Starforce Petition!

[dajunka]

@Grumpy.

Excellent my dear Grumpy. This is what we need, someone with a little time to maintain and monitor the thread, I would have done something along the same lines if I had more time on my hands to give it the level of attention that it deserves.

May I make a suggestion? "Yes you may comrade dajunka", thank you.

It would be great if you could maintain a list of games that have had the SF removed such as X2 the threat and all new game releases that are SF free.
This not only gives readers I quick guide to what they may buy without breaking the boycott but also will reflect the mod of the publishers, giving us some insight to if our message is getting though to their bank accounts or not.
Most new releases of late have adopted SF as their chosen protection so any fluctuation in future releases should become obvious.

Keep up the good fight Grumpy and I would like to nominate this thread for a sticky.

[chaosmaster]

Originally Posted by Game-Hacker

Sorry for my lack of knowedge, you mentioned Starforce Virus? What are those? I have Kasperky anti-virus installed but when installing Stronghold2 I do not get any alert so is after scanning my PC with it? Do you mean StarForce Virus as a real virus?

with virus i mean, that Starforce is software which is installed without my knowledge and which can destroy some hardware in my PC!

[The-S-Owl]

Great idea, Grumpy

I have never bought any Starforce protected game before, and i never will. I have encountered several issues with Starforce protected demo's: after installing such a game demo, my system became unstable... i randomly got Blue Screens Of Death. I uninstalled the SF drivers, and hey, all of a sudden no more BSOD's !

However, almost no protection is 100% "clean": Safedisc, Securom, Tages, VOB ProtectCD and most other commercial copy protections do install 'hidden' drivers:
- Secdrv is a driver installed by Safedisc
- UAService7.exe is a service installed by Securom 7 (i do not know if this protection installs a driver)
- Enodpl/Tandpl/Lemsgt/Hwpsgt are drivers installed by Tages
- SshDrvXX (where XX is a number) is a driver installed by ProtectCD
As you can see, almost all protections install "something" without your knowledge. But there is one big difference: the drivers installed by the protections apart from Starforce seem to be totally harmless. For example, I have never ever heard problems that were directly related to the Safedisc driver.

The Starforce drivers are getting worse each time they are being updated: the latest versions even prevent you from properly reading DPM info from CD/DVD media, which is, in my opinion, a real shame, and illegal !
The SF coders surely know of the current USB drive trick. What will be next ? That the new drivers will prevent you from using a USB CD/DVD drive ? I hope not.

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by The-S-Owl

Great idea, Grumpy

I have never bought any Starforce protected game before, and i never will. I have encountered several issues with Starforce protected demo's: after installing such a game demo, my system became unstable... i randomly got Blue Screens Of Death. I uninstalled the SF drivers, and hey, all of a sudden no more BSOD's !

However, almost no protection is 100% "clean": Safedisc, Securom, Tages, VOB ProtectCD and most other commercial copy protections do install 'hidden' drivers:
- Secdrv is a driver installed by Safedisc
- UAService7.exe is a service installed by Securom 7 (i do not know if this protection installs a driver)
- Enodpl/Tandpl/Lemgst/Hwpsgt are drivers installed by Tages
- SshDrvXX (where XX is a number) is a driver installed by ProtectCD
As you can see, almost all protections install "something" without your knowledge. But there is one big difference: the drivers installed by the protections apart from Starforce seem to be totally harmless. For example, I have never ever heard problems that were directly related to the Safedisc driver.

The Starforce drivers are getting worse each time they are being updated: the latest versions even prevent you from properly reading DPM info from CD/DVD media, which is, in my opinion, a real shame, and illegal !
The SF coders surely know of the current USB drive trick. What will be next ? That the new drivers will prevent you from using a USB CD/DVD drive ? I hope not.

At last someone who knows what they are talking about for protections.

Im not gonna start a flame in this thread, just saying congrats to this guy for having knowledge of what he is debating about

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hi guys,

As a software developer, I believe that adding suspicious or potentially malicious code to a software hurts the user and voids the trustful connection between the developer and the user. While the developers always disclaim all damage and loss, caused by their own software, they shouldn't add questionable code on purpose.

As a hacker, I believe that using undocumented system functions is a very bad idea (unfortunately, M$ operating systems are known to be extremely ill-documented, except when a third party comes to the rescue!) because their functionality may not be exactly as documented and may change any time, without notice. As a result, you may have strange problems if your PC has "non-standard" hardware or software installed. (Meaning: hardware and software that the code hasn't been tested with.)

As a self-conscious user and administrator of the home PC's of my family, I would hate to have any software running on my systems, without my knowledge. This even includes those sh*t little icons in the system tray, which I carefully get rid of; viruses, ad-ware and other malicious code is much worse than that.

The Starforce copy protection has gone too far in the last year or so. It's becoming too similar to trojans and may have severe consequences to the stability of your system. (And the average user doesn't even know the reason as all copy protections are well hidden, for a reason!)

Whether this thread has any chance to call the attention of game publishers, I don't know. Actually, I don't think so... Still, I'm against intrusive software, be it trojans, ad-ware or copy protection!

Joe

[gnozal]

No SF game for me. Never

[Grumpy]

Come on all, place your support post here. If you dont agree with what I am saying then simply do not post here! A post here is a post counted.

Thankyou for your post/vote.

Thanks for you vote Dabhand!

To all others who have posted here already I thank you also. The only reason I am thanking Dabhand personally is because he believes there is nothing wrong with what Starforce does!! But still he posted a vote?

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Thanks for you vote Dabhand!

To all others who have posted here already I thank you also. The only reason I am thanking Dabhand personally is because he believes there is nothing wrong with what Starforce does!! But still he posted a vote?

Grumpy there is a reason why you live in australia :P

[Grumpy]

@Dabhand
LOL Yes thats because from here I cant poke you in the eye to wake you up!

[Grumpy]

Ok just incase all of you who have started to follow this thread do not read the first post again, there is now a Starforce Protected Games List in the first post of this thread.

[rebelcpu]

Thanks Grumpy for the effort. I do hope this gets out to the unlearned customers in the hope the bloody PC gaming industry doesn't sink any lower than it has. Its beyond pathetic now.

However, how do we, the learned consumer, make a change to the PC industry? I gather this is one small step. The madness MUST end!

I cannot begin to express my absolutely disdain for both Securom7 and StarFarce3! Hidden virtual device drivers are simply wrong!!! YOU DON'T NEED TO SELL A GAME AND THEN TAKE THE CUSTOMER'S RIGHTS AWAY! A game sells on merit and doesn't need over-protection. There are better ways to make money then further alienate your customer base with such assinine measures.

I've already said plenty on this matter in other forums across the web and I do pray this "protection idioicy" ends soon.

Also do wish game devs would release NoCD/DVDs upon their first or second patch as a goodwill gesture for thanking us, the paying public, for buying their games. A gaming industry that still requires the CD/DVD to be inserted before and during gameplay is sooo 90s. Gawd industry WAKE FRICK'N UP ! ! ! !

THe ReB.

[Agent X]

You have my vote. No SF for me.

[expandyourmind]

Thanks for that games list I was wondering why my system developed problems after I installed heroes ww2. I will never ever purchase a product that uses starforce again.

[frisk eucalyptus]

You can add StillLife (StarForce v3.4.65.11) to the list...

[IMMANUEL]

I don't buy any starforce protected game, never ever. It's crap and one more step to a global fascism, whenever some concerns own the whole world.
But just they will be satan's slaves.
Maybe time to stop playing?