Anyone is the world will not want their things to be kept insecure. 
If we say about the web applications, they are insecure too. If we spent time, money and efforts creating a web application why not a further step in protecting them. In the case of web application if you don’t secure it anybody can copy the work and the code. This issue was highlighted by two PHP developers and they thought of the software called Zend optimizer tool from the Zend Technologies.
This optimizer tool helps you to use the Zend Guard encoded files. If you don’t use this tool the code which is Zend guarded cannot be executed. If this code is encoded the visitor will be to interpret it, but won’t be able to see it. This tool enhances the performance of the PHP applications. The zend optimizer goes through the code generated by the standard Zend run time compiler and then it will optimize the code for the faster execution. Even though the optimizer runs every time the page is executed it has a very little or you can say negligible overhead. It speeds up the code execution process with 40% to 100 %. Additionally it will enable PHP to load and execute the files that are encoded by using the Zend guard.
Zend Optimizer has a limited functionality to only interpret the encrypted the code. In actual to encrypt tit you need to use the Zend guard. This Zend guard will convert the code in the PHP format to the binary equivalent known as “Zend Intermediate Code“. When the conversion is over the new encoded files will take place of the original regularly coded PHP files. Zend guard is helpful in suggesting if any module or functions needs to be excluded from the encryption process for the better development time.
Lets see some of its specifications.
Supported Operating systems, Platforms.
Linux : Linux x86, Linux x86-64, Linux Power.
Solaris: Solaris Sparc 8, 9, 10, Solaris x86 9, 10.
Free BSD x86 5.x, 6.x
Windows x86 2000, XP, 2003.
OS X Mac Power
AIX pSeries 5.
Web Servers it supports:
Apache 1.3x
Apache 2.0.x (prefork mode)
IIS 5,6
Support for PHP versions:
PHP 4.2.x to 4.4.x
PHP 5.0.x, 5.1.x
Things to be ensured before using the zend optimizer. Zend optimizer will not run if the following PHP settings are enabled:
- Thread Safety.
- Enable Versioning
Zend optimizer is free and easy to use software. Mainly good hosting companies use this utility for the security of the web applications and code as explained above
