By Adam Nagy
Inventor 2016 introduced a new security measure, which makes the Add-In Manager pop up a dialog when it encounters an Add-In for the first time:
Here if you click Allow then from then onwards the Add-In will automatically be loaded without the message box appearing again. If you click Block then the Add-In will never be loaded until you un-tick the Block option for it in the Add-In Manager dialog:
The Add-In security message box also contains Signature, Publisher and Detail sections that are populated from the digital signature of the Add-In. Unlike in case of AutoCAD, inside Inventor the warning dialog will pop up even if the Add-In is signed, but at least the digital signature information will be there, which makes the Add-In look more professional.
Autodesk does not provide its own digital signature/certificate for 3rd party developers, because that would make the Add-Ins look as if they were developed by Autodesk, which is not correct. Developers who wish to sign their Add-Ins need to purchase their own signature/certificate. They can get a single one and used it for all their products.
A colleague looked into certificate providers and here is what he found. We are not endorsing any of them, it's just a list based on the search results and you can surely find other ones as well. You need to decide which one is best for you:
Symantec
1 year – $499
2 years – $873 ($436.50/year)
3 years – $1248 ($416/year)
GoDaddy
1 year – $200
2 years – $360 ($180/year)
3 years – $510 ($170/year)
Digicert
1 year – $223
2 years – $396 ($198/year)
3 years – $534 ($178/year)
Instant SSL
1 year – $179
2 years – $340 ($170/year)
3 years – $501 ($167/year)
kSoftware
1 year – $95
2 years – $175 ($87.50/year)
3 years – $245 ($81.66/year)
5 years – $365 ($73/year)
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