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| [Jan 31, 2006, 12:12 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
Boing
Boing: StarForce threatens to sue me for criticizing its products (thanks
Mike Martinez) follows-up on a post about the copy protection software relating some
legal threats directed at the author for his criticisms of the software. As is
usually the case, these threats have only brought more attention to the
situation, rather than suppressing it. The article includes follow-ups relating
other stories of such incidents in the past.
16 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
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| 16. |
Re: No subject |
Feb 1, 2006, 10:59 |
MyRealName |
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How would a person know if starforce was with a game ?
That's a good question. I've heard reports of Starforce installing without user warning or permission. Is there a list of games and/or publishers out there that use Starforce?
Glad you asked.  Look at this jim-dandy site I just came across while reading the blogs about this. The list alone is the worth the effort... but there's oh so much more.
Enjoy your defeat, Starforce. >:)
http://www.glop.org/starforce/
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| 15. |
Starforce |
Jan 31, 2006, 23:47 |
Creston |
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Yeah there are lists, do a google on it, several pages are maintained just for the explicit purpose of warning you which games come with Starforce.
Sadly, however, I have to say that I think Starforce is going to gain more and more ground. Despite oft seen stories that "it's easily cracked", it doesn't really appear to be so, and several games that are protected by it still can't be downloaded anywhere. This will make publishers take notice.
To be fair, I've got it on my system now (because I couldn't wait for fucking Enlight to sort out their fucking idiotic production issues for X3, and got the UK version which came with Starforce), and so far I've had no troubles with it. I also read quite a few good stories on the X3 tech support forum about Starforce's tech support, which seems to be on the ball.
Having said that, no matter how good it works or how well it behaves on my machine, there is NO reason for a copyright protection scheme to index my hardware, to install a file that runs on the 3rd layer, long before windows ever comes into the equation, and for it to refuse to run if you have certain pieces of (legitimate) software installed on your system.
In the end, we either all go to some form of online authentication, or these kinds of draconian measures are going to severely cripple PC gaming.
While I'm lucky enough to not be bothered by Starforce, I know that there are plenty of people who ARE just nuked by it, and I've had my issues with copyright protection schemes in the past. In the end, they'll get annoying enough for me to stop buying games. At least, PC games.
Creston
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| 14. |
Re: No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 23:43 |
Chicken |
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Go into Device Manager and click View > Show Hidden Devices. Under "Non-Plug and Play" there will be two or more "devices" called Starforce or similar.
Each of these is a starforce driver, you can have several of them running at once depending on the number of games and SF versions...
http://onlinesecurity-on.com/downloads/sfdrvrem.zip is the official removal tool, and seems to do a good job, of course it will break any starforce game that's installed.
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| 13. |
Re: No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 23:27 |
Riker |
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How would a person know if starforce was with a game ? That's a good question. I've heard reports of Starforce installing without user warning or permission. Is there a list of games and/or publishers out there that use Starforce?
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| 11. |
Re: No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 21:17 |
Learning |
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How would a person know if starforce was with a game ?
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| 10. |
No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 19:41 |
DeathMan20 |
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Well I never installed a single product til recently that had Starforce on it. It was X3. To my suprise everyone was bitching that it was messing up there computer expecially Alcohol 120%. I havn't had a single issue with it to my amazement.
It is annoying to have a protection installed on the drive knowing it could cause a problem, but at least I got an uninstaller ready just for that case.
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| 9. |
Re: Securom & Starfucks |
Jan 31, 2006, 15:42 |
scorpius |
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Well, it makes sense. Starforce isn't just some product created by some by a big media company such a Sony or Macrovision. It's prolly some small company dominated by hackers who are all too proud that they defeated the crackers.And if someone says something bad about their product they take it personally, which is ofcourse, the worst thing you can do.
And it's good to see legit gamers finally rising up to the crap called DRM, because as always, the paying customer gets the worst of the deal with DRM.
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| 8. |
Re: Securom & Starfucks |
Jan 31, 2006, 14:50 |
SquirrelZero |
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Wow, that's some PR guy they have there. PR guys are supposed to get their points across while being as smooth as possible. That sort of attitude pisses people off regardless of whether they're involved in the situation or not.
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| 7. |
Securom & Starfucks |
Jan 31, 2006, 14:22 |
Killer Kane |
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Yup , once again as soon as I installed Crash Day I had the "UAService7".exe running in the background AND at every start up...removed the 2 folders (one from prefetch & 1 from system32) only to have them reinstall themselves every time I play the DEMO !...checked the registry and sure enough the folder says in all caps "DO NOT DELETE OR UNINSTALL !!!"...how long before someone posts a "securom removal tool" ?
*
"I started out with nothing...and I still have most of it left".
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| 6. |
Starforce: The epitome of lameness |
Jan 31, 2006, 13:39 |
Icewind |
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We had this discussion on Blue's a long time ago, and I brought up the story about how Beyond Divinity installed SF on my old rig...and everyday afetrward, my PC rebooted randomly and without warning. I got it to stop by...you guessed it, running the SF removal tool someone on blue's gave me a link for. I could no longer run Beyond Divnity again (The game kept asking for me to reinstall it) but I no longer experienced any random reboots...ever again.
Starforce has no case. None. Zip. Zero. They can't sue that website just because they posted what really amounted to nothing but a "unfavorable review". If that was the case, Roger Ebert, PC Gamer, and most frenchmen would be penniless and humiliated by now.
This message was edited at Feb 2, 23:28. |
| 5. |
Re: No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 13:03 |
sponge |
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I do think this will go somewhere-- infact it already has. Look at the comment about beta testing a game, and dropping SF after hearing about them.
SF will ultimately lose the battle, culminating in their protection being cracked.
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| 4. |
Re: No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 11:53 |
Grasman |
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I'm the same way. SC Chaos Theory looked cool to me, until I found out it had Starforce. I lost all interest at that point.
I realize my unwillingness to deal with copy protection leads me to miss out on great games, but I only have so much money I can afford to spend on games, and there are plenty of very good options that don't have Starforce.
People say vote with your wallet, and I have.
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| 3. |
No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 11:49 |
WebDemon |
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I've known for years what Starforce can do to your PC because I've been a victim of it and not through trying to pirate games either. They jump up and down and pitch a fit every time someone points out what a shit sandwich their software is and all I can say is...
Starforce, thou dost protest too much me thinks.
They're all talk and no action. Let'em sue. Then they'll have to reveal things in court that they'd much rather keep hidden as "trade secrets" (ie: how it fucks up your computer), and that'd be the end of that. If they had a case they wouldn't be making empty threat after empty threat.
This message was edited at Jan 31, 11:54. |
| 2. |
No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 11:38 |
sorted |
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Starforce can suck my ... I no longer purchase products with this copy protection and won't install demos that may have it. I was going to purchase ufo:aftershock till I understood it had starforce...nope. Back to xcom1 and xcom:apoc... 
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| 1. |
No subject |
Jan 31, 2006, 11:38 |
Paketep |
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If only this went somewhere.
StarForce installs hidden drivers. SecuROM, a service that won't disappear when you uninstall the game (see CrashDay), and keys in YOUR registry that you can't delete. What's next, the BIOS?.
I wish PC developers (and distributors specially!) saw that they're pushing their customers away and towards the consoles. The funny thing is, pirates are only affected in getting the game a little later than usual (ok, more than a year for SC: Chaos Theory). Does a measly increment on sales justify alienating the rest of your customer base?. I think not.
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16 Replies. 1 pages. Viewing page 1.
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