The fact is that it is, indeed, illegal for any company to write software that scans your PC without your express consent. Furthermore, Archbell's windower does not, in fact, change the way FFXI operates in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. The ability to ALT+TAB is a modification of DirectX, if I am correct, so if anybody has legal issues with it, it would be Microsoft. And they allow people to write DirectX APIs all the time, so meh. Perhaps I am wrong in the DirectX bit, but the gist is that the Archbell windower does not actually modify any of the SquareEnix files that are installed on the machine. SquareEnix cannot take any legal action against anything that doesn't modify their files.
As for the change allowing TP to be seen and whatnot, again, not a change to the way FFXI functions. The numbers you see in FFXI when using this windower are an OVERLAY, nothing more. The GUI of FFXI is in no way affected. The TP information is broadcast to all clients, for some unknown reason; if SE wants to fix that, then they just need to make it so that information is not broadcast. If they didn't want the client to know this information, it shouldn't be accessible.
If they implemented ANY sort of function in the FFXI client that could scan your PC for files associated with Windowers, and started banning people they found using it, what they would end up getting is a class action suit. And unlike Spyware companies, SquareEnix would not be a difficult target to find.
Personally, I think their approach to FFXI security is absurd. They are using obscurity for security, and as the saying goes, "Security through obscurity is no security at all". People find ways around it, in this case, simply ways to make the game less cumbersome.
A good example of the correct approach a company should use towards 3rd Party programs is how Turbine/MS handled the Decal program for Asheron's Call. It ended up making the game more accessible to a wider range of people, and honestly, it was one of the things I liked most about the game. Hell... some of the functions Decal supported were eventually coded directly into the game, since they turned out to be nice.
SE is playing a dangerous game here, and they're tossing up a lot of smoke and mirrors. They risk alienating a huge chunk of their playerbase, that chunk being the original PC playerbase. They risk pissing off the longest-standing of the NA playerbase, and they'll either wise up, or FFXI will fail.
People wont stand for being slapped around forever.
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*RNG75* WAR42 NIN37 SAM30 SMN19 BLM18 WHM14 DYNAMIS - XARCABARD INTERLOPER x 2 Windurst Rank 10 ~ San d'Oria Rank 1 ~ *Bastok Rank 6* Zilart: Complete ~ CoP: Complete
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