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Securom?

roberttitusroberttitus
edited September 2010 in General Chat
Does anybody know what in the world is so bad about Securom? I hear everybody bitching about it, but nobody ever really says what is so bad about it.... like today I bought Borderlands & it "supposedly" installed on my computer, but I haven't actually seen anything bad yet.

Comments

  • RingmasterJ5RingmasterJ5
    edited September 2010
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM
  • roberttitusroberttitus
    edited September 2010
    RingmasterJ5 wrote: »
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM

    That doesn't answer anything
  • Secret FawfulSecret Fawful
    edited September 2010
    Does SecuROM use copy protection codes? Copy protection sucks because of that. What if you lose your codes? What if the game you bought didn't come with the codes. You're screwed.
  • roberttitusroberttitus
    edited September 2010
    Secret Fawful wrote: »
    Does SecuROM use copy protection codes? Copy protection sucks because of that. What if you lose your codes? What if the game you bought didn't come with the codes. You're screwed.

    I know it is a form of copyright protection, but I don't really think it has anything to do with codes. It just installs the Securom program on your computer.... which I'm taking as preventing you from playing pirated games that are protected by securom. I may be wrong though....
  • Secret FawfulSecret Fawful
    edited September 2010
    Then...I don't know of any problem. I know Bioshock has it, but the only problem I have with Bioshock is that every time I take the CD out and put it back in, then run the game, I have to activate the serial number all over again.
  • JedExodusJedExodus
    edited September 2010
    Securom is basically copy protection, but it comes in many flavours, some of them leaving a bad taste in the mouth which is why people get a bit edgy when it's announced.

    Some games you have to activate online before you can install them and can only activate them so many times (though so many people yap about this that the restriction's more often than not lifted)

    Certain flavours install a 'rootkit' on your system which can apparently leave it vulnerable, i'm not well versed in this at all. I don't really mind as the bigger controversies get sorted out in the end, as long as it doesn't inconvienence me too much i'm fine with it

    There's another one called StarForce which managed to make my Vista system unbootable at one point, that I minded
  • Harald BHarald B
    edited September 2010
    I've heard some flavors of Securom replace your cd-rom drive drivers with their own, potentially crippling your drive if they're not compatible. Some require you to uninstall certain quite legal software. And I think all of them use an intentionally messed-up windows registry key that crashes your registry editor if you so much as look at the Securom entries.
    I think the rootkit issues were with Starforce, but I'm not sure. A rootkit is like a virus, but it gets so deep into the system that you can't see its files through any normal way and regular virus-scanners can't detect it. They're the tool of choice for the most aggressive botnets. Besides the principle of the thing, the bad thing about the drm rootkits was that malign viruses and the like could use the rootkit as a backdoor and to avoid being detected themselves.
  • Ray-The-SunRay-The-Sun
    edited September 2010
    SecuROM is modular. However, don't buy an EA game on the PC. It's got the current worst version of SecuROM. The previous worst was also held by EA, where it was handled as a driver and RUINED many computers. Including one I owned.
  • roberttitusroberttitus
    edited September 2010
    Ray-The-Sun wrote: »
    SecuROM is modular. However, don't buy an EA game on the PC. It's got the current worst version of SecuROM. The previous worst was also held by EA, where it was handled as a driver and RUINED many computers. Including one I owned.

    I will keep that in mind. I don't typically like alot of EA games anyways (well minus Need 4 Speed)
  • xbskidxbskid
    edited September 2010
    I can't speak as to Telltale's disc implementation (As I haven't installed any games from my discs), but from what I've seen of their digital distribution, the ONLY part of SecuROM that they use seems to be just a small database in your user profile and a couple registry keys (Not hidden, but they're tweaked so you can't delete them with the built-in registry editor) that it uses for activation, so it doesn't have to verify your username every time you load the game. There are no SecuROM program files, and there's no SecuROM service that gets installed.
  • roberttitusroberttitus
    edited September 2010
    xbskid wrote: »
    I can't speak as to Telltale's disc implementation (As I haven't installed any games from my discs), but from what I've seen of their digital distribution, the ONLY part of SecuROM that they use seems to be just a small database in your user profile and a couple registry keys (Not hidden, but they're tweaked so you can't delete them with the built-in registry editor) that it uses for activation, so it doesn't have to verify your username every time you load the game. There are no SecuROM program files, and there's no SecuROM service that gets installed.

    Okay.....
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