I know there hasn't been a lot of communication on the spyware issue, so I'm going to give you a brief explanation on what we can actually track. In short, we don't track anything you don't want us to, as we have the opt-in feature for if you choose to let us. All this feature allows us to do is track your system information that can be easily found when you navigate to "Help">"System Information" in Arc. We do this as it helps us find any potential software and hardware issues, which in turn allows us to better optimize Arc for as many configurations as possible. Keep in mind though, that this is all through the opt-in system. If you do not opt-in, we will not be able to track your system information.
I hope that clears things up, and if there's anything else please let me know.
Why do I run MalwareBytes before install and reports clean system then uninstall I run it again and it finds Conduit on my machine to clean that off? And that's only after installing Arc then uninstalling it without running anything else.
I've noticed some of us are already being forced to use the spyware: Academy and Fleet Mine maps automatically crash any time I attempt to enter them while playing through the standard non-ARC launcher. The ensuing file verification also refuses to complete as well.
I know there hasn't been a lot of communication on the spyware issue, so I'm going to give you a brief explanation on what we can actually track. In short, we don't track anything you don't want us to, as we have the opt-in feature for if you choose to let us. All this feature allows us to do is track your system information that can be easily found when you navigate to "Help">"System Information" in Arc. We do this as it helps us find any potential software and hardware issues, which in turn allows us to better optimize Arc for as many configurations as possible. Keep in mind though, that this is all through the opt-in system. If you do not opt-in, we will not be able to track your system information.
I hope that clears things up, and if there's anything else please let me know.
Is there a way to change this option after installing short of uninstalling everything and re-installing?
I know there hasn't been a lot of communication on the spyware issue, so I'm going to give you a brief explanation on what we can actually track. In short, we don't track anything you don't want us to, as we have the opt-in feature for if you choose to let us. All this feature allows us to do is track your system information that can be easily found when you navigate to "Help">"System Information" in Arc. We do this as it helps us find any potential software and hardware issues, which in turn allows us to better optimize Arc for as many configurations as possible. Keep in mind though, that this is all through the opt-in system. If you do not opt-in, we will not be able to track your system information.
I hope that clears things up, and if there's anything else please let me know.
Arc is still resource heavy. Outside of checking on my resource requirements, the programs have to be doing something else in the background. Arc has two programs associated with the system. After installing "Star Trek: Online" through Arc, the game had serious issues with lag, stuttering, etc... While I was looking at what was hogging all of the resources, I noticed Arc was feeding off of a large chunk of RAM. So, I decided to uninstall the entire program. What do you know? "Star Trek: Online" is now running smoothly.
If you can fix everything under its hood, I will have no problem with reinstalling Arc.
Finally, my computer's resources are none of your business.
I am not going to allow strangers into my house, so Cryptic can take inventory over what I own.
Why do I run MalwareBytes before install and reports clean system then uninstall I run it again and it finds Conduit on my machine to clean that off? And that's only after installing Arc then uninstalling it without running anything else.
I'm not entirely sure, but I can definitely have our team take a look at this.
Arc is still resource heavy. Outside of checking on my resource requirements, the programs have to be doing something else in the background. Arc has two programs associated with the system. After installing "Star Trek: Online" through Arc, the game had serious issues with lag, stuttering, etc... While I was looking at what was hogging all of the resources, I noticed Arc was feeding off of a large chunk of RAM. So, I decided to uninstall the entire program. What do you know? "Star Trek: Online" is now running smoothly.
If you can fix everything under its hood, I will have no problem with reinstalling Arc.
Finally, my computer's resources are none of your business.
I am not going to allow strangers into my house, so Cryptic can take inventory over what I own.
We're still running tests to determine why some users have this issue. While it doesn't happen to everyone, we do notice that some users suffer from this. With that said, this is one of our top concerns.
Again, we understand your concerns and appreciate any and all feedback.
So to me that reads you can grab any information from my PC if you want to, and its not limited. I don't give a hoot about my configuration of my machine, or if you know it. I do however object to you being able to record data on when or what I am doing at a given time, even when its not related to PWE. Because that's how that part of the EULA reads.
You tighten that part of the EULA up to restrict it to PWE software and I might well consider installing the software.
You realize you agreed to that for STO, too, right? It's in the PWE ToS for all their games:
You hereby acknowledge and agree that:
(a) WHEN USING THE SERVICES, THE SOFTWARE MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) AND/OR CPU PROCESSES FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH THE SOFTWARE. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADD-ON" OR "MOD," THAT IN PWE'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (ii) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE SOFTWARE INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY PWE; OR (iii) INTERCEPTS, "MINES," OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH THE SOFTWARE. IN THE EVENT THAT THE SOFTWARE DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, IT MAY COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO PWE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE THE UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM WAS DETECTED; AND/OR AND PERFECT WORLD ENTERTAINMNET MAY EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS SECTION OF THE AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER.
