Help with installing The Sims 4

Dear G4TW,

I absolutely love you guys. I had the Sims 4 (with pretty much all the DLCs) downloaded from your site until recently. My ISP (Spectrum/TWC) had clocked me because of the Get Famous DLC (funny, I've had the Sims 4 downloaded all this time and they finally got me w/ Get Famous) through my own stupid decisions (left the Get Famous torrent seeding/leaving my IP address out in the open). Never got a warning from any ISP in my life until I became a college student and started paying for my own (jeez). I got rid of it (momentarily spooked) but now I'm back and ready to install again. I do have questions.

1) I'm currently downloading Anaduis' Sims 4 through a direct link (Mega). Do I need to have my VPN on? I currently have my 15gb Windscribe VPN on as I'm watching Mega download their file.

2) Does any direct download link need to have a VPN on for safety? Or just torrents?

3) If all else fails, should I just wait for prying eyes to get off me before trying to get the Sims 4?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to put this post.

1) Nope, you don't need VPN for downloading from Mega

2) If you're super paranoid then use VPN for HTTP downloads. HTTPS are fine without VPN.

3) Never got any notice from ISP so I'll let others answer this.

anadius wrote:1) Nope, you don't need VPN for downloading from Mega

2) If you're super paranoid then use VPN for HTTP downloads. HTTPS are fine without VPN.

3) Never got any notice from ISP so I'll let others answer this.

Thanks for such a quick response! I was trying to read around on G4TW and Reddit about the direct links and VPNs. Every now and then I'd come across an ominious 'they're watching the direct links as well as the torrents' so that's why I asked. Hopefully most of the big files will download using the 11gb I have left on Windscribe.

shoujojutsu wrote:
(...) Every now and then I'd come across an ominious 'they're watching the direct links as well as the torrents' so that's why I asked.

Welcome to the Forum,

I've actually found myself banning a few people (mostly on the G4TW Facebook Page) for spreading this rumor with "direct downloads are being monitored". And unless someone provides a plausible explanation as to how exactly ISPs or other third-parties determine that someone downloaded a 'forbidden' item through (HTTPS)-direct download, I suppose I will keep doing so. The G4TW direct downloads are mostly GoogleDrive and MediaFire, and both are in HTTPS.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

shoujojutsu wrote:
(...) Every now and then I'd come across an ominious 'they're watching the direct links as well as the torrents' so that's why I asked.

Welcome to the Forum,

I've actually found myself banning a few people (mostly on the G4TW Facebook Page) for spreading this rumor with "direct downloads are being monitored". And unless someone provides a plausible explanation as to how exactly ISPs or other third-parties determine that someone downloaded a 'forbidden' item through (HTTPS)-direct download, I suppose I will keep doing so. The G4TW direct downloads are mostly GoogleDrive and MediaFire, and both are in HTTPS.

Yeah and I recently got the email from the ISP (I believe on Monday 12/07/2018) so I've been in a frenzy all week looking on how I could protect myself from further notices. I'm actually in the process of making a budget to buy the Sims 4 completely. Right now I'm just using Anadius' direct link for Megasync. I do have a VPN on (switching between AVG and Windscribe atm). Best I can do.

shoujojutsu wrote:
I'm actually in the process of making a budget to buy the Sims 4 completely. 

I would advise against that, but ultimately it's your money of course that is going down the drain. 

1) Let's assume for a moment that ISPs have a bunch of decryption algorithms that can decrypt the HTTPS traffic. Not sure how ISPs would get hold of that; and in general this is something you would normally associate with intelligence agency-activites. But so be it for our thought experiment. So they are able to see what exactly you got from direct downloads. Even then, copyright-protection organizations still cannot see that activity, so how do they file a complaint? Are ISPs now doing the bidding for copyright holders?

2) Normally ISP's can determine the amount of data that has been transferred, but they *shouldn't* be able to determine anything else in HTTPS traffic. Does the encryption also extend to the actual websites that you visit? I admit I don't know (@anadius to our help maybe?  ). But if they were able to determine that you connected to the URL "games4theworld.club" and subsequently transferred a certain amount of data, it may be possible to draw an indirect conclusion that the data you transferred is in fact a Sims 4 DLC from here, even if the actual HTTPS traffic is encrypted.


1) sounds highly unlikely, though I guess not totally impossible. 2) seems more likely, but even then that would be a huge stretch of imagination. Then again, until proven otherwise users claiming these direct downloads are 'monitored' will be treated as hostile elements, and dealt with accordingly.