CurseForge should be banned

It’s probably triggering SmartScreen and failing to install as a result. I’m going to tentatively say it’s a false positive, and if so it’s up to Overwolf to resolve that with Microsoft.

I’ve had no problem using Curse, even though it’s a couple extra clicks to close things down. If you think Overwolf is getting any data that they can’t buy from…ohhh, a very very long list of companies, including ones you use every day, you’re nuts. Using your data when it’s in the end agreement isn’t malware, you weirdos. It’s not very upfront, but do you use Facebook? Twitter? GOOGLE? Fitibt? Samsung? APPLE?

Do you have accounts on Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc etc, I don’t need to list 100 companies to get this point across. Your data is already available.

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Oh no its not failing to install. Overwolf itself says we’ve detected your in the windows insider preview build. Please opt out of that to continue. So they are well aware of it and dont want it installed that way.

Unless im misunderstanding you and thats what you were inferring

The standalone is still made by overwolf and states it will give you advertisements, and being that overwolf is not to be trusted, most likely will have malware running in it’s back-ground.

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Nah, it’s me that misunderstood you, but you clarified what you meant in your latest post so now I know. Interesting that they don’t want you installing on the Insider Preview. I guess they consider that “beta” software, which it really is, and just don’t want to support users’ tech support requests on those versions of the OS, which is strange given that most people that choose the IP track are at least capable of troubleshooting at a decent level.

This is nothing but fearmongering. It’s a standalone app and has no other processes associated with it as the Overwolf app is not installed with it. It’s literally a barebones addon manager for WoW with a small window for ads (and those almost never even show up).

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The app literally stated this right up with the agreements.

So good luck with that.

That’s not how things work with the standalone app. They don’t purposely give you malware. If the ads aren’t from a trusted source, they can trigger this. It happened on the actual Curse website back in the day when it was full of ads. It happened on Wowhead a little while ago, as well.

Curse got bought out and that fixed the bad ads issue when the new owner changed things. Wowhead got their heads out of their bums and started using better ad services.

Right now, you have just as much of a chance to get malware or virus alerts from the Curse website as you do from the Curse app. Which is… extremely unlikely.

What?

I am genuinely asking what are you talking about?

I’ve been using CurseForge to manage my addons all expansion. I don’t have any malware from it. There is small banner ads on the app, which tbh I had to pull up an image of the launcher to even see if it had ads because I couldn’t remember if they had any, they’re not exactly intrusive ads. And I have never once paid for a “premium” addon or content, nor have I ever had an addon I wanted be locked behind a paywall.

I have used Curseforge all expansion without paying a dime or having any issues. I just launch it every other week or so to keep addons updated, then close it. I don’t get why people see it as evil incarnate.

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The solution is simple, Blizzard fixes the interface and then bans the addons so these complaints no longer exist.

Maybe we need a new term for this kind of thing. “Bundled software” is a bit too innocuous sounding, perhaps NCI’s for “non-consensual installations”?

This is a step in the right direction, but caution should continue to be exercised because they could always sneak new things into the standalone client at some point in the future, plus it’s good to keep the competition healthy to disincentivize Overwolf/Curse from ever trying to pull something like that. If those who are upset just install the standalone Curse app and competitors die out, Overwolf will be free to do as they please and we’ll be right back at square 1.

The website does give you a couple advantages, though:

  1. A browser that’s better sandboxed and is automatically updated to defend against 0days
  2. The ability to run extensions like uBlock Origin and NoScript to keep malvertising at bay

Desktop clients are usually built with Electron or CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) which are notorious for not being sandboxed well and often use outdated versions of Chrome/Chromium.

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The term already exists and has for some time:

Bloatware

Actually some people do.

Flagging this in late: needed to reinstall CurseForge, and MalwareBytes detected the Rozena Trojan (a backdoor on your computer for other malware) instantly. That’s on the full and Alpha installs.
I’m looking into other providers, but my favourite add-ons seem to be exclusive to CF these days.

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Not saying that this didn’t happen, but I regularly scan with Malwarebytes and it has never picked up anything from the Overwolf program. Did you download the program form their official page or a third party site? I also just downloaded Curseforge - Installer.exe from download.curseforge.com and did a manual scan and Malwarebytes didn’t have any problems with it.

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hmm no dps meters i would go for that …

Much like Jala, just DLed to check and yep, no trojan.

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Then I will unless it was downloaded from some place other than the official site.

Did you sandbox it to see exactly who it’s talking to. Did you de-compile it and run a process analysis?

What is your expertise in doing so?

Or did you just run the .exe through virus total or scan the package with malwarebytes and call it a day?

I’m guessing you have no idea what you are talking about, and are giving people poor advice.

Link from WoWHead had the Trojan - not one from the link you supplied, though!
Thanks!

I haven’t downloaded any app on my computer. I download zip files old fashioned way and it works fine. /shrug

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