Installing Akamai Netsession Interface is a step too far

[toaftoaf]

if i remember that POS downloader comes with the newest 3dmax, or core,. needless to sy i run my older verions of both now. i wish companies would stop doing c r a p like this

[starhawk_6699]

So spent the morning investigating why my computer is suddenly constantly running netsession. It didn't take long to discover it was from Turbine.

First - run msconfig and turn off autostart Akamai

Reboot - its back, reinstalled itself to autostart config

Next - located the Akamai folder, (hidden file/folder) run uninstall, seems to be gone.

Reboot - cool, gone

Go to Lammaland, - Akamai reinstalls itself and configures itself to autostart again

Block Akamai with firewall - Lammaland will not start, hangs at installing software

End result - Delete lammaland from computer.

I understand that Lammannia is a test server and that Turbine has the right to monitor and use whatever tools they see fit to try and improve their product but I feel it is a breach of faith for them to install software that runs independent of their product. I saw no warning or disclosure that this software was being installed nor does there seem to be any way to configure it. So until Turbine decides to at least allow me to configure the software so that it will only run during the time I am using their game then I choose to no longer be a Lammainnian.

Warning to the DEVS, if this goes Live then it will be the final straw for me and I will cancel my sub, uninstall and recommend to all my friends and family that play this game to uninstall as well.
Your rights to my computer end when I close your program and you have no right to install software that autostarts when I power on the computer and constantly runs without any way to configure it.

Peace / out

[starhawk_6699]

So spent the morning investigating why my computer is suddenly constantly running netsession. It didn't take long to discover it was from Turbine.

First - run msconfig and turn off autostart Akamai

Reboot - its back, reinstalled itself to autostart config

Next - located the Akamai folder, (hidden file/folder) run uninstall, seems to be gone.

Reboot - cool, gone

Go to Lammaland, - Akamai reinstalls itself and configures itself to autostart again

Block Akamai with firewall - Lammaland will not start, hangs at installing software

End result - Delete lammaland from computer.

I understand that Lammannia is a test server and that Turbine has the right to monitor and use whatever tools they see fit to try and improve their product but I feel it is a breach of faith for them to install software that runs independent of their product. I saw no warning or disclosure that this software was being installed nor does there seem to be any way to configure it. So until Turbine decides to at least allow me to configure the software so that it will only run during the time I am using their game then I choose to no longer be a Lammainnian.

Warning to the DEVS, if this goes Live then it will be the final straw for me and I will cancel my sub, uninstall and recommend to all my friends and family that play this game to uninstall as well.
Your rights to my computer end when I close your program and you have no right to install software that autostarts when I power on the computer and constantly runs without any way to configure it.

Peace / out

Did find the control panel for Akamai, Options are to enable/disable uploads (mine was set to enable by default) and to start/stop service. There appears to be no way to disable autostartonboot function other than uninstalling, IE. program can stop the service but it will restart on boot.

[Flavilandile]

[...]

I understand that Lammannia is a test server and that Turbine has the right to monitor and use whatever tools they see fit to try and improve their product but I feel it is a breach of faith for them to install software that runs independent of their product. I saw no warning or disclosure that this software was being installed nor does there seem to be any way to configure it. So until Turbine decides to at least allow me to configure the software so that it will only run during the time I am using their game then I choose to no longer be a Lammainnian.

Warning to the DEVS, if this goes Live then it will be the final straw for me and I will cancel my sub, uninstall and recommend to all my friends and family that play this game to uninstall as well.
Your rights to my computer end when I close your program and you have no right to install software that autostarts when I power on the computer and constantly runs without any way to configure it.

Peace / out

I went out and looked at PyLotro. It worked fine once I had the right link ( you'll have to go somewhere else to find the right thread with the download link to the windows exe though ), no Akaicrap, and actually startup time seems to be quite faster.
I'll have to see how it works for updates, that will be the next step.

