Question

Now I do know that obfuscation is never 100% safe, but it’s better than nothing when attempting to avoid others from decompiling your .swf files.

I googled and found one which only changed variable names and removed comments. I need something more advanced. Any recommendations?

Answer 1

It seems you use Flex, so if you use a lot of MXML, than there is no need for obfuscation. It is hard to reverse engineer the original MXML from the decompiled ActionScript that has been generated from that very MXML source. The generated ActionScript is not really a pleasure to work with.

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Sidenote:

Why it is so vital to
prevent others from decompiling your
swfs? Comments always get lost
during compilation and local
variables/function parameters lose
their names. If your code is so
revolutionary and complex that people
rely on decompilation to reverse
engineer it, than this fact will make
it very hard for them. Most of the
time trying to reimplement things is
cheaper. In the end, I think
decompiling SWFs is as pointless as
obfuscating them.

For that reason, I don’t really know
any obfuscators. The only good ones
I knew for AS2 increased filesize by
more than 100% and slowed down
performance critical parts drastically
which in my eyes decreased the value
of the application a lot. A price I
wouldn’t pay for code security.
I also don’t mind sharing my code,
but that’s a matter of philosophy.

You should instead focus on creating an
outstanding software and placing it
well on the market. Be it
obfuscated or not, there are always
people capable of reverse engineering
it. Getting a good market share and
simply have a very high quality are
things that’ll guarantee success of
your software, disregarding copycats
you might even wan to open source
big chunks of it, since this is a
further discouragement for commercial
competitors, and non-commercial ones
will never try to kick you out of
business, plus they may even give
useful input.