Sorry for caps, they're present in the source.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Well I'm in the EU, and ARC is governed by EU law so EULA's mean nowt. But as I've said before that's way to combative and aggressive tone, so my apologies. My point is a EULA can very much be seen as a statement of intent. And hte Intent in the ARC EULA is a bit to broad.
I'm happy to see a common Launcher, and often wondered why Cryptic didn't have one, but I'm getting off topic.
Actually those two EULA's are very different. The STO one clearly and very defiantly lays out what can and can't be recorded and or monitored, and the purposes of that monitoring.
The ARC EULA is very vague and nebulous, as to the scope and use.
Just check the length of the passage, the STO one has lots of details and is longer, the ARC one is not.
If they were to copy and paste the STO EULA into the ARC one in place of the section I highlighted I'd be installing it already. Like others have said:
1: I don't care if you know my system spec.
2: I don't care if you monitor how I interact with your software, as its your program and you have legal rights and responsibilities.
So, I'm going to run Malwarebytes on my machine now that I have Arc installed, but other than that one possibility my experience with it so far (admittedly less than a day) has mostly been positive. I'm...a bit amused that the it's still advertising the Voth lockbox though. You may want to look at however the launcher pulls the news it advertises as Arcgames.com and the Arc client both seem to be rather behind on the news fro STO (seems to be up-to-date on Neverwinter though).
The thing I'm loving is that by logging into Arc I don't have to log in everytime I exit a game, this makes switching between Neverwinter and STO a lot less of a pain, and when I finally get around to trying out Champions or the new Cryptic project (whichever happens first :P) will likely be quite nice there as well.
So, on the whole I've found Arc to be a positive experience and a step forward. If anything about that changes I'll bring the info here.
My feedback : Unless you ladies and gentlemen of the STO team want to start typing up your resume's i suggest not making this spyware arc program mandatory especially for steam users. Your results from that will be a million times worse then how your pay to play disaster turned out which you were lucky enough to barely recover from as it is. It did not bode well for UBIsoft which is steadily losing buisness and their games are a thousand times better in every way then anything cryptic/PWE has to offer when they came out with something similar to this. Your company is smaller then UBIsofts and a lot less known, use your imaginations of what the reprocussions for your company will be if you force this malware/spyware down your users throats. Needless to say a steady loss of profits will be the least of your worries.
EDIT: Also after reading the part of the EULA that syberghost has posted in #972, i am seriously starting to question the integrity of the type of company that cryptic/PWE is to the point of completely uninstalling STO seeing as how by that very definition in the EULA is the equivalent of a spyware virus. Not to mention a complete violation of multiple world wide privacy laws.
My feedback : Unless you ladies and gentlemen of the STO team want to start typing up your resume's i suggest not making this spyware arc program mandatory especially for steam users. Your results from that will be a million times worse then how your pay to play disaster turned out which you were lucky enough to barely recover from as it is. It did not bode well for UBIsoft which is steadily losing buisness and their games are a thousand times better in every way then anything cryptic/PWE has to offer when they came out with something similar to this. Your company is smaller then UBIsofts and a lot less known, use your imaginations of what the reprocussions for your company will be if you force this malware/spyware down your users throats. Needless to say a steady loss of profits will be the least of your worries.
EDIT: Also after reading the part of the EULA that syberghost has posted in #972, i am seriously starting to question the integrity of the type of company that cryptic/PWE is to the point of completely uninstalling STO seeing as how by that very definition in the EULA is the equivalent of a spyware virus. Not to mention a complete violation of multiple world wide privacy laws.
And it's posts like this (and users like those who just showed up) that make me think that many of the naysayers are actually sock puppets trying to stir up paranoia.
coldwarrior, if that part of the EULA alarms you, I recommend never reading any others, lest you shut your computer down permanently in terror. STO's is pretty boilerplate, and a lot less intrusive than, say, iTunes or Blizzard.
