Good question… so to start with, to run “Controlled Folder Access”
– You need to be running Windows 10, at least Creator Update from memory
– You need to be running Windows Defender, if you run any other virus protection, it’s not available as it is using Windows Defender Threat Detection.
– As just noted, it uses a detection model… so you are relying on this to determine what is “good” and what is “bad”, and we know this type of protection is hit and miss.
– Anvil’s rules are explicit, there is no “best guess”. In addition, we are adding feature based rules that do more than protect, such encryption, immutable file and actions (i.e. ability to do stuff when files are changed/added).
Windows integrated features, for the most part, sit on the side of convenience over security… we are on the other side of the fence, security first.

We do apologise for the delay in the release. One of our internal testers discovered a bit of a show stopper bug on the day of release, so it was pulled. This bug only affected the tester’s machine, and was incredibly hard to reproduce and rectify. That said, it is sorted, so now we are back to testing and will release when we are 100% happy the issue is resolved.
In the meantime, you can check out a video on how the new “request” mode works… https://media.anvil-fs.com/anvil_request_mode_demo_1/index.html

A canary file is a file that is monitored for access (based on the canary in a coal mine). Canary files are not visible to the applications approved for a given folder, so if accessed, the user is notified… and should investigate to ensure nothing unauthorised is poking around their system.

The price is grandfathered in, so forever.
Re payment… we are still working on the payment and licensing system. This will be available a short time after the initial release on the 14th.