Viewers that increase fps and don't crash

i thought 16 didn't run SL only OpenLife? Is here a setting that needs changing or something?

ETA: I see there is a newer R16 - DL now ... /me keeps fingers crossed.

nope I have the s16 viewer and it logs straight into sl no problems.

its the latest and greatest version and requires nothing extra, just log in.

Well, I fired it up, and it immediately connected to
something other than Second Life.

It appears to be some Google-hosted web site, but I don't know what
information it was sending to it. I don't know why your netstat did
not pick this up; it was port 80 and it's the first thing it does.
It's probably harmless, but I wonder what it was doing?
Collecting information on me? Looking for release notices?

The issue is not a "virus" like your virus detection software would notice.
The issue is that you are giving the program all the information about
your login (and also thereby your credit card) as well as everything
you do or say on Second Life. Is it ever sending any of that information
anywhere? Also, the program (like any program you install on your
system) could be doing just about *anything* without you knowing.

I'm just asking if anyone has checked the program, which in my mind
would mean auditing the source code (comparing against the official
browser) and then verifying that the binary corresponds to that and
has not been tampered with by anyone.

It's the same question I ask about every program on my computer.

I tried the S16 viewer and really liked it, but then it crashed on me 3 times within a half hour. I have never had any other viewer (including LL's) crash so many times in rapid succession. Anyone else experience this? I would like to be able to use Kirsten's viewer, but not if that is how it is going to behave.

Strange look me up in game Cito Karu
I was recommended the viewer by Paddy Wright, all I did was download the S16 viewer and login.

I've been in main sl grid ever since. with no issues really. Friends that have tried went straight to sl grid, so Im not sure what the problem you encountered.

Make sure you got the file name
http://www.armyof4.com/Kirstenlee/SecondLife/Kirstens%20Viewer%20S16%20Build%2090.exe

is the one I'm using, and is latest mentioned on Kirsten's blog.

A lot of people like Boy Lane's "Cool Viewer" http://my.opera.com/boylane/blog/

Personally, I've never tried it, but many folks do swear by it, saying it is less laggy and crash-prone than LL's viewer. It incorporates most of the Nicholaz fixes. It also includes the Restrained Life capability, though I don't think that is the default mode.
.

Enabling Restrained life is merely a matter of ticking a box in preferences. I use the 1.19 cool viewer, it is Non Windlight and has the old style interface. Otherwise it is well updated with all the recent security fixes. it runs very well. Worth trying on a lower end machine.

...are about as likely as husbands who do laundry and don't leave the seat up.

When you run Kirsten's viewer, before it takes you to Second Life,
it makes a secret connection (that you cannot observe on the
screen, but which can be detected by certain firewall software)
to some other mysterious site that does not seem to have anything
to do with SL or Linden Lab, and it transmits unknown information to it.

You don't think there's a "problem" because you are unaware of this.

It could be reading any information on your computer and harvesting
it for an international identity theft ring, or sending your Second Life
password for collection by criminals, or maybe it's just trying to
look for happy announcements from Kirsten. The point is, I have
no idea what it's doing. And apparently neither does anyone else.
I have not analyzed it beyond noticing that it's connecting to
something funny looking.

all i see happening when i load it up is for a split second i see the open life icon..
not sure if that is what you are picking up or not bt it comes on for a second before the white menu then goes away..

watching my connections as I start I dont see anything, and this viewer has been out a long time now with a good following. Checked blog comments and also checked the source code for the client

nothing malisious its a great client, so no need to be paranoid.

Go download the source code if ya that paranoid over it.

scroll down she has link to source code on the site

http://kirstenleecinquetti.blogspot.com/

post title s16 build 90 + source

Apparently the version I downloaded from her web site does not
behave in the same way as yours. Perhaps someone has tampered
with her web site and put an illegitimate version there.

The version I have was labeled "s16-osx-universal.dmg.zip"
and reports that it is "Kirsten's Viewer 1.16.3(90)".
When you run it, it connects to [209.85.133.99] which I don't think
is a Linden Lab site. I don't know what it transmits to that site,
nor what other unexpected connections it might make after that.

Hmmm it appears that server is in a Google datacenter. Perhaps the most straightforward thing to do would be to ask Kirstenlee Cinquetti, who has a reputation of being very responsive to questions.

