August 22, 2012
GOTD wrapper is updated
While being trusted by Microsoft and other security tools, the signature is currently not accepted by AVG. Hopefully they will fix this glitch soon. In case you trust us, please disable the protection for a while (according to our tests it should be enough, no uninstall is needed).
For Norton disabling Firewall only should work in most cases. We’ve also contacted Symantec and are waiting for being “white listed”.
PS: starting now an extra .GCD file is included in every download archive. It is essential for correct installation and activation. If you experience any difficulties, please make sure to extract all files in a separate folder before start.
It is not a secret that we use a special program (also known as GOTD wrapper) to protect installation package from usage after the giveaway day is over. Unfortunately the version we were using during previous years was not a perfect solution, which made it liable to be cracked by advanced IT experts.
While it generally made no difference to GOTD users, many vendors had to make registration procedure a tricky thing in attempts to protect their interests. So can we blame them for overwhelming number of on-line activations?
This said improving wrapper was a matter of time (as well as of the reputation of our project). And it is ready to meet the world now. The protection is a kind of double. On the one hand we applied a newer algorithm, on the other hand we included special protection program Themida. Due to those updates the installation can take more time, depending on the configuration of your PC.
Our team gave it a rigid test on many computers with different Windows operation systems, however we think that some users can still face difficulties one time or another. We will appreciate it if you could submit any issue you encounter and include the following details in your message:
- description of the problem;
- content of the error message you get (if there is any) and the moment it appears;
- OS you use (including x32 or x64);
- security applications you have on your machine (anti-virus/ firewall/ monitoring systems).
Please leave feedback as comments to this post. In case you are not happy about sharing this information here, please feel free to use GOTD contact form. To help your letter reach us quicker add the following subject: “Problem with GOTD installation”.
Sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your feedback in advance.
—
Sincerely,
GOTD team
Dear users,
thank for your feedback. It helped us to solve a couple of major problems with new version of the wrapper.
The first one was connected with slow installations and error pop-ups on XP. Though we still can’t make it work at the speed of light, the installation now takes much less time (and your patience).
Another issue was about error message from Themida: “A monitor program has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.” It also should have been fixed with the latest update (check it now by re-downloading Artensoft Photo Mosaic Wizard 1.6).
Now let us tell a couple of words in defense of Themida. Your comments make us think that you see negative experience among Google search result pages, with not giving yourself a chance to learn about Themida’s primary “mission”. Meanwhile it was created to keep an attacker from directly inspecting or modifying a compiled application. It behaves like a shield that keeps an application encrypted and protected against possible attacks.
There were several complaints that once Themida installed, you can hardly get rid of it. But who we (GOTD team) are to install anything except the offer of the day on your PC? Please let us assure you that we DO NOT install Themida on your system in any way! It virtually exists on your PC while the installation is running only, in order to prevent anyone from copying original Setup to hard disk. That’s all. After the process is over you won’t find it in your system. Thus no malware, no spyware, no harm to your PC.
We do understand that this is the very first crucial change to the Giveaway of the Day site since “ancient times”, but we were forced to make it happen to protect the interests of developers and to keep good giveaways coming. :)
Sorry for the inconvenience and assistance in addressing issues with installations.
—
Best regards,
GOTD project team
The new wrapper takes forever to load on my old XP machine. Whereas the old wrapper takes a few seconds, the new one takes 10-20 seconds. Also, for some reason even after I close Process Monitor (I was messing around with some other programs), Themida refused to load the wrapper. BTW, I remember hearing there was some concerns with Themida at one point or another, and that it loads some driver on to the system as a part of the protection (it’d better if what it was loading was made clear).
For SoftSkin Photo Makeup 1.0. installation
Windows 7 x64.
Setup progresses to the point of being provided with the activation key pop up window and browser opening to indicate the application was installed. However no installation occurs. Tried this last night and again this morning with fresh download. This mornings installation caused Norton 360 to remove file we27ce5.tmp because it was behaving suspiciously. Presume this was associated with the GOTD wrapper.
Cheers,
Mac
When I try to run the wrapper on Windows Server 2003 64-bit, it reports “Themida: A monitor program has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.”.
On Windows XP Professional SP3 32-bit:
1. It takes about a minute before it displays anything (the mouse cursor doesn’t even change). I ended up with several copies running because it didn’t seem to be doing anything.
2. At the end of the process, there are two dialog boxes which report:
The instruction at “0x00000000” referenced memory at “0x00000000”. The memory could not be “read”. Click on OK to terminate the program.
I can understand the upgrading of the wrapper but in my case it means I cannot install the software anymore. I get a fatal memory write error.
not long ago you published a post here titled “Who to trust in the world of giveaways (+inforgraphics)” trying to justify and defend your position. So now I am going to ask again: who to trust?
