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Do not install ARC on your pc !!!
WarWitch
Member UncommonPosts: 351
As many know, all PWI games are making it mandatory to install ARC to download and play any pwi game. Read the over 60 page discussion about it on the sto forms and you will find out. ARC installs into your brouser and spys on you from the browser even if no pwi game is being played. This is not anti hack code but spy wear pure and simple. It adds several processes to you pc full time as well. Stay far away from any gaming compony that's stealing your info and reselling it. This has to be illegal. Theirs a lot of talk in the pwi community about a boycott to get pwi to remove ARC completely. Fleets in STo that have survived the pwi buyout and years of gaming are all ready planning to move to other games.
This is as bad as SWG when the 100 thousand patiton was sent in asking sony to not nge and sony did it anyway.
Sorry my English not so good .
Comments
Good luck getting them to remove it. They would rather close the games down than remove their spyware/rootware.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Install STo from STEAM instead. No fuzz with PWI installers adding fuzzy software to your system.
Also worth to mention that I'm not evenbothered by the fuzzy software they install. I'm using Opera (old version) and those tools are not working with it at all
1) if you have steam installed it's unlikely you'll have that much of a problem with arc(it seems to be basically a steam clone and drm just for the sake of the info it gathers).
2)Chances are it'll be a mandatory install at some point
Apparently you can install arc then start the game directly from the install folder too atm thus bypassing arc, not sure if you can uninstall arc straight after or not thouhgt.
...source?
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
This is true but if the function of the program goes outside the reason you are installing it for their should be a seperate window clearly declaring what it's doing. Anyone installing and playing PWI games is doing that, just playing games so if their program reaches farther than that, such as this allegation of hooking into your browser, that's going outside their small print ToS IMO.
OP if you think PWI is doing something they aren't supposed to file a complaint:
http://www.onguardonline.gov/filecomplaint
Sorry dude that's not true, maybe for the country you live in. But there are several others, which protect their people and some game company agreement CAN'T override law. There is always a solution but your answer ....
Since I read 1989, I assume you are just 24 years old and still have a lot to learn in this world, especially that there are for now 195 countries, which all have their own laws.
But what I am talking: U.S. is an good example, where you can see that even inside ... that changes a lot.
My advice to OP, never give up and keep on warning people! I am sure you helped here a lot of people with your hint.
P.S.: D'oh my 2nd Post after 10 years of membership, you owe me :-)
Just curious, but how do you know they are taking your information and selling it? I have ARC installed right now for STO, but it's not running and I don't see any extra processes in Task Manager (unless it's running under one of the "svchost.exe" processes). I see the ArcPlugin in Firefox, but it's disabled now.
At first it seems odd that they would automatically install the ArcPlugin in your browser, but I'm guessing it serves a similar purpose as Origin's browser functionality for launching Battlefield 3.
So back to my question, how do you know they are selling your information? How do you know they are gathering information? Isn't it possible that the ArcPlugin simply ties your browser to the desktop application, allowing you to launch the game from the game's official website?
I'm not trying to argue, I'm just looking for evidence. I'd like to get the facts straight before I join the mob and raise a fuss! If there is evidence to prove they are gathering my info and selling it, then I will gladly uninstall and boycott ARC!
I dont like having to install a hundred game managers because every company wants to have one.
Steam (valve)
Origin (EA)
Gface (crytek)
Core Connect (PWE)
ARC (again.... PWE)
Ignite (Aeria Games)
etc etc etc....
I play on steam or without any game manager at all. Period.
Should be in the terms and conitions and the privacy policy. Not always very legible though and you may need to hunt for the right t&c/pp.
Also if it stores the info like steam etc. and then transfers during updates and so on there should be a folder or two somewhere on your hd. But i hear arc streams the info so not sure on this.
These game companies have become lazy and cheap. Instead of getting off their asses and/or hiring people to go out and take a census of what people like, are doing or enjoy based around their gaming, they are sneaking and putting all kinds of crappy programs on your PC to spy on you. Possibly screwing up your pc in the process.
Now the reason I say they are sneaking with this stuff is because even though they may have a pop up agreement allowing you to install such programs, they aren't always telling you everything those programs are doing. If a program like ARC is running 100% of the time and gathering information even when your not playing the game, then that is something that should pop up in big bold letters above the accept button so we know that's what the program will do...but then if they did that, they know many gamers would not even play their games and they would lose money....so they deliberately put such things like that in the smallest print possible so that you need a magnifying glass to read and then say "hey it's in the TOS, not our fault you need eyes like superman to read it".....yeah just typical business crap and ways to jump through the loopholes of the law.
