Viewers that increase fps and don't crash

Well- anyhoo- i have been running the various Kirsten viewers for ages with no problems. Had been on the R15 for the longest time because the last R16 had not been set-up to run SL. It is great that this new one does. I installed it tonight and and had great fps numbers even in places where i usually swim thru molasses.

Thanks for starting this to the OP and thanks for mentioning the new one, Citu.

is the LL viewer doing the same thing?

this 209.85.133.99 takes me right to the google search page..

if it is gonna make you uneasy using it then i wouldn't use it..no sense in being worried all the time..

Contrary to what someone said above, No, the official viewer
does not make that connection (ever); it connects to secondlife.com.

I just checked this with Second Life Release 1.21.6 (99587).

That's what it looks like if you try to open that in a browser.
What is actually going on, you can see if you look deeper,
is that you are not sending the expected coded information
using the expected command (HEAD). The server decides
that you are not communicating in the expected fashion,
and it redirects your connection to a regular Google page.

I'd much rather know what's going on and be happy about using it,
or at least playing with it, because it seems to have some nice features!

This thread may be of use to anyone with questions on the viewer:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/23681-really-kewl-kids-client.html

So rather than waste all of our time, and dominate the discussion with your paranoid fantasies, why don't you contact Kirstin, as was suggested earlier.

I have not posted any paranoid fantasies, I just posted verifiable
facts about what that piece of software is doing, and asked if anyone
had an explanation for it.

I asked KirstenLee too, but she didn't answer yet (which means
nothing), but her response will just be one more piece of information.

My original question, before I discovered that the program was making
unexpected connections to things outside of Second Life, was if some
third parties had audited the source code to see what it's in there,
and if there was a way to tell that the source code actually corresponded
to the binary that I downloaded.

I could do all that myself, of course, but it's a lot of work,
and it's the sort of thing that is normally done by people
who are promulgating open-source software. Especially
when the software authors are keeping their identities secret.

Some people apparently are happy to download a program from
some random person on the Internet, fire it up, type in all kinds
of personal information, give it their credit card, hope for the best,
and call other people "paranoid". Goodie for them.

KirstenLee Cinquetti: the login page is the sl cheat sheet, which is an image i posted on the blog in march last year, there is a post called kirstens login pages it can be removed by changing the url in the xui file called login panel. Hope that helps.

I haven't tested this, but she's saying that the unexpected connection
can be disabled (make it point to Linden Labs, for example).

This answer does not explain what the coded information being
transmitted is, though. It does admit that the program is phoning
home to a private server that can log your IP address. It claims
that it is completely benign. (It might be, but it's still an unexpected
surprise that the program connects to someting other than SL.)

My original question, before I found the first surprise, still stands.
Has anyone audited the source code, and verified the binary?

Contrary to what some people think, I don't perceive this as
an attack on anyone. I am just being reasonable and prudent,
asking the same question I ask of every program on my computer.

I find it hillarious you are calling google a private server it's phoning home to.

it's going to google's search page. I hardly call that private.

And YES the linden viewer also connects to google the same address.


Starting up the normal default viewer

TCP user-b6f00aac19:3572 yw-in-f19.google.com:http ESTABLISHED
TCP user-b6f00aac19:3587 yw-in-f19.google.com:http CLOSE_WAIT

So yea, even the normal viewer connects to google.

so stop looking for conspiracy theories.

What coded information are you talking about? Read up a little on caching systems and distributed serving please.

Oh, I hope you NEVER enable audio and/or video streams, those "phone home" with your IP address as well.

I wrote that before on another ocation, it still fit's perfectly:

"There are people spreading rumours about the XYZ Viewer inworld. That it saves your password, and that it sends it to the "Lindens". To be honest....yes, this is true. All of it. XYZ saves your last password locally as every other viewer does, to make your next login more convenient. And....to make it worse....it even sends the password to the "Lindens". Otherwise you could not login into SecondLife *giggles*. Makes sense?! "

One of my security scans did find a keylogger on the most recent Shadow Viewer which was easy to get rid of. But it did remind me to be careful of downloading any open source program.

Feldspar, put your tin foil hat back on before the aliens come and get ya....

Most likely that was a false positive. Perhaps you could post some details? And help developers to fix issues if they are indeed there instead of posting FUD.

Thanks.

Well, that's humorous, but I'm not sure how it fits here, since I have
not seen any rumors about the KristenLee viewer.

I guess you didn't read the post where I gave the URL.
(Or else you are unable or unwilling to decode it.)


Yes, I am aware of that, which is why I have those turned off, and only turn
them on for parcels that I trust. (And I believe the Lindens changed the behaviour
of the official viewer regarding defaults of turning on streams, for that reason.)

In any event, regardless of what other information may or may not
be being surreptitiously transmitted, I understand your position is
that you don't see IP logging as any kind of problem.

