A dongle is a small piece of hardware that attaches to a computer, TV, or other electronic device in order to enable additional functions such as copy protection, audio, video, games, data, or other services. These services are available only when the dongle is attached.
"Attached" does not need to involve a physical connection. The dongle may communicate with the device it enables via NFC, for example.
"Dongle" originally meant a software protection device. The term is now more broadly used.
== Examples of dongles ==
=== Copy protection ===
The CD-based parts catalog (known as "ETKA") ...