Awhile ago Saedo got us hooked on WoWMatrix...
Ewiges — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 11:55
So quite awhile ago Saedo got a lot of us hooked a WoWmatrix, a simple wonderful program used to update/install all of our lovely addons. Now we have a problem. Its not yet a leave us in the dust problem yet, but a bit of a moral problem.
WoWinsider posted this article today: http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/04/14/curse-wow-interface-band-together-t...
Curse, WoW Interface band together to block WoWMatrix
WoWMatrix is a program of dubious morality. It sucks down bandwidth from sites like Curse and WoWInterface like crazy, and displays its own ads while doing so. It does, however, work like a charm. So it is with mixed feelings that I report that Curse and WoW Interface have gotten their heads together and figured out a way to keep WoWMatrix from accessing their files, which means WoWMatrix is of little use going forward.
The idea is that we will now use the official tools provided by those sites: Curse Client from Curse, and an updater that is still in the works for WoW Interface. Unfortunately, the Curse Client for Mac is a work of pure evil uses a lot of obtrusive and non-standard interface elements, as well as being pretty unstable, so I'm not a huge fan of it; I'm not sure how the Windows version stacks up. It also didn't find about half of my addons, including some that I know are on the Curse site, like ClearFont2.
Furthermore, the WoW Interface updater, the only other game in town as far as I can see, appears to have been in limbo for quite some time. So although I recognize that WoWMatrix was putting a drain on the sites, I'm sad that there is no longer a pleasant way for me to update all of my addons, and at best (when the WI updater is released) I'll need to run two separate programs to do the work that WoWMatrix used to do on its own. But if that's what had to happen for Curse and WI to keep their doors open, that's what had to happen.
Now I don't know what you guys think, but I can easily see this being a problem. I know for now I am still going to stick with WoWMatrix.
It almost seems that,
cromi — Sat, 04/18/2009 - 11:47It almost seems that, looking at the forum, this comes down to partly the major debate since bill gates. Does the content basically lie within the authors control. Or do we as the consumers have the right to control it. So basically seems like wowmatrix is the limewire of addons except for all the addons are legit.
As for the reasons that wowinterface gave for doing this, its bs. One if people are going to get addons not many people would go to wowinterface unless they are trying to find an exclusive addon, like lightheaded and tomtom, are a devoloper, trying to spite curse, or just new to the game. It really comes down to wowmatrix forces them to lose power, at least for curse, and money from adds.
As for now i have to go get my basic addons, grid and bartender from my cc.
Since I refuse to use Curse
saedo — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 16:25Since I refuse to use Curse still. This is the page I'm using to find my updated mods for today: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/latest.php?cid=&dp=&sh=full&so=des...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Lunchbox — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 14:13NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
I have like 51 addons. this now sucks
I only used WoWmatrix because
garreth — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 14:01I only used WoWmatrix because it ran beautifully in Linux. Looks like I'm manually updating all my addons. Again.
site scrapes....
moriella — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 13:21data in nested frames, captcha codes, datavault security, timed file autorization keys etc etc
Been there done it.
It appears right now, that curse has attempted to block scraping via use of captcha codes. If a legit user is using a flash enabled browser, he/she will never be asked for a captcha. This is one method of defense against scraping.
IT also looks like curse may have changed the filenames of all files to a numeric string. This makes me think they are currently using or considering a timed request authorization for the file (key) which will time out and make the file appear to not be available if too much times passes from teh initial request
The link on curse to see a list of mirrors that a specific file resides on has been disabled.
I delt with this daily in the online video streaming world. Even large CDN's like Limelight Networks(LLNM) cant fully secure the files they serve. Someone needs to come to an arrangement. WOWmatrix is widely seen as a superior interface to anything out there atm. If curse makes them go rogue, wowmatrix guys could make life hell for curse, perhaps even pushing them offline. If wowmatrix wants to continue this will turn into a spy vs spy / measures vs countermeasures game of cat and mouse.
If wowmatrix is using curse bandwidth to serve these files, that just not ethical or legal.- but it goes on every day. If could point you to 'leaching' sites all over the internet whos owners are making money doing this, while legit business have to bear the burden of the entire bandwidth
heres an example of a leaching site that has been online for years now -www.joox.net their practices have caused several video streaming services to shut down, do to lack of revenue flow.
If curse bought out wowmatrix
garreth — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 14:04If curse bought out wowmatrix IP and used the interface and provided ads for both curse and WI, everyone would be happy.
Its interesting. Wowmatrix
starstalker — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 13:30Its interesting. Wowmatrix should realize that if Curse goes, then they will have to front the hosting costs themselves, or in all likelyhood going out of business. Kind of like a parasite that relies on its host...
Its also interesting that the author is mixed because he realizes that Wowmatrix just works. I use it now because I became fed up with the curse client.
Well the problem if you stick
saedo — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 12:23Well the problem if you stick with WoWMatrix is that Curse and WoWInterface has at least today successfully blocked WoWMatrix from downloading from them. And that's a quite a fair chunk of mods, 12 on my list appears to be offline, so I assumed they're the blocked ones.
Personally, I still refuse to use Curse Client so I've went back to manually downloading some mods.
Anyways, here's more on WoWMatrix's morality.
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22069
Recently WoWInterface and Curse got together to come up with a solution for an ongoing problem. The problem in question is WowMatrix. The reasons they are a problem are many:
For months now, both sites and multiple authors have been trying to come up with solutions to the problems caused by WowMatrix. However, WowMatrix just keeps ignoring authors' requests to remove their addons from their application, working around the protections we have put in place, and proving repeatedly that they have no intention of ever becoming responsible, legitimate members of the community. Instead, they choose to continue to leech off the community. Well we, WoWInterface and Curse, have gotten together and between us we believe we may have found a solution to prevent them from pulling authors' addons from our sites to redistribute without permission and stealing our bandwidth any longer. Unfortunately we cannot release details on the solution, so as to keep it viable.
"Yeah yeah yeah, blah blah, get to the important question: What does this mean for me, your sites' user?" For the majority of users it should be completely transparent, you should not notice any difference whatsoever, other than improved site responsiveness during patch days. We hope that we will be able to revert the changes made to our sites eventually, if Wowmatrix ever stops violating authors' copyright and ceases stealing our bandwidth and other resources.
If you were previously using WowMatrix to keep your addons updated, please use our official updaters (
WoWInterface
,
Curse
). You may also mark addons as favorites on both WoWInterface and Curse in order to be alerted when they are updated.
Yeah, as of last night I had
Ewiges — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 12:32Yeah, as of last night I had 5 of my "44" of my addons go offline. This morning its only 4.
Anyways, A think wowinterface's article is extremely biased (why wouldn't it be), and I think some of the information is wrong. With my experience of using both curse and wowmatrix before I truly got hooked is that wowmatrix is more up to date. To my awareness wowmatrix also leaches off the author's site as its primary choice. Curse usually takes any ammount of hours to update because the author has to log in and upload his/her newest version.
So I figure until a large ammount of my addons show as offline on matrix I'm not switching back to curse.
EDIT: Curse also wasn't firefox friendly last time I had to use it.
I believe that part refered
saedo — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 12:43I believe that part refered to in the past when WoWMatrix wasn't a program, and just a site hosting / leeching links to all the addons. I'm not sure, I didn't know WoWMatrix existed before the program, but that's the way it sounds like.
It'll be interesting if
Ewiges — Tue, 04/14/2009 - 12:55It'll be interesting if WoWmatrix posts a statement on this matter.