Torrents are different.. confused?

In the past the TS4 torrents would open in utorrent and winrar but with the links y'all posted (I disabled ad blocker) for Parenthood it downloaded like 7 files from GreatZip . exe (I don't even know what that is) and now it's wanting to install some software. It seems sketchy to me. What am I supposed to do with this? 

Ageha wrote:Hi there,

Our downloads would never ask you to install third-party software to your pc. Which link did you download it from? If you're still having difficulty, download the torrents from here instead, which is the G4TW download's site.

Oh shoot, glad I didn't install anything! Can I post links? Well it's on the forum under latest news and it's the thread called "The Sims 4 Parenthood OUT NOW!" A lot of people were commenting like it was working so I thought it would be fine, and it is from almost 2 months ago. I just got it from the official downloads page and it is working normally now.

On THIS PAGE you can find a full installation manual with links to the official G4TW torrent downloads.

abluefish wrote:In the past the TS4 torrents would open in utorrent and winrar but with the links y'all posted (I disabled ad blocker) for Parenthood it downloaded like 7 files from GreatZip . exe (I don't even know what that is) and now it's wanting to install some software. It seems sketchy to me. What am I supposed to do with this? 

Most likely you (accidentally) clicked on something that was directly on the adFly page. When we post these announcements there are 2 links. One of them - if you bypass the adFly - downloads a .torrent file. The other one brings you to a webpage with a magnet link, which you should click on.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

abluefish wrote:In the past the TS4 torrents would open in utorrent and winrar but with the links y'all posted (I disabled ad blocker) for Parenthood it downloaded like 7 files from GreatZip . exe (I don't even know what that is) and now it's wanting to install some software. It seems sketchy to me. What am I supposed to do with this? 

Most likely you (accidentally) clicked on something that was directly on the adFly page. When we post these announcements there are 2 links. One of them - if you bypass the adFly - downloads a .torrent file. The other one brings you to a webpage with a magnet link, which you should click on.

Today I followed a G4TW link to a NoCD crack for Mansion & Garden. It lead me to adFly and from there to a dubious Microsoft site informing me that Microsoft had found a virus on my PC. "Just click here to solve it".
Without clicking on it I could not even close the page, not even via Taskmanager.
I unplugged the networkcable and could then get rid of that page.
This is not the first time I encountered problems with adFly.

Tarac wrote:Today I followed a G4TW link to a NoCD crack for Mansion & Garden. It lead me to adFly and from there to a dubious Microsoft site informing me that Microsoft had found a virus on my PC. "Just click here to solve it".
Without clicking on it I could not even close the page, not even via Taskmanager.
I unplugged the networkcable and could then get rid of that page.
This is not the first time I encountered problems with adFly.

I hear you, man. I myself have not encountered the specific thing you & the OP described, but what I personally find concerning about these ads is the high frequency of pornographical content; and since G4TW is traditionally intended as a family-/child-friendly platform that does not look good, at all.

These adFly things are almost by definition dubious by nature. I am not really versed with the administrative side of running these forums; I suppose the main reason people use adFly is out of convenience and also if they have no other choice. I don't think that there will be many other advertising possibilities on here; any company concerned about "good reputation" will do their best to not have advertisements on sites about piracy.

I don't know what else to say, and while the idea to use adFly didn't come from me, I still support it overall. Despite all the legitimate concerns. 

I would have maybe thought to cut corners in some areas (like the site with the individual .sims3packs), to reduce dependency on the adFly. And keep the Minecraft-server and the other main website. But then again: I am not involved in the administrative side of things; maybe you could speak to Admin and/or Edin in private about the issue. 

While I do support adFly it certainly wouldn't be the end of the world for me either, if we really decided to stop with it.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

Tarac wrote:Today I followed a G4TW link to a NoCD crack for Mansion & Garden. It lead me to adFly and from there to a dubious Microsoft site informing me that Microsoft had found a virus on my PC. "Just click here to solve it".
Without clicking on it I could not even close the page, not even via Taskmanager.
I unplugged the networkcable and could then get rid of that page.
This is not the first time I encountered problems with adFly.

I hear you, man. I myself have not encountered the specific thing you & the OP described, but what I personally find concerning about these ads is the high frequency of pornographical content; and since G4TW is traditionally intended as a family-/child-friendly platform that does not look good, at all.

These adFly things are almost by definition dubious by nature. I am not really versed with the administrative side of running these forums; I suppose the main reason people use adFly is out of convenience and also if they have no other choice. I don't think that there will be many other advertising possibilities on here; any company concerned about "good reputation" will do their best to not have advertisements on sites about piracy.

I don't know what else to say, and while the idea to use adFly didn't come from me, I still support it overall. Despite all the legitimate concerns. 

I would have maybe thought to cut corners in some areas (like the site with the individual .sims3packs), to reduce dependency on the adFly. And keep the Minecraft-server and the other main website. But then again: I am not involved in the administrative side of things; maybe you could speak to Admin and/or Edin in private about the issue. 

While I do support adFly it certainly wouldn't be the end of the world for me either, if we really decided to stop with it.

Quite some while ago I had a private conversation with Edin where I proved with video's that adFly is placing malware (trackers) on your computer as soon as you start downloading G4TW uploaded stuff.
For smaller files I think Mega is a much better (and safer) solution. For the larger files best to use torrents of course.