I do usually react very allergic to someone spying on me, especially if it is some sort of spyware i do not want on my computer.
I'd rather deinstall STO, if i where forced to use ARC in order to play it.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
I do usually react very allergic to someone spying on me, especially if it is some sort of spyware i do not want on my computer.
I'd rather deinstall STO, if i where forced to use ARC in order to play it.
I am right there along with with you Yreo'. There is nothing wrong with the current way I get into the game, I don't need and don't want Arc. If they force it on me, I will move to a different game. No and, if's, or but's about it.
If there is a significant performance loss or spying on me, I will leave the game, simple as that.
I'm one of the First Ones. I have always been here.
But this? I stopped playing EA games after Origin. My current computer cannot take a performance hit and still play STO. More importantly, I refuse to accept any kind of scan at any point for any reason. If I see so much as a hint of it, STO will find itself dropped into a singularity core and left to die for me.
Not. Acceptable.
Furthermore, if I am forced to use it in addition to Steam, that's fairly unacceptable as well.
The performance loss is very heavy and often critical, that's for certain. Spying has been already heard of.
IMO Steam is the only alternative: now I have no more
(a) technical problems (gone the days a major update broke the game)
(b) don't fear to may forced to use Arc in the very near future.
Dude, no one with cognition AND common sense could ever, ever, paragonate such two different things as Steam and Arc.
The latter is bloatware,
a platform unnecessary for most users who are interested in just one game of their line
and detrimental for the game itself because of its resource consume
and to some extent can be considered even adware, and maybe is spyware, which would be way off the border.
The first is a one-stop platform for even different OS
with offers you nearly any game existant ranging from newest to old classics, AAA to indie at 50-80% OFF on daily basis,
with TV support, Linux-based OS coming soon and all other endless bells and whistles
- heck, you can even earn money to spend on games by simple playing and completing your already possessed games, winning extras other had you pay for -
all of this within a safe environment.
What you also want?
Gaming has never been so easy and good from buy (cheap) to play, update, connect and such for tens millions now.
If you are to use a program to play in this planet that is Steam,
if not keep paying 50 $ a disc, maybe broken, with no refund/replace altough promised (true story)...
As said, every one with -cognition- and -common sense- have no problem with Steam
but here there is this thing, Arc, which nobody wants, pardon, 90% don't want - there could be a reason why (hint) (pun intended).
No, I want to be able keep playing STO via Steam without Arc in any way/form/part,
and the others who so wish to do the same.
Currently, Steam is the only safe haven from Arc (hint, hint) and I want it to stay so.
I still dream from time to time about using the Gateway to doff off-game in spare minutes as we were told
Get rid of ARC. These "platforms" stink and just take valuable resources, especially on lower end systems. Are you going to "force" us to change just like when we had to "link" our PWE and Cryptic accounts?
Not to mention the spying that is going to go on or the target advertisement. If I wanted advertisements, I would watch TV. If I wanted spying I would invite the US gov to my house.
If there is a significant performance loss or spying on me, I will leave the game, simple as that.
I'm one of the First Ones. I have always been here.
But this? I stopped playing EA games after Origin. My current computer cannot take a performance hit and still play STO. More importantly, I refuse to accept any kind of scan at any point for any reason. If I see so much as a hint of it, STO will find itself dropped into a singularity core and left to die for me.
Not. Acceptable.
Furthermore, if I am forced to use it in addition to Steam, that's fairly unacceptable as well.
I am having issues with THIS game not recognizing that if I wipe my hard disk (viruses) and redownload, or wish to change email accounts (changed computer) I just might not know my prev 20 Questions (but I do know the answers if I knew the questions), and I bought a 20$ PWE card at Target or WalMart ot who cares but can't spend it -- seems I have to recieve an email, click or type in a special "one time" code, etc., and I no longer have access to an email account AND SO FORTH .... ... Total lack of sutomer support, I'm having trouble not going to my friends and tell them: "No matter how much fun I've had in this game, I can't reccommend..."
Sorry, PWE, I've about had it, I can tell you.
I am having issues with THIS game not recognizing that if I wipe my hard disk (viruses) and redownload, or wish to change email accounts (changed computer) I just might not know my prev 20 Questions (but I do know the answers if I knew the questions), and I bought a 20$ PWE card at Target or WalMart ot who cares but can't spend it -- seems I have to recieve an email, click or type in a special "one time" code, etc., and I no longer have access to an email account AND SO FORTH .... ... Total lack of sutomer support, I'm having trouble not going to my friends and tell them: "No matter how much fun I've had in this game, I can't reccommend..."