The Akaicrap install directory is set to read only ( r--r--r-- is *ix language ) on my PC from now on ( that prevent L-Space launch among other things, with the standard launcher )
The Registry has been purged
The Firewall has Deny netcrap out and deny netcrap in rules ( I had to add one side manually ) for all TCP and UDP ports.
If only it was possible to do the same with the awesomecrap and still have Store available.

[Toblakai]

Warning to the DEVS, if this goes Live then it will be the final straw for me and I will cancel my sub, uninstall and recommend to all my friends and family that play this game to uninstall as well.
Your rights to my computer end when I close your program and you have no right to install software that autostarts when I power on the computer and constantly runs without any way to configure it.

Peace / out

Have a book for you to read also:

[starhawk_6699]

I went out and looked at PyLotro. It worked fine once I had the right link ( you'll have to go somewhere else to find the right thread with the download link to the windows exe though ), no Akaicrap, and actually startup time seems to be quite faster.
I'll have to see how it works for updates, that will be the next step.

The Akaicrap install directory is set to read only ( r--r--r-- is *ix language ) on my PC from now on ( that prevent L-Space launch among other things, with the standard launcher )
The Registry has been purged
The Firewall has Deny netcrap out and deny netcrap in rules ( I had to add one side manually ) for all TCP and UDP ports.
If only it was possible to do the same with the awesomecrap and still have Store available.

Tried setting the firewall to deny access to netsession and Lammannia launcher froze trying to access it, briefly thought about trying to set firewall to limited access but decided it wasn't worth my time and I didn't want this running on my machine anyway. Simple solution - Uninstall Lammannia and Akamai.

[die]

Tried setting the firewall to deny access to netsession and Lammannia launcher froze trying to access it, briefly thought about trying to set firewall to limited access but decided it wasn't worth my time and I didn't want this running on my machine anyway. Simple solution - Uninstall Lammannia and Akamai.

that works but... I found it running before I even had lammmania on it was associated with DDO when ever I have ddo on I get that. Now I have it and nothing is on ***. I guess I will uninstall ddo also

[Flavilandile]

Tried setting the firewall to deny access to netsession and Lammannia launcher froze trying to access it, briefly thought about trying to set firewall to limited access but decided it wasn't worth my time and I didn't want this running on my machine anyway. Simple solution - Uninstall Lammannia and Akamai.

Denying access to the software will lock the launcher. ( thus the pylotro workaround )
That's what I did with my r--r---r-- rights on the directory. The software can't be executed.
Doing the same thing through the firewall will lead to the same result. ( hanging launcher. )

What I have done on my firewall though is deny all traffic in and out of netsession. It can launch itself ( yeah! another CPU/RAM hog launched at DDO Startup )
I'm not sure it worked, since I was already looking at pylotro at the same time and I also changed the rights of the directory. I'll have to check.

[starhawk_6699]

Have a book for you to read also:

Thanks for your insightful, intelligent, informative, and concise contribution to this thread.
I'm sure we all appreciate all of the time you took researching your findings.
Looking forward to any future contributions.

Seriously, this is why companies think that they can get away with tactics like this. And will.
People don't care what is done behind their back as long as they can have what they want when they want it.
As far as I am concerned this is no different than a Trojan.
Here look at this cool game, but don't look to hard at what we do while your busy playing.
Or in this case any time your computer is on. Can I be sure that this software won't be used by the 3rd party provider for its own purposes. It is after all, a p2p client designed as a distribution agent. Mine was default to enable uploads.
As I said I understand that Lammannia is a test server and all that. So I choose not to participate any longer.
Just saying that if this is what goes live then its a step too far.

[Flavilandile]

Have you bug reported the installation ?

I did that saturday, and I've just received an email asking me for more details...
If enough people bug report it maybe they will take actions to remove it. ( there's still hope )

[starhawk_6699]

Have you bug reported the installation ?

I did that saturday, and I've just received an email asking me for more details...
If enough people bug report it maybe they will take actions to remove it. ( there's still hope )

Doing it right now

[SilkofDrasnia]

If they want us to use P2P why not just stick up a torrent for us to use instead of sneaking in this manure?

