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[PompiPompi]

What is the safest donation service, and the safest way to use it?
I am not talking about programming my own donation service.
For instance, does PayPal has a donation option?
I am worried about donation through MY website, even if I just put a pay pal donation button. Because websites can get hacked.
So maybe pay pal can host pages for donations?
The reason I am thinking of donations is to sort of replace Kickstarter. You can crowd fund "on your own". Of course you won't get the same exposure, but still, you don't have to use a service like Kickstarter basically.
So my question is what is the safest and a viable way to "run your own Kickstarter"?

[SundownKid]

If you add a donation button, it should not be possible to "get hacked" unless someone gets your password. The chances of someone breaking into your site without your knowledge and replacing it with a similar looking button are low.

That is basically the best way to take funding on your own. Get a button with some sort of meter that allows people to see where funding is at.

[Hima]

You can use Paypal or Flattr and write a script that keep track of payment by yourself.
Hacking a donation button wouldn't do much, since it's basically just a link to your choice of payment processor's donation page. They'd have to hack that payment processor to get to your account.

You could also go with an e-commerce service and make each perk/reward/options for donation one item instead. This would be better in term of keeping track of who support you with which option, since e-commerce service comes with statistic tools as well as automatically keeping record of your customers.

For a button and a meter, Chipin is one of the services that does this for you automatically. http://www.chipin.com/overview 

[PompiPompi]

Grrr, chip in don't even use encrypted HTML to send them my new password. It's annoying that they can't get this simple thing right...

Also, no customer support via email. :/

[Eigen]

PayPal is for donations, always has been. You seem to be worrying about this too much. Don't

[PompiPompi]

Now I have a new thought I have been wondering about...
What if I have a donation button which is ment for a specific project.
After a while the project can have alphas users can test on their computer.
Will people get angry if I first ask for donations, and then also ask to pre-order the game?
Is it possible to let people get (non guaranteed) access to the alphas if they pay more than $X? With PayPal donations?