Getting Started with Hurricane

Our UX/UI team has taken great care with the Hurricane experience to ensure that this app, quite literally, runs everywhere. At the moment, we provide first-party distribution packages for Hurricane Image Encoder for the following desktop platforms and architectures:

Windows (Intel, AMD):

  • Windows 10 (64-bit)
  • Windows 11

macOS (Intel, Apple Silicon):

  • macOS 12.x (Monterey)
  • macOS 13.x (Ventura)
  • macOS 14.x (Sonoma)

Linux (Intel, AMD, ARM):

  • Ubuntu 22.04+ (64-bit)
  • Debian 12+ (64-bit)
  • Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2, 64-bit)

Furthermore, after learning some important lessons in providing support to our customers for products like SAVE v1.x, we've made significant steps towards smoothing out the product installation and registration process for Hurricane. Here's how to get started with Hurricane!

On Windows

Step 1: Download Hurricane Image Encoder

The latest version of Hurricane Image Encoder can be found on the CFS Website once you've logged into your Patreon account.

  1. Find the link under the appropriate tab for your platform (e.g. Windows).
  2. Click on it, and save it to a known, memorable location. We recommend something like My Documents\Chosen Few Software\.
  3. Extract the ZIP archive.

Step 2: Activate the Product

  1. Navigate to My CFS Benefits in your browser.
  2. Login to Patreon if you haven't already.
  3. Copy your license activation key to the clipboard.
  4. Double-click on the file named activate-product.cmd
  5. When prompted, right-click to paste the license key into the Terminal window.
  6. Press Enter.

Step 3: Enjoy!

On macOS

Step 1: Download Hurricane Image Encoder

The latest version of Hurricane Image Encoder can be found on the CFS Website once you've logged into your Patreon account.

  1. Find the link under the appropriate tab for your platform (e.g. macOS).
  2. Click on it, and save it to your Downloads folder.
  3. Extract the ZIP archive.

Step 2: Activate the Product

  1. Navigate to My CFS Benefits in your browser.
  2. Login to Patreon if you haven't already.
  3. Copy your license activation key to the clipboard.
  4. Right-click on the file named activate-product.sh and click "Open with -> Terminal"
  5. When prompted, hit Command+V to paste the license key into the Terminal window.
  6. Press Enter.

Step 3: Enjoy!

On Linux

Step 1: Download Hurricane Image Encoder

The latest version of Hurricane Image Encoder can be found on the CFS Website once you've logged into your Patreon account.

  1. Find the link under the appropriate tab for your platform (e.g. Linux). Make sure you're downloading the correct architecture!
  2. Click on it, and save it to a known, memorable location. We recommend something like My Documents\Chosen Few Software\.
  3. Extract the tarball archive.

Step 2: Activate the Product

  1. Open a Terminal prompt in the same folder as where you extracted Hurricane.
  2. Enter the following commands:
  3. chmod +x ./CFS.Surge.Hurricane.exe
  4. ./CFS.Surge.Hurricane.exe $(read -p "Enter your license activation key: " LICENSE_KEY && echo $LICENSE_KEY)
  5. Navigate to My CFS Benefits in your browser.
  6. Login to Patreon if you haven't already.
  7. Copy your license activation key to the clipboard.
  8. Return to the Terminal.
  9. Hit Shift+Insert to paste the license key into the Terminal window.
  10. Press Enter.

Step 3: Enjoy!

Next Steps

To learn how to use Hurricane to create SSRG image files, check out our Official YouTube Series about the product! For webmasters wondering how to integrate Surge for the Web into their websites, see Integration.