Sorry, PWE, I've about had it, I can tell you.
I've already tld my friends I no longer reccomend this game especially when they ask what ARC is. So Cryptic or PWE has lost quite a few customers
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If a mandatory must answer to continue playing survey was implemented directly into the STO game asking players about the direction, decisions, confidence in Cryptic, customer support, Etc. I think you'd be extremely unpleasantly surprised with the results.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that many play STO merely because of the name Star Trek and being able to fly their favorite ships and/or because the space combat/ space sim options are extremely limited. However, with many new space combat/ space sim games currently in development, having just released or will shortly being released, this is the critical time to give people more of a reason to stay, not more reason to leave.
Steam isn't the evil demon it once was and I have no doubt with the eventual and inevitable mandatory forcing of ARC use, some will migrate to steam further increasing interest in other games, even possibly causing some to find newer/better games to migrate to, some will leave STO completely, and some will leave PEW/Cryptic games completely.
AND you seem not catching the other big issue: resource usage.
People rightfully don't want a full platform for the single game they play that
(a) collect unprecised data even when permission is negated
(b) executes in background limiting performance to the point of breaking the game without adding anything they may want.
I just downloaded and installed the current version of the Arc Platform. As far as performance, it is currently using 72MB of memory, running two processes. The one installed service is currently stopped and is not using any resources as yet.
The Arc browser uses less memory than Internet Explorer. Origin (EA) uses almost as much memory in one process than Arc uses in two, so I don't understand the resource argument. As for the data collection, I haven't noticed anything, but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening.
As far as data collection goes however, there are few if any programs on one's computer that doesn't collect data. Flash Player, Windows, Office, IE, Chrome, Firefox...the list goes on and on. Granted, those all have the ability to choose if data is collected, and presumably Arc does as well, but to claim that PWE is intentionally collecting data against the user's wishes is pretty far fetched. With all the legal ramifications that could occur from it, for intentional privacy violations, it wouldn't be worth it to them. I have in fact read the privacy policy from within the Arc platform and it is pretty standard jargon as to what they claim to collect. By comparison, EA's privacy policy was clearly written by lawyers and is long winded.
I understand the concerns, I also understand that some players don't wish to have some new launcher system being pushed on them for the sake of pushing it or promoting something that they aren't interested in, but PWE is hardly the first company or the last company to do such a thing. In general terms, most people have 5-10 programs that collect the exact same data as PWE is looking to collect, including the current version of the Cryptic Launcher.
“In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death…..even vegetarians.” – Spock
i would also like to point out that do to the new zen purchase system you will be required to install arc to purchase zen
Changes to the Zen Purchase Flow
Currently, purchasing Zen for individual games is a two-step process. Based on player feedback, we?re making Zen purchases easier with the new website.
Right now, when you purchase Zen, it hangs out in your wallet, waiting for you to transfer it to a specific game. When the Arcgames.com version of the website infrastructure is released, the Zen purchase flow will instead require the game to be selected at the time of purchase.
Please note that this new process is for Zen purchased after December 3; there are no changes happening to any Zen that currently exists in your Wallet. Your Wallet will remain accessible after this launch, and it will still be possible to deposit Zen from your Wallet into your game of choice.
i would also like to point out that do to the new zen purchase system you will be required to install arc to purchase zen
Changes to the Zen Purchase Flow
Currently, purchasing Zen for individual games is a two-step process. Based on player feedback, we?re making Zen purchases easier with the new website.
Right now, when you purchase Zen, it hangs out in your wallet, waiting for you to transfer it to a specific game. When the Arcgames.com version of the website infrastructure is released, the Zen purchase flow will instead require the game to be selected at the time of purchase.
Please note that this new process is for Zen purchased after December 3; there are no changes happening to any Zen that currently exists in your Wallet. Your Wallet will remain accessible after this launch, and it will still be possible to deposit Zen from your Wallet into your game of choice.
And exactly how many people play more than one PWE game (at an active level for each)? This feature has minuscule value.
And exactly how many people play more than one PWE game (at an active level for each)? This feature has minuscule value.
I don't that's for sure. I play STO and that's the only PWE game I have an interest in; and I'm only interested in it because I've been a Trek fan since I was a little kid. If I didn't like Star Trek I wouldn't play. I have other games I play to see elves and faeries and dragons and stuff.
