BigFish/Petit Fluer... toolbar?

[Raptisoft]

Hi all,

I downloaded Petit Fleur on the recommended of 1goodgame's blog, since he seemed to really like it.

At no point did I see any toolbar warnings, like in most BigFish games-- but it installed the BigFish toolbar.

I uninstalled all, and reinstalled Petit Fleur, carefully reading everything, and saw no indication of a toolbar at all. However, it also didn't install the toolbar! I knew I hadn't hallucinated it before.

Anyway, I noticed a new registry key: bfgt. Removing that key caused the Petit Fleur program to install the toolbar again. This seems a bit sneaky to me-- ESPECIALLY since I didn't even see mention of the toolbar in the EULA! In fact, copying the EULA into a text editor and doing a search for the word toolbar turns up no matches.

So what the hey?

[svero]

I just tried it, and it didn't install any toolbar for me.

- Steve

[svero]

Hmm.. well ok I found and deleted that bfgt key from my registry and then reinstalled petite fleur and it just installed the bigfish toolbar, completely transparently from what I can tell. I'm not sure why I had that key in the first place though.

[cliffski]

it asked me if I wanted to install the toolbar, once I gave it internet access, but i was more miffed that I had to make up a fake email address to even download the game.
I have no idea what this bigfish toolbar does, but I'm doubting it does anything firefox cant do on it's own.
I only downloaded this game to see what it did during install. Thank god for regmon and filemon.

uninstalling the game leaves its spam icons on my desktop. nice one...

[Raptisoft]

It asked you? Where did it ask you? I got no query at all... just your game is installed, and then I opened up IE and had a toolbar under my google toolbar.

[Bmc]

it didn't ask me either, but it didn't install the toolbar.

the game itself is awful, not so much the concept, but the controls.

[Savant]

I've been lucky so far with every Big Fish game I download ... I simply deny it access to the internet and then it doesn't bother me about the toolbar. I guess it figures that if it can't use the net, it can't make use of the toolbar anyway.

And this game sucks. Portals will publish almost anything these days.

[soniCron]

And this game sucks. Portals will publish almost anything these days. When was this game released?

[svero]

And this game sucks. Portals will publish almost anything these days.

You assume they can tell what will sell. I doubt they have any idea really. They probably have a hunch or two, but in the long run there will always be some game that comes along like slingo or whatever that doesnt fit the mold but does sell very well. Even the most consistent hit makers release ocassional duds.

[Bmc]

btw, this game is only on Big Fish as far as I know, which need a new game everyday so obviously they will have some crap games once and awhile. I can't see this game ever being on Real without some major retooling.

[Vorax]

It didn't install the toolbar for me, infact it didn't even ask if I wanted it, which is even more surprising.

As to the game itself; I agree - it's not very good. It seems unfinished, the controls are kind of strange and the gameplay is lacking. The worst part is the music though - brings a cringe to my face just listening to it. Thank god they added a mute on the game play screen, 10 more seconds and I would have had to buy a new computer because mine would have been out the window ;)

[Raptisoft]

Note: Scan your registry for key "bfgt". If you already have it, it won't install the toolbar. If you don't have it, it will install the toolbar without asking you.

[picman]

We modified the toolbar installer 2 weeks or so ago and tested it on a few games, but not all. There was a bug. The bug was with old versus new games and thus our QA missed it and some games would install the toolbar regardless of your answer. This was only for a few games and only for a few weeks. The bug is now fixed.

Here is exactly what happens now:
1) If a user comes to our site for the first time they will be asked for the toolbar
2) If they say no, nothing is installed
3) If they say yes the toolbar is installed
4) Regardless if they say yes or no, they will never be asked again

Our QA guarantees this is the case for ALL games now.
Let me know if you experience anything different that that stated above. If you are testing, make sure you completely remove the toolbar via add/remove programs before testing. If you simply HIDE the toolbar via IE, it will not be uninstalled and show up again the next time you start IE (as is the case with google, yahoo toolbars)

Paul

[picman]

It still does this for older games. By fixing an issue on Firday they made it worse. It will be fixed first thing MOnday AM. (And someone is going to get an earful!!!!!)

Paul

[picman]

OK. Whew, I was wrong again, everythign is woring as designed.

The ONLY way the toolbar could ever be installed without the user's consent is for the user to manually remove the bfgt registry entry...so roughly only the 2 or 3 folks on this thread could have done that.

The very first game you every download from BFG asks you if you want the toolbar or not(with a complete EULA). The toolbar is ONLY installed if you say YES.
That bfgt registry is set to "no" as well as a few others on whether you said yes or not(if you had removed these other registry settings as well back to how it would be on a fresh computer that never downloaded a game from us, you could not have recreated this issue).
After this first game install, you will NEVER be asked to install a toolbar again and a toolbar will never be installed without your knowledge. Period.

If you are crafty and remove the bfgt registry entry, our installer will think you said "YES" on the next game you install and install the toolbar for you. This could never happen to a normal consumer.

We will however modify this so even if you hack the registry, it will never install the toolbar without asking you permission with a full EULA ahead of time :-)

Thanks for bringing this obscure (but potentially very real) security issue to our attention.

If you want proof of this behavior either try it on a computer that has never had a BFG game installed, or send me an email and I will privately show you the other registry entries that are set the first time you download a game from us.

Paul