Bottom line though, we are not just talking about highly intelligent and educated gamers here....there are far more less than intelligent gamers than there are highly intelligent ones. I think there is a bigger population of people that have at or under 100 I.Q. than there are who are over 100....many, if not most 10 to 19 year olds are dumb as rocks in terms of understanding a TOS, especially if they are gamers....these kids aren't reading a 2 million worded TOS written in what sounds like a foreign language when you read it....please give me a break....if you think more gamers read a TOS than not, then you are crazy....my 12 year old and his friends don't even read the game manual or guides of how to play when they play video games, let alone reading a TOS even if it pops up on screen before they are allowed to play. The last thing they are thinking is reading a TOS saying that some program may be installed on your PC that will continuously run and gather information 24/7....so spare me that TOS agreement BS because it holds absolutely no weight in everyday life of a gamer. It's purely there to protect companies rights as to what they can do in situations that end up in a court of law. However, I'm sure if most people did read what these ARC-like programs do and cared enough, then we could easily get the law to stop such invasion of privacy no matter what TOS a company pulls out of their ass....Johnny Cochran proved that there are ways around the law and getting guilty people off...so don't think there isn't a lawyer somewhere who can get a TOS tossed out of court and not even be a factor in a verdict should it come to such a thing...
...source?
I thought that was common knowledge...it was sort of a big deal when they were talking about the NGE and NO ONE wanted it.
Anyway, send me a PM I will see if I still have any of that info available, lets not hi-jack this thread.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Not illegal, but it is a form of extortion!
If you want to play then you MUST allow it!
Not entirely, while illegal is a harsh word, personal data and its handling is a serious issue over here, and there was already stated that a private company's TOS cannot override EU law. That's why you see lately different TOS'es for US, UK and in some cases for Germany - I mean you see only if you do read TOS of course. (and if you don't, like those mentioned in Davynelord's post, maybe you should watch South Park's Human CentiPad and reconsider
)
And zasten's line isn't precise either, you can play without Arc - yet. PWE only removed the game installs, they haven't messed with the launcher - again, yet. So if you can get the installer from elsewhere (for STO here are a few sources: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=819701 ) you can still play without Arc.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Good advice. Just a heads up, under services, the "Arc Service" was under the manufacturer "Perfect World Entertainment Inc" for me.
Them good times. 8088 4.75 Mhz 4 colours (yeah was a rich guy with a CGA card not a Hercules card) 512Kb.
Think ZIP killed them all :P
Completely out of curiosity I thought that there was precedence/stipulation that TOS's ( and other such agreements ) aren't worth the paper they are written on because you can't prove the document was even read, thus no rights were given regardless of pressing " I accept " . Maybe my interpretation is off though..
Recently courts have ruled in favor of the consumer in similar issues. One ruling made it to a federal appellate court where the courts upheld the ruling for the consumer. More and more people that have begun to challenge the agreements are finding out they can win in court if they are willing to put in the time and energy.
"Unfortunately, the FTC is closed due to the government shutdown."
Well, I guess that isn't going to work.
Smile
There's no thread on it in the news section so I put it here,
yesterday PWE spammed the news page of every game with a letter in which they try to calm and pacify the concerns about Arc (http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=1017551 at STO but it's the same on the other pages as well)
Beside the usual PR bullsht there's a few statement worth to notice, first of all that Arc will be the exclusive method of downloading, patching, and launching all Perfect World games (which means the end of my days in Starfleet, so I've just red the rest for the lolz),
the Arc will not gather or share personal information without consent part (as in it will do it, but you can opt out some parts
),
Our goal is to create a non-disruptive gaming experience - says the dev of games which have system-wide announcements of every lockbox winners
Arc only installs the games you want to play - awesome, I do the same without any help but I'm sure there are masses who are installing games by the dozens (and then never playing them), they will be happy for such a great feature
Also great lines later in the forum, like "I totally agree that the current launcher is an amazing piece of technology." really? Then why are you so eager to replace it with that crapware?
Not yet. Also the Steam version has the advantage of making buying zen extremely painless: instead of having to deal with Paypal or credit card numbers and so forth (it's glitchy, on top of the privacy concerns), you can pay in seconds out of your Steam wallet.
Keep fighting the good fight, people. I have no use for Arc because STO is the only PWE game I ever play. Never needed it before, and I don't plan on starting now. And for folks who don't like Steam (I know they're still out there, lol) http://tinyurl.com/mffj8ub is the standalone (read: Arc-free) STO installer that PWE still has buried somewhere on the website.