I think I looked at NWO once for about five minutes but I haven't touched it since it launched. The harder they make it for me to log in to STO the less I will play. Do you hear that PWE? Eh? Especially if all this bloatware starts bogging down my connection.
For now, please anticipate that the Arc client will continue to launch individual game launchers."
=
ARC will run in the background and eat up system resources while it runs and executable that would serve to start your game just fine.
Please stop this crud. There is already a thread on these forums on how to disable ARC. People don't want this junk on their machines. You're doing it just to try to sell stuff. Scrap the whole project and leave us with the launchers.
PS - Anyone have a way to actually get feed back to the ARC team? I have trouble believing that they'll actually read this.
Well when the current laucher stops working I will migrate to Steam until they remove that as well (And they will I don't believe there lies for one second) Also if you have to have Arc to purchase Zen well I havent given money to Cryptic since the beginning of LOR and that was only to have enough Zen to get the Tier v (T'varo) ship so I will just convert dilithium unless of course they stop that as well which would be something that I see PWE doing in the future.
But a majority of fan who play this including myself are fans of the Star Trek T show movies or JJ Trek. keep your elves goblins and ORCs as I have a online game that already gives me all that and I hardly play it.
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
It's almost a week since Cryptic kicked 50% of its gamers off Star Trek Online with their Season 8 Patch. If they were looking for a way to kill the company and force it to go out of business, the Season 8 Patch surely did it.
What I want to know, is why weren't these problems fixed while S8 was testing on the Tribble server? This is just unacceptable that this problem wasn't fixed before the patch went live.
possibilitiesare a thing of hope,sometimes it drives us toward something better
For now, please anticipate that the Arc client will continue to launch individual game launchers."
=
ARC will run in the background and eat up system resources while it runs and executable that would serve to start your game just fine.
Please stop this crud. There is already a thread on these forums on how to disable ARC. People don't want this junk on their machines. You're doing it just to try to sell stuff. Scrap the whole project and leave us with the launchers.
PS - Anyone have a way to actually get feed back to the ARC team? I have trouble believing that they'll actually read this.
What is "arc"? Is that the launcher we have or some other nonsense?
I've been tempted to buy a STO Lifetime Subscription since they're on sale at the moment... and then I read this thread and felt utter despair that this unique game will eventually be gated behind some atrocious software. We don't yet have any guarantee that Arc will be legitimately safe or convenient to use. I hope that word of this reaches other independent gaming websites in order to warn prospective players about the rubbish they will have to encounter.
In the meantime, I will be switching over to launching the game through Steam. I hope that method will last until Star Citizen is released. If not, I'll be shopping around for a new MMO.
Forget the possibility of PvP, for so much has become pay-to-win, never to be balanced. Forget the promise of exploration and research, for in the grim dark future of Star Trek Online there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting publishers.
What is "arc"? Is that the launcher we have or some other nonsense?
Spyware and adware that PWE wants us to use to download and run their games so they can maybe get more players for their other games.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I was very disappointed to learn of this. I had considered returning to this game, still hopeful that one day we would see customizable starship interiors when they came to their senses.
Then it seems they lost their minds.
When Arc becomes a requirement I will leave the game for good. I hate to do that, and will surely miss the game and the great community.
Point Two: I do not expect a program to access local drives other than the main windows drive, especially when you untick permission to do so.
Please could you tell me how you think that would be acceptable?
Your program has no reason to scan all my other drives. No other game program does, and that includes Steam.
Point Three: When my hard drives stopped being accessed, something attempted to send data through the VM network interface, but of course it was isolated, so nothing could be sent.
Not defending Arc at all, I certainly dont want it on my hard drive, but a couple things... If you were running it in a vm, how was it getting access to your physical hard drives? Did you have those shared to the vm? If so... that kind of defeats the purpose. If not, then how could it have been Arc accessing those drives?
Second thing... some programs that make use of things like, for instance, .net framework (and I dont know if Arc is one of these, just an example) will go ahead and look all around your computer for various libraries and to catalogue/index resources as part of a one off initialization. It may not actually be related to any Arc related functions or programming, but simply a result of the libraries or frameworks it uses.
So, that said, you may want to try it again. Grab a couple things, like Process Explorer, which is a task manager replacement you can get from Microsoft Sysinternals for free. When you have Arc running, you can highlight the process, and in the lower pane you will see a bunch of info, including a list of open File handles, which is everything that process is accessing.
Also recommend something like Netlimiter to monitor your computer's network usage. That program's a little older, but I like it because it shows usage based on process, and you can see destination ip's, which makes it easy to plug them into a net based whois to see where the info is going. Also makes it easy to outright block or have the computer ask when any info is sent/received by that process. imho, a program like this is something every user should have on their system.
