How safe are add-ons?

[Raederle]

With all the discussion about hacking WoW accounts recently I find myself wondering, are add-ons really worth it? How can you be sure the add-ons are safe? Do they really make the game THAT much better that it is worth the risk?

[Saturo]

The addons themselves are safe, they can't hack the game. It is, however, possible to get some nasty application with in the archive. Just FYI, if it has an .exe in it, be careful about installing it. An addon NEVER needs a .exe to work.

[Sigrah]

With all the discussion about hacking WoW accounts recently I find myself wondering, are add-ons really worth it? How can you be sure the add-ons are safe? Do they really make the game THAT much better that it is worth the risk?

Many addons are safe and totally worth it. For example, if you're a raider (or even doing certain dungeons now), Deadly Boss Mods is a must. If you have Mining or Herbalism, Gatherer and Gathermate2 are very beneficial since they track where you found nodes before, and also allow you to import data of other nodes that users of Wowhead and other sites have submitted using these addons. If you enjoy fishing, Fishing Buddy is nice. And of course, if you're looking for rare pets like Loque, _NPCScan and Silverdragon are both extremely helpful in showing you where to hunt and if they are up if you're within /target range of them.

When I used to play, I would get my addons from curse.com. I know some people that have been hacked because of curse's automatic update client, so if you get addons from them, always pick MANUAL install and pick where you want to save it. This way, you can scan the file with anti-virus and anti-malware software before and after you extract them. And the #1 rule, as always, is HAVE AN AUTHENTICATOR.

[Sei]

I've got a few addons, thankfully haven't had a problem with them. But I like to do Manual installs of ALL my addons instead of using Curses Client. That just bugs me personally, though I haven't known anyone who had an issue with it. But like Sigrah said, I like to be able to scan the files I'm putting on my computer and I'm paranoid about my pc, I don't want that stupid installer slipping something in I don't know about

[Anyia]

As Saturo has already said, addons themselves can't do you much harm. An addon can't even read or write files on your computer, it's limited to using what little information is available from the game client via the defined programming interface. The only naughty thing I'm aware of that an addon could do is obtain your real name from battle.net (unless you disabled Real ID completely), but even that might be fixed by now.

I've heard rumors about the Curse Client being a point of vulnerability, but from what I've gleaned it seems to have been caused by malicious ads getting through (which are then displayed using an embedded IE view), not the Curse Client itself. If you're on a premium Curse account you don't get any ads, and hence don't have that particular worry. When installing addons manually, never click any .exe unless you really, truly, absolutely trust the source. Addons should be distributed as plain .zip files which you just extract into your addons folder.

As for the "are addons worth it" question, that is a very subjective thing. For me the answer is a roaring "YES", but there are untold counts of people out there who use nothing but the default UI.

[TygerDarkstorm]

One, get an authenticator. =P

No really, an autenticator can really save your account and stop the majority of hack attempts.

Anyway, as to addons themselves, as others have said, they themselves won't harm your computer and your account. And I use Curse's automatic addon updater and haven't had a problem yet. It's just about using it smartly. I only open it when I am fully exited out of the game and I always make sure to fully shut it down (not just hitting the X in the corner) when I'm done. My boyfriend, who's very cautious about this kind of stuff, uses it as well.

I'm kind of lazy and I find it a very easy way to keep track of which addons need to be updated without having to go digging around the Curse website.

[Ognian]

Not to mention, as I found out yesterday, you can get the authenticator FREE, for iphone or android. You even still get the corehound pup, so there's really no reason not to have one. Take it from me, BEFORE you get hacked

[cajunspices]

One item you should know, Blizz noted that an added way to stop having your e-mail or any other password from being key-logged was to start using my on-screen keyboard for login's plus your authenticator. The Screen keyboard uses mouse clicks and is outside the loop scanned on key logging builds.

I say this simply because this is what they noted to me after I was hacked before the release. They even sent me a free authenticator after my account was hacked


Cajun

[Felidire]

Do they really make the game THAT much better that it is worth the risk?

Yes.. definately! XD; I can't imagine playing wow with the default UI. As a matter of fact, I don't want to imagine playing it with the default UI. xP

As Saturo has already said, addons themselves can't do you much harm.

Well they could be poorly-written, and cause some nasty memory leaks; they're the last thing you'd expect as well! ...Assides from that, yeah, the addons kick in /after/ you've logged in and reached the character screen. So you're right, they can't really do much "harm" in regards to getting hacked; what gets people hacked is careless downloading from random sources.

I've never been hacked and I still use WowMatrix... Definately not the best thing for people to be using! So long as everyone scans the .zip files before opening them and checks the contens themselves prior to extracting them, they should be relatively safe. <3