The advantage to the customer using the doggle is that you can install the progrom on as many computers as you like. You can only use the program with the doggle. So you could have a copy at work and one at home and one on your laptop etc. and on one will be able to use it without the single doggle. With the activation code you are limited to one computer; you pick which one. I have been using the doggle for years now and have not had any problems with any of my programs and I have a lot of them.