Are you sure it is the viewer making the contact when it starts, and not another program that you use? For example, it would be quite reasonable for the Google desktop search application to have to update an index as a result of the viewer starting.
.

hehe, you can relax man You must have a web browser open in background.


use Arin.net for the win

---cut and paste---

owner of 209.85.133.99

OrgName: Google Inc.
OrgID: GOGL
Address: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
City: Mountain View
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 94043
Country: US

NetRange: 209.85.128.0 - 209.85.255.255
CIDR: 209.85.128.0/17
NetName: GOOGLE
NetHandle: NET-209-85-128-0-1
Parent: NET-209-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.GOOGLE.COM
NameServer: NS2.GOOGLE.COM
NameServer: NS3.GOOGLE.COM
NameServer: NS4.GOOGLE.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 2006-01-13
Updated: 2006-06-01

OrgTechHandle: ZG39-ARIN
OrgTechName: Google Inc.
OrgTechPhone: +1-650-318-0200
OrgTechEmail: [email]arin-contact@google.com[/email]

Just to say that I discovered and installed the latest Kirsten viewer after reading this thread.

The Kirsten viewer works great for me. I love the fonts. And it does seem to run faster on my less-than-up-to-date hardware.

-i

No, my analysis is accurate as to which programs are making
which connections. However, I am becoming deeply suspicious of
your agenda in claiming that I am not seeing this program make
surreptitious network connections.

I'm not entertaining further conversation with you, as I am not
interested in your repeated assertions that I'm not seeing this.
I think you are a deliberate and malicious liar.

i downloaded the exe and not the zip file..nothing else is running on mine..
isn't sl's search and a few other things tied in with google?
maybe thats all it is..
i mean it has your profile in search i would think since it shows the changes to your profile it is tied in with it when the web crawler see's the changes..

The viewer is connecting to [209.85.133.99] over HTTP and issuing
the following command:

HEAD /_pxONq6Nr7Uo/SV-Rceua0aI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/QtKgIakt9bY/s1600-h/Login+Page+generic.jpg HTTP/1.1\r\n

The web server responds with an OK response but no data.

So the program "phones home" with some kind of encoded report
(maybe that "s1600" is part of the version number?) when you launch it.
This is after it has read your account info from your hard drive,
but before you have pressed the CONNECT button.
This is the first connection the program makes.

That's all I know for sure.

One possibility is that it is asking some private (non-SL) server whether
the splash screen that it has cached is still up to date. Rather than the
pretty Linden Lab photos, it has a table of SL keyboard shortcuts.
If I prevent it from making this connection, I get a generic SL splash.

Aside from getting your IP address every time you run the program,
I have no idea what other information may be encoded in the report.

one thing I enjoy is this from the list of features

6) Some severe modification to what information is sent by the viewer when active - no sending of stats to a grid, such as FPS, Lang and version etc.

which is nice when idle just sitting around chatting, there is no unnecessary waste of bandwidth being used. really helps makes things load quicker when it's not also sending stats data back to grid

Get a grip, this was totally uncalled for. Or do you expect us to believe that there is some evil collaboration between Google and Kirsten to steal your user name and password and strip your account of it's lindens? Or wait, it must be an evil plot between Kirsten, Cito and Google? But I have popped in here also, so I must be in it also. All you have to do is click on 209.85.133.99 or paste it into your browser to see that it really is Google.

In other words; back off on calling people liars when they were just trying to help you.

Sounds more like you need to check your machine for viruses.

Sock puppet? Or just like to butt in to other people's business?

All I've done is post verifiable facts, and ask reasonable questions.
The people who are attacking me for that seem suspicious to me.

I need to get my eyes checked. When I first read this I saw "Viewers that increase faps don't crash" I was ready to do anything to reduce crashes.

there's nothing bad about it.

both lindens main viewer, nicholas viewer, kirstens ALL of them except the text based ones are connecting to google. After checking each one.

And asking support it's because browser and search in game uses google also google anaylitics for datamining who is searching what and etc.

nothing to be scared of with a connection to google.
heck even winamp hits google nowdays since the majority of websites are using google analytics, even my blog uses it to see what keywords are coming in more often and which times of day are higher traffic and which posts are more popular.

So I presume SL search using these type things for rankings or whatnot.


anywho, really enjoy faster framerates and extra build tools

Paranoid much? Yes, that's getting the splash screen, something you could have determined without resorting to insults. It's not "phoning home", that's like saying your web browser is "phoning home" every time you use it.

It's making an unbidden connection to a server that has nothing
to do with Second Life. That server appears to be a private
site being hosted as some Google service -- this is not Google search.
Therefore that server (and the user who owns it) is at a minimum
logging all of the IP addresses of people who use this third-party Viewer.
That is generally referred to as "phoning home".
It is sending coded information along when it does it,
and nobody has explained what that information is.

(Instead, they have suggested: it's not making the connections,
it's some other program, it's Google search, I'm a whacko for
asking what the connection is...)