This is the reply from GoDaddy. As usual, they did not fully answer the question I asked (see the end of their response and you will see that I not only asked about IonCube (which is what I referenced in my original inquiry), but other loaders as well, plus the ability to modify php.ini):
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Our support staff has responded to your request, details of which are described below:

Discussion Notes
Support Staff Response
Dear Lee Roberts,

Thank you for contacting Online Support. Unfortunately ionCube is not currently installed on our Shared Hosting server environments. You may consider a Virtual or Dedicated server plan if ionCube is needed. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.

Sincerely,

Stan P.
Online Support Technician

Customer Inquiry
Name : Lee Roberts
Phone : (xxx) xxx-xxxx
Browser Info : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; etc.)
Other : Also applicable to Shared Hosting / Windows

I am receiving conflicting information from GoDaddy regarding the installation of loader files on Shared Hosting accounts. The first time I contacted GoDaddy about Shared Hosting support for IonCube, I was told Ionube could be supported. The issue seems to be addressed in your support area:
http://help.godaddy.com/topic/423/article/1467
Later, I received a follow-up email that contradicted the information I received via telephone and seems to contradict the support link provided above. You may reference the email sent by your technical support staff under Incident ID: xxxxxxxx.
Please clarify the issue once and for all: Can IonCube (or other loader files, for that matter) be installed on Shared Hosting accounts along with the php.ini mods necessary to make them work?
Thank you,
Lee Roberts
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Dmitri - Per your request, I will forward another ticket and ask if loader files can be installed at run-time.

Lee

My response to GoDaddy (their reply was attached to my email to them):
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Hi,

This does not fully answer my question. Once again, your website makes a reference to Shared Hosting customers having the ability to modify their php.ini files:

http://help.godaddy.com/topic/423/article/1467

As you can see, it also makes reference to the ability to upload files as necessary. I didn't ask if IonCube was installed, I asked if a Shared Hosting user could install it (or other similar loader files such as the NuCoder loaders from NuSphere) themselves as implied in the above referenced URL from the GoDaddy support site. In case you haven't taken the time to read GoDaddy's post, here is a direct quote:

Question: "Does the Linux Economy Hosting Plan Have Zend Optimizer and GD Library Installed?"
GoDaddy's Answer:"...Customers can upload newer versions of Zend Optimizer (and other PHP modules) and reference the path to their files.

and further, GoDaddy states:

If you want to use your own php.ini and Zend Optimizer, add the following to your php.ini:

[Zend]
zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
zend_extension_manager.optimizer=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-2.5.7
zend_extension_manager.optimizer_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer_TS-2.5.7
zend_extension=/usr/local/Zend/lib/ZendExtensionManager.so
zend_extension_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/ZendExtensionManager_TS.so

It would seem that a user could load whatever module they wanted. Again, please clarify this issue for me.

I already have a dedicated server with GoDaddy, as a cursory check on your end would have revealed. I am making the inquiry on behalf of a client. Please address the issue as I have presented it.

Also, is the dl function banned under the linux Shared Hosting plans? This option would allow users to dynamically load the files necessary to execute scripts encoded by products from NuSphere, IonCube, et al.

Thank you,

Lee Roberts

I have an hosting account with icdsoft.com and I am able to edit directory-specific php.ini files on their LAMP server. They looked up PhpExpress, gave me specific instructions for installing it, and even showed the absolute path on the server that I needed to add to the php.ini file.

Adding PhpExpress is really quite easy!