Fuck You Starforce!

[MonCapitan2002]

Thank you for fucking over my DVD ROM drive. Assholes! Because of you I had to purchase a new DVD drive. Motherfuckers!

[Zehava]

Oh joy.

Software copy protection that goes so far as to fuck up hardware, that's very nice.

MonCap you may want to try this

This type of copy protection is just a hair short of Sony's rootkit, and is stiring up a major backlash against company's that have been using it.

[California Tanker]

Yeah, StarForce has received such a negative reaction that there are people actively boycotting otherwise excellent software such as Silent Hunter III. Those companies which did use it such as Ubisoft have already announced that they will be using it no longer.

Best form of copy protection I've seen so far is a USB dongle, such as by Codemeter. You can make as many backup CDs/DVDs as you like (Or just download software from the web), and it's pretty hard to crack. No online checking such as Steam or StarForce. And it doesn't affect your hardware!

NTM

[seebs]

I am very surprised to hear that Starforce could actually damage hardware; making it unusable without reloading Windows, I can easily believe, but physically damaging it is unusual.

I mean, not to say Starforce isn't a craptastic product produced by an evil company; their attempts to get people to download unlicensed copies of GalCiv II to punish Stardock for not using copy protection speak for themselves.

I will not buy any program that uses Starforce. It just doesn't happen.

[California Tanker]

I am very surprised to hear that Starforce could actually damage hardware;

It just needs to muck with the firmware. DVD drives are already fairly malleable in the firmware department, for example the 'change regions five times then lock it' is a firmware setting run by Windows.

NTM

[MonCapitan2002]

I used the removal tool to get rid of the Starforce drivers.

[Stormlight]

Originally Posted by seebs

their attempts to get people to download unlicensed copies of GalCiv II to punish Stardock for not using copy protection speak for themselves.

To be fair, that was the action of one of their employees and was not endorsed by SF.

But yeah, I agree that Starforce is really bad.

[viscousmemories]

Wow, times have changed since I was into gaming. What a pain. Not only have I never heard of Starforce until now, I've never heard of any of the games that use it!

[BracesForImpact]

It makes one want to pirate, just to avoid unauthorized access to your computer.

[MonCapitan2002]

Not for me it doesn't. It makes me not want to get the games of companies that use the software.