least one computing device, the demonstration version of the application based at least in part on a configuration associated with the client computing device.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising sending, by the at least one computing device, simulated resource data to the client computing device, wherein the client computing device is configured to simulate at least one secured resource for the demonstration version of the application according to the simulated resource data.

20. The method of claim 13, further comprising sending, by the at least one computing device, a specification, to the client computing device, of at least one secured resource to which access by the demonstration version of the application is to be denied.