Pros and Cons of third party clients
Hello ladies and gentlemen, today we are going to be talking about third party clients. Undoubtedly you have come across these in the wild and thought to yourself if these are legit or not. Some clients are used for nefarious things, while others are accepted in the games community. I would like to go though the pros and cons of using them and let you make an informed decision yourself.
What is a third party client?
A Third party client is a program that will run a game from somewhere else? Right? Get it? It might be confusing, let me use an example. Steam is a third party client for tons of games. You launch the game through Steam. Steam didn’t make those games, but you can play them through their services. On a smaller scale, Minecraft has third party launchers, or clients, specifically for modded versions of the game. Runescape has Runelite and OsBuddy, they run Runescape through their Client. So a third party client is a program that will run another program but generally with added features not provided by the first party client.
Are third party clients safe?
They can be. They can also be a key logger in disguise. They can also be back doored as well. However, so can a first party client. The problem with most third party clients are they are ran as a hobby. Some, You will be expected to pay for, But in most cases I wouldn’t recommend it. The higher the cost does not mean the better the quality when it comes to third party clients.
Let me explain.
If you pay for a client, it will most likely not be open sourced. What that means is the community is not able to see the code that is running the client. Sounds good?
Nah not really.
The more people that are able to see the code, the more people can check it for bugs. Couldn’t more people find and exploit those same bugs by that logic? Sure, but its more likely that someone will catch the same bug and report it. The only way that this wouldn’t be safer is if everyone that is looking at the source is in it purely for exploitation. Most people are decent on the internet, especially for a client that they use and want to see it get better.
On the flip side.
A small team working on the client in their free time unintentionally creates a bug and someone who actually is exploiting finds it, they are much less likely to report it out of personal gain. This exploit can go on for months before people catch on.
But steam!?
Yeah, steam is a hard contradiction to what I claimed earlier. They have made a business around a third party client, and I could never not recommend them. But that’s the point of this post, to give you the information and make a decision for yourself.
So all Clients are good?
Nah not necessarily, Some clients are made strictly for gaining an upper hand. Lets use Minecraft as an example again. Minecraft clients such as Wurst, Wolfram, Impact, etc are all made with the intention of gaining an unfair advantage over other players. What is worst is hacked clients have been notorious for “leaking” your login information. This is not so much because its a third party client, but more with the fact that the people making these clients, have no problem with breaking user agreements set by the first party. By that logic, why would they keep an ethical standard for theirs?
More on safety.
As with all my posts, anytime you come across a program in the wild. First or third. Follow the general rules of internet safety. Ask the internet, Scan the files, and Change your passwords often. Its better to be safe then sorry.
Why use a client?
I feel like this whole time I been harping on the dangers of clients, but I want to take a moment and talk about the great things that come from them as well.
Modding.
For some games, modding the game can be a lot like taking puzzle pieces from one puzzle and trying to put them into another one, a client can act as a framework to fit those pieces in the puzzle you playing with. Lets use Forge mods as an example, sure you can install that stuff directly into your directory but with a client you create separate profiles. One day you want to play vanilla the next you want a hard core quest pack. You can keep the base game safe, while you edit another version for fun.
Extra features.
Take Runescape as an example. You can have as many xp trackers as you want with old school runescape, with a third party client. You are not limited to just the default 1 as a display. You can also look up someones stats in game instead of opening a browser window and typing in their name.
Extra security.
Say if you want to sell a game online, but don’t want to handle the transaction side. Well third party clients like steam will handle the payments and you can rest assured that the transaction will be secure.
All in all.
Third party clients can be a great thing, or a bad thing, just like everything in life. I personally use them, but I understand that it might be safest route to take. At the end of the day they are just another tool and it depends on the people handling it. Do you disagree? Are you a purist? Or are you all for clients? Let me know in the comments below! Thanks for reading and I will see you guys next week!