Not defending Arc at all, I certainly dont want it on my hard drive, but a couple things... If you were running it in a vm, how was it getting access to your physical hard drives? Did you have those shared to the vm? If so... that kind of defeats the purpose. If not, then how could it have been Arc accessing those drives?
He didn't say his real hard drives were being accessed. He said "When my [virtual] hard drives stopped being accessed, something attempted to send data through the VM network interface." In other words: he was testing out Arc, which seemed to access his drives (presumably his virtual drives), and then noticed Arc was trying to access his network for outgoing traffic.
He didn't say his real hard drives were being accessed. He said "When my [virtual] hard drives stopped being accessed, something attempted to send data through the VM network interface." In other words: he was testing out Arc, which seemed to access his drives (presumably his virtual drives), and then noticed Arc was trying to access his network for outgoing traffic.
Well, see, when trying to diagnose computer issues, it never pays to assume or presume anything about what the user says... specifics count.
All I can say is once Arc was installed, Arc (32Bit) and Arc Browser (32 bit) were running on the VM, and all the attached hard drives (I don't include windows drive) were woken up and being accessed.
Well, you didnt really find anything, since you wont clarify your statements. But whatever. Everyone feel free to jump on board the paranoia train.
Not that I'll ever be installing Arc either. After all, just because you're paranoid doesnt mean they arent out to get ya!
In your opinion. My opinion says otherwise. I wont clarify my statements because I do not want to go down that road, and open a can of worms that I am not prepared to take on.
I have seen enough for my own mind, what you choose to do is of little importance to me, much like mine to you.
Not being paranoid, I just care about what I install and what it is doing on my machines.
When it does something I think is not right within the boundaries of what the program needs to do, I have a problem with it.
Not being paranoid, I just care about what I install and what it is doing on my machines.
When it does something I think is not right within the boundaries of what the program needs to do, I have a problem with it.
That's fine. But when you post "findings" that arent actually, and when other people start believing these "findings" and referring to them as proof that Arc is somehow spying on your computer, then that's a problem.
There are plenty of reasons not to want to install yet another launcher. But spreading incomplete information as evidence is not the way to go about proving any point.
I mean... honestly... why is it hard to believe that a launcher for an *online only game* might actually check itself for updates to its program and banners? Like every other launcher in existence. And unlike many, this is an online multiplayer only game, it's pefectly reasonable to expect aspects of it to, you know... go online. It's even in the TOS...
When we update or "patch" any of our Games, we may utilize a patch routine to verify whether the most recent version of the Game is installed on your computer. If not, the most recent version may automatically be uploaded to your computer, and you hereby consent to, and waive any further notice of, such upload.
If you really want to be paranoid, consider that if PWE really wanted to get personal information out of your computer, they dont need Arc to do it. They could just use the current patcher, or the game client itself, to scan and upload any data they want.
Anyways, that's all. I still recommend reviewing your testing methodology, if you are indeed allowing your testbed sandbox vm full access to your physical hard drives...
Comments
I'd rather deinstall STO, if i where forced to use ARC in order to play it.
I am right there along with with you Yreo'. There is nothing wrong with the current way I get into the game, I don't need and don't want Arc. If they force it on me, I will move to a different game. No and, if's, or but's about it.
I'm one of the First Ones. I have always been here.
But this? I stopped playing EA games after Origin. My current computer cannot take a performance hit and still play STO. More importantly, I refuse to accept any kind of scan at any point for any reason. If I see so much as a hint of it, STO will find itself dropped into a singularity core and left to die for me.
Not. Acceptable.
Furthermore, if I am forced to use it in addition to Steam, that's fairly unacceptable as well.
IMO Steam is the only alternative: now I have no more
(a) technical problems (gone the days a major update broke the game)
(b) don't fear to may forced to use Arc in the very near future.
Dude, no one with cognition AND common sense could ever, ever, paragonate such two different things as Steam and Arc.
The latter is bloatware,
a platform unnecessary for most users who are interested in just one game of their line
and detrimental for the game itself because of its resource consume
and to some extent can be considered even adware, and maybe is spyware, which would be way off the border.
The first is a one-stop platform for even different OS
with offers you nearly any game existant ranging from newest to old classics, AAA to indie at 50-80% OFF on daily basis,
with TV support, Linux-based OS coming soon and all other endless bells and whistles
- heck, you can even earn money to spend on games by simple playing and completing your already possessed games, winning extras other had you pay for -
all of this within a safe environment.
