Post by redonihunter in Problem with index

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so I started to worry

This might not help you, but might ease your worries a bit by understanding what is going on. (according to my opinion and observations)

There is a lot of things uploaded to Itch with bad intentions. Pirated games, malware, scams, horrible shovelware, whatever. Especially the malware is a problem. I have seen hundreds over hundreds of those. Obviously Itch fights back. But is on a budget. So they remove games for staff review with a shotgut and not a scalpel.

To my limited observation the "catch rate" increased with the frequence of complaints like your's. Last year I would see like 10-20 malware each week. The last few months it is more like 0-5 per week. At least I hope it is due to the things Itch does and not due to the scammers hiding the malware so I do not notice it ;-)

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D-san167 days ago(+1)

I understand, but I’ve been publishing for almost a year now. Plus, many developers leave links to their games on other platforms, which makes the security checks pointless since files can be replaced at any time. So, I doubt the issue is specifically about file safety. More likely, it’s because I tweaked the tags—there were errors in the original ones. What upsets me now is that the complaint review process will likely take a long time, even though I waited six months for the release, and now it’s gone live without indexing or a chance to appear in the ‘new updates’ section. But thank you for trying to cheer me up (￣￣|||)

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redonihunter167 days ago (1 edit)

For obvious reasons, changing the files after approval and using hacked accounts that are old is precisly what malware uploaders try to do. Most of those accounts I saw with the malware last year were years old.

The evil guys adapt to what works. If Itch protects old accounts, they use old accounts. If Itch protects already approved files, they use those and change them later. And so on.

(And yes of course, I do not know what this is really about. It is just an educated guess. But after encountering near a thousand malware projects, pirated games and other dubious things like crypto, I think my guess is well founded, even if it were incorrect.)

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