Pretty simple. That was said about CV earlier, you said something similar about Kirsten's viewer now. Both have the complete sourcecode available.

I don't question your thinking behind, that there is always a chance that someone tries to make some benefit from something. You have a valid point. But honestly, people involved in viewer development don't do that on a fast run. It is such a complex project and takes an immense amount of time. There are much easier ways to rip some money of someone if one wants . So please use some common sense, don't be paranoid. And look positive at the people that can improve your experience in your second life rather than blame them for things you only imagine.

Well damn when I originally gave my advice and opinion on what I think was a great viewer didn't mean for some crazy damn debate.
I'm a programmer in real life, have worked for ISP's setting up intermail cluster specifically and worked for EA doing mainly python/c/perl stuff. So I'm not an idiot, I wouldn't recommend something blindly. I had already looked at source and checked things out for my own personal sake before I even gave the advice.

Anyhow at this point use a commodore 64 for all I care, I'll enjoy what I use, you enjoy what you use and that's that.

well i for one am glad you told me about it.
i love it..
thank you again Cito

I don't know what you think I said was "similar" -- I posted detailed information
about the viewer making unexpected connections to servers other than SL,
and I asked if people have looked at the source code, and if there is a way
to tell that the source code actually corresponds to the executable binary.


In all those messages, why didn't you mention that you had read the source code?
And why haven't you explained what the connections were about?
In fact, you said that it didn't make those connections, and when I gave
details, you attacked me repeatedly, said it just wasn't happenning, gave
incorrect information (claiming it was Google search), and so on.
If you had read the source code, you could have explained it all
up front, just as you have failed to explain it here.
Forgive me if I find your credibility lacking.


I don't think it's crazy, at least not my part, and I don't think it's a debate.
I'm just looking at facts and asking questions about them.

My take on things is that nobody here has the answers to my questions,
but as to why they violently object to my asking them, and get all
defensive, off-topic, and call me names...I don't really know.
I don't really care, either. I'm just looking for some help with some
technical information.

Saying that I am not using common sense and that I am paranoid,
and that I am "blaming" someone for "things I only imagine" is
a fact-free attack on my character.

I have done this:

1. Ask if there is some third-party audit of the software,
and if there is a way to tell if the binary download corresponds to that.

2. Pointed out that sensitive information, including control of your
credit card, is given to this piece of networked software.

3. After that, discovered that the program makes an unexpected
connection to a server outside of Second Life, and sends some
unknown information there which nobody has explained yet.
I have reiterated that while unexpected and unadvertised,
this behaviour may be entirely innocuous.

The result I've met with is barrage of people attacking me for asking
these questions, calling me a liar (that it didn't happen, or it was
Google search I clicked on, or it was some other program on my system,
and other incorrect information), calling me names, and suggesting that
my questions are unreasonable. Some of these people have been rather
incoherent, changing their story each turn, and are quite passionate,
especially in personal attacks.

I appreciate that some people are happy to forgo this kind of
minimal scrutiny of the software, and I think that's fine for them.

I don't think I'm going to get the answer to my questions here,
so I'm going to stop reading this thread. If anyone does have
an answer to my questions and would like to please inform me,
feel free to contact me in-world. Thanks!!

I just wanted to Thank You for making SL useable for me with your Cool Viewer. After an update back around October or so I had a hell of a time with SL. I would crash constantly for no apparent reason and was to the point of just wanting to leave. I would crash when clicking on things, such as going into edit, doing a search, sending an IM. My skin would turn black and all sorts of other oddities that I never had before were happeneing. Basically anything that would bring up another window would make me crash. I sent in many trouble tickets to LL only to be told many different things such as, my video card was too new for SL (even though it worked fine for 7 mos prior), that I needed to update my drivers (which I always keep my pc updated), or several other things that were ridiculous and did not help nor make sense.

My partner told me about your viewer that he uses and ever since then I have had no issues with the crashes I had continually before. So thanks for making my SL a better place

The bizarre URL that is transmitted when Kirsten's viewer is launched
does indeed appear to be a static string: the string that was actually
sent appears in a configuration file. (So I'm no longer worried that
this packet is encoding anything about the user. And without that,
I am not concerned that it is logging my IP address in this instance.)

For reference, again, that URL is:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pxONq6Nr7Uo/SV-Rceua0aI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/QtKgIakt9bY/s1600-h/Login+Page+generic.jpg

I would still like to know of a source code audit and a way of
determining that the binary I downloaded corresponds to it;
if anyone knows about that please contact me in-world.

I thought it would be a good idea to do that but found that I had deleted the logger after the scan. I think it was found by Spy Bot.

As I said, it was easy to get rid of and I love the Kristen viewer and have donated to her cause I admire people who spend the time to create special viewers, especially the Shadow Viewer.

And I'm sure you would agree that it is good computer hygiene to scan files you download from anywhere.