And it's posts like this (and users like those who just showed up) that make me think that many of the naysayers are actually sock puppets trying to stir up paranoia.
so how far do we have to dig on the internets ,intell we find a link between pwe and what ever other comanys that own's it and China's military of implementing Intelligence gathering?
i do think, i read,
that in china you can not do anything useing the internet with out thier military approving it.
as the news talks about what the US groups do to gatherintelligence on everything done bya normal computer user, why would any company want their user base to use a produce like ARC ?
and yes we all ready have your basic software on our computers, are you saying you really need more info about your users?
i would think you all ready have everything.
so how far do we have to dig on the internets ,intell we find a link between pwe and what ever other comanys that own's it and China's military of implementing Intelligence gathering?
i do think, i read,
that in china you can not do anything useing the internet with out thier military approving it.
as the news talks about what the US groups do to gatherintelligence on everything done bya normal computer user, why would any company want their user base to use a produce like ARC ?
and yes we all ready have your basic software on our computers, are you saying you really need more info about your users?
i would think you all ready have everything.
And we got a tin foil hat wearer. If you're that paranoid, what are you doing on the internet, more less STO
And it's posts like this (and users like those who just showed up) that make me think that many of the naysayers are actually sock puppets trying to stir up paranoia.
Not trying to stir up paranoia however i am stating the facts. A great majority of the STO player base all agree that we are simply not going to be forced to play any game in which a malware program like ARC is needed optional yes but not a forced necessity. Also if you knew anything about me (which you do not) you would know that i actually played STO about 4 - 6 months before the fleet starbases was released, i just never bothered to post on the forums ever. (too much of a hassle)
Besides i have nothing to hide and if anyone that worked for PWE/Cryptic ever tried to steal my identity they would more then likely spend less then my ex ever has, however identity theft is very real and to me ARC is nothing more then a easy access backdoor into someones computer which more then likely can and will be taken advantage of by would be identity thiefs.
Also johnsills, i know it's very basic as far as intel gathering goes my main problem is the forced usage of arc to increase the amount of intel gathered. As far as i am concerned what games i have installed, what passwords i use, and what kind of les :X i like cryptic/PWE has no buisness knowing. Collect system info and scan for illegal game mod usage while the game's running i am perfectly fine with but anything more then that PWE/Cryptic can go blow.
I'm not saying it's good, but you can't fault it for having bugs and performance issues after they've said it is a beta product. After all, that's the point of beta software, to flush these issues out.
I'm not saying it's good, but you can't fault it for having bugs and performance issues after they've said it is a beta product. After all, that's the point of beta software, to flush these issues out.
The problem is this Beta is being pushed like it is a release version. You click download on the website you get ARC.
My wife's complaint is that Arc seems to lose her password. A lot. She hasn't been able to play any Cryptic games for almost a month now, because when she got her new computer, they would only download through Arc.
Expressing dislike of ARC: perfectly fine.
Expressing like of ARC: perfectly fine.
Insulting your fellow Captains for picking the "wrong" one of the two above: not fine.
Insulting Cryptic/PWE employees: not fine.
Insulting anybody else, either by name or collectively: not fine.
By all means disagree with the decisions of Cryptic and Perfect World Entertainment, and the opinions of your fellow Captains, and express those disagreements here passionately; but keep it non-personal.
IDIC. It's the Star Trek way.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Comments
Why do I run MalwareBytes before install and reports clean system then uninstall I run it again and it finds Conduit on my machine to clean that off? And that's only after installing Arc then uninstalling it without running anything else.
> http://youtu.be/NyEE0qpfeig
Is there a way to change this option after installing short of uninstalling everything and re-installing?
If you can fix everything under its hood, I will have no problem with reinstalling Arc.
Finally, my computer's resources are none of your business.
I am not going to allow strangers into my house, so Cryptic can take inventory over what I own.
Personally, I'm running on a bog-standard Toshiba Satellite L505, and I don't care who knows it.
I'm not entirely sure, but I can definitely have our team take a look at this.
In regards to opting in and out?
We're still running tests to determine why some users have this issue. While it doesn't happen to everyone, we do notice that some users suffer from this. With that said, this is one of our top concerns.
Again, we understand your concerns and appreciate any and all feedback.
You realize you agreed to that for STO, too, right? It's in the PWE ToS for all their games:
http://www.perfectworld.com/about/terms
Sorry for caps, they're present in the source.
No worries about the caps, its not a problem.
Well I'm in the EU, and ARC is governed by EU law so EULA's mean nowt. But as I've said before that's way to combative and aggressive tone, so my apologies. My point is a EULA can very much be seen as a statement of intent. And hte Intent in the ARC EULA is a bit to broad.
I'm happy to see a common Launcher, and often wondered why Cryptic didn't have one, but I'm getting off topic.
Actually those two EULA's are very different. The STO one clearly and very defiantly lays out what can and can't be recorded and or monitored, and the purposes of that monitoring.
The ARC EULA is very vague and nebulous, as to the scope and use.
