hi.. all

may i know where can i find the host that support ioncube?

Almost all cpanel hosts should.

But before you purchase make sure you ask. :)

most host is support Zend Optimizer... i am looking Iobcube loader

You should be able to use the standalone loaders for ioncube in most cases, even on a server that is set up for Zend Optimizer - I've run many sites that way in the past. The only two that really don't get along are Turck MMCache and Ioncube.

Probably the easiest way to find a host that will ahve Ioncube loaded on their server so you don't have to use the standalone loaders would be to find one that advertises they are using PHP Accelerator - the Ioncube loaders are part of that package AFAIK.

Actually I found the the stand-alone loaders are more flexible. You can put it in your home directory and be complete in control. I have been in some unfortunate incidents when a server-wide upgrade of the iocube loader didn't get done properly, and that broked most php scripts depending on it.

It's also worth noting that relatively few hosts install additional engine extensions such as Zend Optimiser, or our Loader (because they don't need to), in the php.ini file. Whilst Zend claim that most hosts install Zend Optimiser, from seeing phpinfo pages ourselves and also from what customers have told us, the reality is that that it is only around 10% who install Zend Optimiser, and because Zend Optimiser often slows servers down and actually increases load, many hosts actively stay clear of it.

A significant part of our design approach and philosophy behind the products is to provide solutions that ease the burden for end users as much as possible. Whilst on some servers it is necessary to have the Loader installed in the php.ini file, as Rob T and others have commented elsewhere, the runtime loading mechanism often works and is a really great advantage over 9 times out of 10 having to ask reluctant hosts to install Zend Optimiser.

A further significant advantage is also that the default encoding format is now ASCII rather than binary for the encoded files. No less secure because the ASCII encoding is a wrapper around our already highly secure binary format, the ASCII encoded files are *much* less likely to be accidentally corrupted by users during installation. During testing when everything works, it may not be obvious why this is an advantage, but Zend encoded files and also our binary format files can be corrupted accidentally by users using FTP, some IDE's, or tools such as WinZIP. This creates a support headache for script developers, and increases the hastle for script users. ASCII encoded files suffer from no such problems, and are a fantastic advantage for everyone.

If you do have the chance to install the Loader in the php.ini file, and you'll also find hosts that offer this if you make a google search, then performance gains are the typical outcome. Amongst various bizarre and frankly incorrect claims about competitor products that Zend are making at the moment in their email marketing, they claim to have the best performance but the empirical evidence embarassingly shows the opposite. We have performance charts of our own at http://www.ioncube.com/benchmarks.php and also some indepedent tests that someone sent us that show similar results. We'll add those on the page too later this week.

As always, don't hesitate to contact us if there are any queries and we'll be happy to assist.

ionCube