Akhouri Systems has reached 513 downloads.
My next milestone is 600.
That means I need 87 more.
But after building ATLOCK for months, I've realized something:
A download by itself doesn't tell me much.
Someone can download an application, open it once, and never touch it again.
What I actually want is feedback.
So I'm changing the goal.
ATLOCK v4 Community Testing Week
Instead of asking people to simply download ATLOCK, I'm asking Windows users to try to break my assumptions about the product.
ATLOCK currently includes:
🔒 NTFS-based File Protection
🔐 Encrypted Password Vault
📸 Intruder Ops
🖥️ Desktop Lockdown
📋 Local Security Logs
I don't want another list of compliments.
I want someone to say:
"This workflow makes no sense."
Or:
"Why doesn't it do this?"
Or:
"I'd completely redesign this part."
That's useful.
Why?
Because when you're an independent developer, you spend so much time inside your own project that you start seeing it the way you designed it, rather than the way a new user experiences it.
That's dangerous for software.
Especially for security software.
A security application can have technically interesting features and still fail if the user doesn't understand what it's doing.
So I'm opening the project to community testing.
The challenge
Current: 513 downloads
Target: 600
Remaining: 87
But I'm measuring more than downloads this time.
I want to know:
What confused you?
What felt unnecessary?
What felt genuinely useful?
What would make you trust the application more?
What feature would you add?
If you're a Windows user, I'd genuinely appreciate 10 minutes of your time.
🔗 ATLOCK v4:
https://github.com/Akhouri-Anmol-Kumar/ATLOCK
And if you find something wrong with it, please tell me.
I'd rather fix a real problem than collect another meaningless compliment.
One question for developers:
What's the most valuable criticism you've ever received about something you built?
I'm especially interested in the answers from people who have shipped their own software.
Top comments (1)
The download→feedback pivot is the right instinct. I'm living the mirror image: 65+ build-in-public sessions, 247+ article reads, 12 expert comments on trending posts — and 0 sales, 0 paid API calls. Reads and reactions are the same vanity trap as downloads. They feel like progress and prove nothing.
Your question — "what's the most valuable criticism you've ever received?" — mine was a number, not a vibe. I built a macro scenario classifier (ISM PMI → market regimes) and an AI-generated backtest summary said "GOLDILOCKS +1.2% vs CONTRACTION −2.1%." Plausible, matched my prior, published it to 3 platforms. Then I ran the real event study myself: 72 ISM releases, 1530 real S&P 500 trading days. Result: p=0.643, signal backwards at all 4 horizons. CONTRACTION releases actually outperformed (forward-looking markets → policy easing → rallies). The fabricated numbers weren't "wrong" — they were plausible enough to bypass my scrutiny. The real backtest was the most valuable feedback I ever got, and it was self-inflicted.
For ATLOCK specifically: you're asking "what confused you?" and "what would you redesign?" — those are UX questions. For a security product, the highest-value criticism isn't "this workflow makes no sense." It's "I bypassed the NTFS file protection in two steps" or "the intruder-capture log can be deleted without auth." A concrete break, not a redesign suggestion. I'd narrow your testing ask to: try to defeat each of your 5 security claims individually. One reproducible bypass is worth 87 downloads.