Just check the length of the passage, the STO one has lots of details and is longer, the ARC one is not.
If they were to copy and paste the STO EULA into the ARC one in place of the section I highlighted I'd be installing it already. Like others have said:
1: I don't care if you know my system spec.
2: I don't care if you monitor how I interact with your software, as its your program and you have legal rights and responsibilities.
I do not use social media. I do not experiment with poorly-designed web browsers. I do not play any other PWE games, nor do I have interest in trying.
You can either have your bloated, resource-wasting, poorly-disguised spyware, or you can have my patronage. Pick only one - no middle ground.
The thing I'm loving is that by logging into Arc I don't have to log in everytime I exit a game, this makes switching between Neverwinter and STO a lot less of a pain, and when I finally get around to trying out Champions or the new Cryptic project (whichever happens first :P) will likely be quite nice there as well.
So, on the whole I've found Arc to be a positive experience and a step forward. If anything about that changes I'll bring the info here.
Yes, unless the system information is only collected once when ARC is initially installed.
EDIT: Also after reading the part of the EULA that syberghost has posted in #972, i am seriously starting to question the integrity of the type of company that cryptic/PWE is to the point of completely uninstalling STO seeing as how by that very definition in the EULA is the equivalent of a spyware virus. Not to mention a complete violation of multiple world wide privacy laws.
And it's posts like this (and users like those who just showed up) that make me think that many of the naysayers are actually sock puppets trying to stir up paranoia.
so how far do we have to dig on the internets ,intell we find a link between pwe and what ever other comanys that own's it and China's military of implementing Intelligence gathering?
i do think, i read,
that in china you can not do anything useing the internet with out thier military approving it.
as the news talks about what the US groups do to gatherintelligence on everything done bya normal computer user, why would any company want their user base to use a produce like ARC ?
and yes we all ready have your basic software on our computers, are you saying you really need more info about your users?
i would think you all ready have everything.
And we got a tin foil hat wearer. If you're that paranoid, what are you doing on the internet, more less STO
Yes, it's just a joke.
It is still annoying that I have to do all this stuff just to keep ARC from transmitting all my data.
Not trying to stir up paranoia however i am stating the facts. A great majority of the STO player base all agree that we are simply not going to be forced to play any game in which a malware program like ARC is needed optional yes but not a forced necessity. Also if you knew anything about me (which you do not) you would know that i actually played STO about 4 - 6 months before the fleet starbases was released, i just never bothered to post on the forums ever. (too much of a hassle)
Besides i have nothing to hide and if anyone that worked for PWE/Cryptic ever tried to steal my identity they would more then likely spend less then my ex ever has, however identity theft is very real and to me ARC is nothing more then a easy access backdoor into someones computer which more then likely can and will be taken advantage of by would be identity thiefs.
Also johnsills, i know it's very basic as far as intel gathering goes my main problem is the forced usage of arc to increase the amount of intel gathered. As far as i am concerned what games i have installed, what passwords i use, and what kind of les :X i like cryptic/PWE has no buisness knowing. Collect system info and scan for illegal game mod usage while the game's running i am perfectly fine with but anything more then that PWE/Cryptic can go blow.
ARC is spyware/bloatware
Its code is unstable, it hogs resources, and its changing of your web browser functionality may be borderline illegal.
Anyone who says otherwise has NO idea how coding works and is either a tool or in the pat of ARC
That is the definition of beta software. Well, except the browser changing part.
"Software in the beta phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues and may still cause crashes or data loss."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Beta
I'm not saying it's good, but you can't fault it for having bugs and performance issues after they've said it is a beta product. After all, that's the point of beta software, to flush these issues out.
The problem is this Beta is being pushed like it is a release version. You click download on the website you get ARC.
Expressing dislike of ARC: perfectly fine.
Expressing like of ARC: perfectly fine.
Insulting your fellow Captains for picking the "wrong" one of the two above: not fine.
Insulting Cryptic/PWE employees: not fine.
Insulting anybody else, either by name or collectively: not fine.
By all means disagree with the decisions of Cryptic and Perfect World Entertainment, and the opinions of your fellow Captains, and express those disagreements here passionately; but keep it non-personal.
IDIC. It's the Star Trek way.
My TS3 and my friends, is fine with ARC running. We have been using ARC since day one without any major problems, so...
What PTT key are you using?
Have you tried loading TS as an Admin (I have to do this with some games for PTT to work)
Have you tried uninstalling TS3 and reinstalling?
Does ARC load as an Admin ?
NOTHING was wrong with the original launcher. PWE just wants to play Big Brother and cram ads down our throats.