[ProducerRowan]

This code was released without the proper controls or opt-in. Our next update will remove the downloader while we review options to improve download speed and technology.

[Dandonk]

This code was released without the proper controls or opt-in. Our next update will remove the downloader while we review options to improve download speed and technology.

This is good. Thank you.

[Flavilandile]

This code was released without the proper controls or opt-in. Our next update will remove the downloader while we review options to improve download speed and technology.

While it is quite understandable for the whole game, and Pando was the same kind of technology ( and was explained as such everywhere ), it is not something useful for the updates... Unless you start to give us full DAT files to download.

As a person that spend his time troubleshooting Network Problems I can understand the full download problem.
( for example I have a troubleshooting session planned Wednesday morning as to why two 10Gb ports on a router works fine with 9.974Gbs packets ( 1528byte long ) on a Layer 2 Bridge and have a latency over 5ms when the traffic goes over 9.976Gbs ( for a 10Gb Bandwidth )... when everything say ( more or less ) that the ports should give/take 10Gb )
On the other hand, As a person that spend his time troubleshooting Network Problems I have difficulties seeing the reason to go P2P for the incremental files from an update.
You use a third party ( Surprise surprise : Akamai ) to store and dispatch them( you also use them to dispatch the full game ) , tell them to use loadbalancing and redirection to the nearest/least loaded download location.

Pando wasn't a problem because : it was only needed the first time you downloaded the game. The Installer was warning you that it was going to install Pando and why.
If you were careful, you could keep those files and you wouldn't need Pando anymore in care of re-installation.
After Initial Installation Pando could be scrapped ( or removed ) from your computer.

This Akamai thingie installed itself in the background of the splash screen, you had to be extremely careful at what was written in the small status line of the splash screen to notice it.
( I did notice it because I made the directory where it is stored unwritable and files in it unexecutable, so the launcher whined and just locked up )
I have security set to quite high on my computer and the only real notice I got that something was awry was the message asking me to add a firewall rule to allow the Akamai thingie through ( since I didn't know at that time where it came from my reaction was : Hell NO ! ) [ at first when I answered on this thread I thought it was replacing Pando for the full game download ]
From the way this Akamai thingie is called by the launcher, you can't start the game without it installing itself again ( or at least checking it's install, since it reinstalled and restarted itsef after I removed the RUN entry in the registry. )
That's more a parasite or a virus than anything else.

TL;DR :
You don't need P2P downloader for updating the game, update process is fine.
Having one for the full game install might be useful, but in this era, just put out a torrent and store it on several site that offer free FTP and it will work better than a P2P downloader that installs itself with the game.

[Arianka]

This code was released without the proper controls or opt-in.

how did this happen?

[Phoenix-daBard]

how did this happen?

Two words: Alpha Build

An alpha build can have all kinds of dev experiments that will not appear in a beta. They said it was an alpha build and I understood what that meant. Anything can happen.

[toaftoaf]

This code was released without the proper controls or opt-in. Our next update will remove the downloader while we review options to improve download speed and technology.

2nd time in a week. get your game face on. i still only use my old version of 3dmax and corel. and i still forget what one using that, but i know they both use something close.

[SilkofDrasnia]

This code was released without the proper controls or opt-in. Our next update will remove the downloader while we review options to improve download speed and technology.

Good get rid of it...and listen to ......

While it is quite understandable for the whole game, and Pando was the same kind of technology ( and was explained as such everywhere ), it is not something useful for the updates... Unless you start to give us full DAT files to download.

...SNIP...

TL;DR :
You don't need P2P downloader for updating the game, update process is fine.
Having one for the full game install might be useful, but in this era, just put out a torrent and store it on several site that offer free FTP and it will work better than a P2P downloader that installs itself with the game.

...this.

[Krelar]

This code was released without the proper controls or opt-in. Our next update will remove the downloader while we review options to improve download speed and technology.

Has anyone checked to see if this is gone from the new build? Also, does it get uninstalled if you already have it or do I have to do that myself?