Warning from the Rainmeter Team

[jsmorley]

Ok, I changed the link on that page to point to the Group instead of the main Rainmeter area. I'm not sure how much good it will do, as I suspect most folks don't end up on dA through that link, and as I said, I am not that happy about trying to drive folks away from the main area anyway (in spite of the virus situation) but it is done. For you, anything. You have certainly earned my just shutting up and doing what you suggest...

Having said that, I don't know that even if we had our own repository somewhere, that we could easily wean folks off of deviantART at this point. It would take a very concentrated effort to steer folks to a better / different repository, and I'm sorry, but the dA group is not that. You can't even directly upload to it really... Skin authors have to go to the main area in any case to post a submission, and folks just know that you look there for the latest and greatest. Many, many of them, if not most, don't know or care about any "community", here or in the group, and just want the latest skins. They are never going to see any warnings or attempts to steer them somewhere else.

I'm still hopeful that this virus situation is going to die down to a dull ache at some point, even if it never truly goes away completely.

[karmat]

Well, let's try it out for a bit.

Would it make any difference if you posted both links?
dA main gallery - not tested for malware
dA group gallery - tested 99% malware free

Should we keep insisting on .rmskin format, I know we'd get alot more submissions if we didn't?

................

What about Customize.org - I rarely visit there anymore because of all the spam. It doesn't have a virusscan for uploads does it? And if it doesn't, I wonder why it hasn't been getting all these malware skins?

[jsmorley]

Well, let's try it out for a bit.

Would it make any difference if you posted both links?
dA main gallery - not tested for malware
dA group gallery - tested 99% malware free

Should we keep insisting on .rmskin format, I know we'd get alot more submissions if we didn't?

I'll change that page to reflect both. Not a bad idea. Not sure I would focus on "malware" as such, but I'll do that.

I personally do think we should still insist on .rmskin for the group. My thinking always was that the main area is sort of uncivilized and the place to just get the latest stuff in an unfiltered way. The group was more organized and a user should be able to expect some consistency. I don't have a strong feeling about it either way though, and I certainly have no right to suggest anything as to how the group is run. I do want to really, really encourage the use of .rmskin though. We have absolutely no control over that in the main area, but do in the group.

[karmat]

Jeff, as one of the head rm people, you do have a say in the dA group. We are on the same team!

[jsmorley]

"I would never join any group that would have me as a member..."
-- Groucho Marx

[karmat]

ooh, tough guy!

[jsmorley]

[karmat]

Just tested this skin http://serjsilva.deviantart.com/art/simple-text-210814631?q=in%3Acustomization%2Fskins%2Fsysmonitor%2Frainmeter%20sort%3Atime&qo=2 and came up with this report http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=ec1f01dcda677163823caa42b7ef615c2205fbfbfbbe3f0bb7a9c1705c68387d-1306690578 - is it a false positive??? Also in the zip in the 'Trash' folder is a empty.exe file - is that legit?

[jsmorley]

Just tested this skin http://serjsilva.deviantart.com/art/simple-text-210814631?q=in%3Acustomization%2Fskins%2Fsysmonitor%2Frainmeter%20sort%3Atime&qo=2 and came up with this report http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=ec1f01dcda677163823caa42b7ef615c2205fbfbfbbe3f0bb7a9c1705c68387d-1306690578 - is it a false positive??? Also in the zip in the 'Trash' folder is a empty.exe file - is that legit?

It all looks ok. You will get some false positives with VirusTotal, so as I said you can't go strictly by that. The Empty.exe seems ok. It's not really needed anymore with recycle bin plugin, but is one way to do it I guess.

[karmat]

thanks jeff