Arduino distributable program file

Question

Similar to an .exe file, is there a way to make a 'distributable' of an Arduino program? Some sort of ready-to-upload file... I'd like to share the program but the code should be kept the most secret as possible, or at least make it hard to know.

Answer 1

You can distribute the .hex binary file, and then let the users upload the binary on the Arduino themselves.

The ordinary Arduino IDE already does that for you when you click on the button verify & upload, so you simply have to take the generated .hex file and give it away.

Or you can use Arduino Makefile to get your .hex binaries using any other development environment.

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Note: even though the source code is not included nor displayed, it is possible to reverse engineer an .hex binary as much as it is possible to do it with an .exe binary.