Starforce: Description
From Boycott Starforce
Starforce is a copy protection that is installed along with some games. Like other copy protections such as SafeDisk and SecuROM, it is designed to prevent people from copying games. It works by installing its own device drivers onto the users computer (usually without the user's knowledge).
Compared to other copy protections, Starforce seems to cause many more problems among its users. Problems range from causing general system instability, slowing down burning speed, causing optical drives to be set to PIO mode (very slow compared to DMA mode, which is usually the default), and exposing its users to viruses and/or trojans since it allows any code under the user level (ring-3) to have system level (ring-0) privileges. Some users have been unable to play Starforce protected games when their disks have minor scratches.
People have also criticized the company behind Starforce, which aggressively attacks anybody who criticizes their software. They have claimed the people boycotting people to be pirates when in fact most are legitimate users who are experiencing problems with the protection. More recently, a Starforce employee posted a link to an illegal torrent to download Galactic Civilizations 2 to show what occurs when a game does not use copy protection.
In addition to the different versions of Starforce, there are also three tiers that have different amounts of protection. Here's a quote from their forums:
- Basic - no drivers, no aditional protection options, overal protection level - 5%
- Pro - drivers, aditional protection options, possible to approach protection level to 100%
- Elite - hacker's nightmare options
No games are known to use the elite tier yet. Bet on Soldier, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Toca Race Driver, Trackamania Sunrise, Ubersoldier, and Dreamfall are known to use pro. Paradise is known to use basic. Most other games are unknown.
The Starforce team has a new copy protection called FrontLine 4.0. It is current unknown whether it causes the same side-effects as Starforce when installed.
More information can be found at Wikipedia's article on Starforce.