What you also want?
Gaming has never been so easy and good from buy (cheap) to play, update, connect and such for tens millions now.
If you are to use a program to play in this planet that is Steam,
if not keep paying 50 $ a disc, maybe broken, with no refund/replace altough promised (true story)...
As said, every one with -cognition- and -common sense- have no problem with Steam
but here there is this thing, Arc, which nobody wants, pardon, 90% don't want - there could be a reason why (hint) (pun intended).
No, I want to be able keep playing STO via Steam without Arc in any way/form/part,
and the others who so wish to do the same.
Currently, Steam is the only safe haven from Arc (hint, hint) and I want it to stay so.
Not to mention the spying that is going to go on or the target advertisement. If I wanted advertisements, I would watch TV. If I wanted spying I would invite the US gov to my house.
Everyone say it with me...
NO WEB BASED LAUNCHER PROGRAMS!
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
Sigh... Unfortunately I feel the same as you...
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
Sorry, PWE, I've about had it, I can tell you.
I've already tld my friends I no longer reccomend this game especially when they ask what ARC is. So Cryptic or PWE has lost quite a few customers
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that many play STO merely because of the name Star Trek and being able to fly their favorite ships and/or because the space combat/ space sim options are extremely limited. However, with many new space combat/ space sim games currently in development, having just released or will shortly being released, this is the critical time to give people more of a reason to stay, not more reason to leave.
Steam isn't the evil demon it once was and I have no doubt with the eventual and inevitable mandatory forcing of ARC use, some will migrate to steam further increasing interest in other games, even possibly causing some to find newer/better games to migrate to, some will leave STO completely, and some will leave PEW/Cryptic games completely.
I just downloaded and installed the current version of the Arc Platform. As far as performance, it is currently using 72MB of memory, running two processes. The one installed service is currently stopped and is not using any resources as yet.
The Arc browser uses less memory than Internet Explorer. Origin (EA) uses almost as much memory in one process than Arc uses in two, so I don't understand the resource argument. As for the data collection, I haven't noticed anything, but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening.
As far as data collection goes however, there are few if any programs on one's computer that doesn't collect data. Flash Player, Windows, Office, IE, Chrome, Firefox...the list goes on and on. Granted, those all have the ability to choose if data is collected, and presumably Arc does as well, but to claim that PWE is intentionally collecting data against the user's wishes is pretty far fetched. With all the legal ramifications that could occur from it, for intentional privacy violations, it wouldn't be worth it to them. I have in fact read the privacy policy from within the Arc platform and it is pretty standard jargon as to what they claim to collect. By comparison, EA's privacy policy was clearly written by lawyers and is long winded.
I understand the concerns, I also understand that some players don't wish to have some new launcher system being pushed on them for the sake of pushing it or promoting something that they aren't interested in, but PWE is hardly the first company or the last company to do such a thing. In general terms, most people have 5-10 programs that collect the exact same data as PWE is looking to collect, including the current version of the Cryptic Launcher.
Nice sig mate
However I don't know if the star trek crowd have much interest in the other stuff you have. Its all fairies and elves n stuff right?
Also do what you will, as long as this game stays good.
Changes to the Zen Purchase Flow
Currently, purchasing Zen for individual games is a two-step process. Based on player feedback, we?re making Zen purchases easier with the new website.
Right now, when you purchase Zen, it hangs out in your wallet, waiting for you to transfer it to a specific game. When the Arcgames.com version of the website infrastructure is released, the Zen purchase flow will instead require the game to be selected at the time of purchase.
Please note that this new process is for Zen purchased after December 3; there are no changes happening to any Zen that currently exists in your Wallet. Your Wallet will remain accessible after this launch, and it will still be possible to deposit Zen from your Wallet into your game of choice.
And exactly how many people play more than one PWE game (at an active level for each)? This feature has minuscule value.
I don't that's for sure. I play STO and that's the only PWE game I have an interest in; and I'm only interested in it because I've been a Trek fan since I was a little kid. If I didn't like Star Trek I wouldn't play. I have other games I play to see elves and faeries and dragons and stuff.
I think I looked at NWO once for about five minutes but I haven't touched it since it launched. The harder they make it for me to log in to STO the less I will play. Do you hear that PWE? Eh? Especially if all this bloatware starts bogging down my connection.
=
ARC will run in the background and eat up system resources while it runs and executable that would serve to start your game just fine.
