Now that I think about it ... all other games I got from here could be played in browser and/or have an active communication via DM or comments ... some provide their projects on other websites too ...
Guess we have to stay alert and better avoid shiny new offers ... especially when there are no comments or an empty profile ...
And with such a flood of scams ... problably thanks to AI ... I don´t wonder anymore, why there is no answer to my reports ...
Sadly you cannot use an empty or non empty profile or comments as an indicator. The malware uploaders change these patterns and fake whatever they think will make them look less suspicous. Including comments made by their fake account and comments/ratings on their malware projects.
You forgot the other four games on that one account in your collection ;-)
Copy paste the username after the / to access the profile. That works for empty profiles that have not made comments, but posted games.
https://itch.io/profile/
You can do so with a bookmarklet on the account's page.
javascript: (() => {
window.location.href=`https://itch.io/profile/${window.location.hostname.split('.')[0]}`;
})();I just mentioned, what the corrupted games/pages had in common ... missing comments or empty profiles are no (un)safe indicators ... but they will make me extra cautious ...
I stumbled upon the games through my search filter ... they were new and I got intrigued ... I am not actively hunting scammers ...
I´ll keep in mind to copy-paste the username if necessary ... but I don´t understand much about scripting ... so the java thingy is more like "nah, better not touch" ...
Oh, in a given time frame, the malware projects usually share some attributes. But a few weeks later they could look completely different in regard to the key aspects you learned to use as an indicator. Last time I had a look at recent games there were malware with comment sections...
You need not actively hunt scammers, but the ones you do stumble upon, please report them. Once you recognise the current patterns, they are rather easy to spot at a glance with high confidence. Obviously, the top 4 weeks of recent will have the highest density of malware. Itch will not seek out those scammer pages actively. It is evident that their automatic scans did not catch the ones you do see in the search pages. So they need those reports to act.
I also did not actively hunt for those, but I use a browser extension to mark known games/creators. So if I browse recent, I will only see games I have not yet marked. Increasing the density even further.