Please stop this crud. There is already a thread on these forums on how to disable ARC. People don't want this junk on their machines. You're doing it just to try to sell stuff. Scrap the whole project and leave us with the launchers.
PS - Anyone have a way to actually get feed back to the ARC team? I have trouble believing that they'll actually read this.
But a majority of fan who play this including myself are fans of the Star Trek T show movies or JJ Trek. keep your elves goblins and ORCs as I have a online game that already gives me all that and I hardly play it.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
What I want to know, is why weren't these problems fixed while S8 was testing on the Tribble server? This is just unacceptable that this problem wasn't fixed before the patch went live.
What is "arc"? Is that the launcher we have or some other nonsense?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
In the meantime, I will be switching over to launching the game through Steam. I hope that method will last until Star Citizen is released. If not, I'll be shopping around for a new MMO.
Spyware and adware that PWE wants us to use to download and run their games so they can maybe get more players for their other games.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Then it seems they lost their minds.
When Arc becomes a requirement I will leave the game for good. I hate to do that, and will surely miss the game and the great community.
Modeler, Mesh mechanic, designer
Not defending Arc at all, I certainly dont want it on my hard drive, but a couple things... If you were running it in a vm, how was it getting access to your physical hard drives? Did you have those shared to the vm? If so... that kind of defeats the purpose. If not, then how could it have been Arc accessing those drives?
Second thing... some programs that make use of things like, for instance, .net framework (and I dont know if Arc is one of these, just an example) will go ahead and look all around your computer for various libraries and to catalogue/index resources as part of a one off initialization. It may not actually be related to any Arc related functions or programming, but simply a result of the libraries or frameworks it uses.
So, that said, you may want to try it again. Grab a couple things, like Process Explorer, which is a task manager replacement you can get from Microsoft Sysinternals for free. When you have Arc running, you can highlight the process, and in the lower pane you will see a bunch of info, including a list of open File handles, which is everything that process is accessing.
Also recommend something like Netlimiter to monitor your computer's network usage. That program's a little older, but I like it because it shows usage based on process, and you can see destination ip's, which makes it easy to plug them into a net based whois to see where the info is going. Also makes it easy to outright block or have the computer ask when any info is sent/received by that process. imho, a program like this is something every user should have on their system.
The doors, Mister Scott!
He didn't say his real hard drives were being accessed. He said "When my [virtual] hard drives stopped being accessed, something attempted to send data through the VM network interface." In other words: he was testing out Arc, which seemed to access his drives (presumably his virtual drives), and then noticed Arc was trying to access his network for outgoing traffic.
Well, see, when trying to diagnose computer issues, it never pays to assume or presume anything about what the user says... specifics count.
The doors, Mister Scott!
I am not dissuading anyone else from the use of this program, I can only say what I have witnessed.
In the end, the decision is up to the individual whether or not to use it.
I wont be, but that should bare no reflection on anyone else's decision, and you are of course welcome to try it yourself....
Well, you didnt really find anything, since you wont clarify your statements. But whatever. Everyone feel free to jump on board the paranoia train.
Not that I'll ever be installing Arc either. After all, just because you're paranoid doesnt mean they arent out to get ya!
The doors, Mister Scott!
In your opinion. My opinion says otherwise. I wont clarify my statements because I do not want to go down that road, and open a can of worms that I am not prepared to take on.
I have seen enough for my own mind, what you choose to do is of little importance to me, much like mine to you.
Not being paranoid, I just care about what I install and what it is doing on my machines.
When it does something I think is not right within the boundaries of what the program needs to do, I have a problem with it.
But whatever, in your own words.
That's fine. But when you post "findings" that arent actually, and when other people start believing these "findings" and referring to them as proof that Arc is somehow spying on your computer, then that's a problem.
There are plenty of reasons not to want to install yet another launcher. But spreading incomplete information as evidence is not the way to go about proving any point.
I mean... honestly... why is it hard to believe that a launcher for an *online only game* might actually check itself for updates to its program and banners? Like every other launcher in existence. And unlike many, this is an online multiplayer only game, it's pefectly reasonable to expect aspects of it to, you know... go online. It's even in the TOS...
If you really want to be paranoid, consider that if PWE really wanted to get personal information out of your computer, they dont need Arc to do it. They could just use the current patcher, or the game client itself, to scan and upload any data they want.
Anyways, that's all. I still recommend reviewing your testing methodology, if you are indeed allowing your testbed sandbox vm full access to your physical hard drives...
The doors, Mister Scott!