You? – not willing to post this comment till elsewhere in the forum users are beginning to speculate about the changes you made, updating the wrapper with some suspicious stuff not letting people know what it was (as of late file size differs extremely to vendor’s demo version – so what additional “features” do we get installed?), …
– problems that look for a solution:
win7 pro 64-bit:
Outpost Internet Security automatically deletes extracted exe-file from zip-package. Why, not trustful? When allowed (firewall off – not recommended!) it takes a long time to load and to connect to gaotd
on win2k3 server 32:
wrapper freezes (i.e. it takes ages to load) … yesterdays ‘record’ was 30 minutes (!!!) till Online Armor reported that the wrapper successfully connected to your authentication server. After a rather slow installation I also get the message “0×00000000 referenced memory at “0×00000000″. The memory could not be read. Click on OK to terminate the program” But when clicking OK, anothersmall window pops up telling me that this is not possible – with the only possiblity to click OK again. And, you guess, what happens, this click brings back the first message … and round and round it goes. The only possiblity is to kille the process manually in the Task Manager. So far for your testing …
Additionally, it/the new drivers or software installed seems to interfere with other software as well, as I am using e.g. Lingoes translator and when using copied text translation a window pops up with the result that normally disappeared when moving the mouse again. But so for to days – since the new installer “works” on my puter, it does not any more and has to be closed manually …
All in all, it is tedious, so I am thinking of kissing you good bye. It was a good time relationship so far, but from now on I am loosing interest and will look for (and buy interesting) software elsewhere …
On windows 7 64 bit :
the wrapper is realy slowly on startup and to make the on online check.
DEFENX ANTIVIRUS find ( Suspicious!SA (Secuence) ) malware and the setup don’t start !!
I found your site nearly two weeks before. Thank you guys. What an amazing job you are doing. You giveaway software is very helpful to others. I wish all the success
Windows 7 64 bit, I to received an installation error “Themida”: A monitor program has been found running on your systems. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program”.
Need help with this issue.
Meantime, have missed out on your giveaways since July 5th, 2012.
Win32/Themida is a trojan horse that can sneak inside your operating system by altering file names and running processes to install additional malware onto your contaminated computer. Win32/Themida is typically installed on the system via porn related adult websites, unsolicited e-mail attachments or via dubious file sharing and shareware programs. Win32/Themida may delete or alter system files and exceptionally degrade the performance of your computer.
Themida does not seem safe. I have not been able to fully install programs since the change occurred. I will probably be leaving GAOTD until this is corrected. Why was the change really made? The old process wasn’t broken, you shouldn’t have messed with it.
I am a daily visitor from early 2009
Until now I was pretty happy with the GOTD experience.
Well…. NOT any more.
I have a WIN XP SP3 pc .
The new wrapper takes forever to load and at the end of the
procedure I get an error message :
The instruction at “0x00000000” eferenced memory at “0x00000000”
The memory could not be “read”. Click on OK to terminate the program.
I Click on OK and I get a second error message:
Error… some code
I Click on OK and I get the first error message
and
I Click on OK and I get the second error message
over and over again and again …
So .. I have to go to the task manager and kill the process
after 5 or 6 clicks at the “end task” button .
After that I get the “Activated successfully” screen from GOTD .
NOT a pleasant experience , don”t you think ?
That happens every time for the last 3 – 4 days and it is a very
VERY annoying and tiresome procedure .
And all that for what ?
Not to let some people ( how many ? ) install the offered software
at another day .
As for the new wrapper , in how much time do you think it will be broken ?
Remember , nothing is unbreakable .
In the meantime lawful , loyal visitors of your site must “pull their hair” in
order to install the offered software .
That’s not fair or just for all of us .
And that brings me to another topic .
I’ve read something about a “Themida” program running
in our systems during the installation .
This made me laugh .
You see …. Themis or Themida was the Greek Goddess of justice
and as I “ve mentioned before this whole thing is not “just” at all…. IMO .
I hope the GOTD team will find a better way to accomplish their goal .
I will keep visiting the site to see if there will be any changes .
If not …. I will not bother any more ….
In my country there is a saying :
in Greek : υπαρχουν κι αλλου πορτοκαλιες που κανουν πορτοκαλια
in English ( loosely translated ) :
there are also elsewhere orange trees that makes (equally tasty) oranges . ;-)
GOTD software wiil be packed with the new GOTD-wrapper
This new wrapper uses Themida (http://www.oreans.com/themida.php) to protect the giveaway for preying eyes. I can understand GOTD to move along for better protection. But why choose Themida from many other ways?
Themida conceals the inner works of the software that has to be protected. A good thing.
Malware distributors like this feature to and use it to shield their malware ( http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=uJQo8R-JnNk ) for the prying eyes of malware scanners. A bad thing.
This means using Themida could be good (for the developper) and bad (for hackers but also for home users because scanners cannot see what is conceiled either) at the same time.
Any Themida protected software evades your security scanners and render them more or less useless. As for home users you are left to just ‘trust the software’ or ‘not trust the software’ on your own.
This situation will be prone for making mistakes, either:
or
Well I see that my prior comment in that day’s giveaway forum was moderated out as I expected.
Without trying to expose too much, I pointed out that the new wrapper (though not identified as such) effectively prevents the user from installing in a virtualized environment, is also a resource hog and always completes with a series of memory error messages.
I find that using a sandbox of some sort is a critical first trial step whenever installing new software, especially with some of the giveaways where the developer is basically releasing beta or even alpha quality software and letting giveawayoftheday visitors act as their test base – there’s been quite a few.
Imagine if I had tried out, for example, Kingsoft Office on my system – though well written and an excellent application if you have no other office package installed, there is no way to uninstall Kingsoft properly so that Windows is stable (I’ve commented on this several times). I’m not fond of unplanned reloading of systems (it’s tedious enough otherwise).
As I stated, I certainly understand the need to better protect the day only concept, but not at the expense of increasing the ability of the poor developers to destabilize a user system.
Under this new wrapper, there is no way that I’m going to try out more intensive utilities & applications that integrate more deeply with Windows (unfortunately, sometimes there’s no way to know ahead of time about an app’s DirectX & driver chain changes, class, context menu & Windows default handling registry entries). System restore does not work in many cases.
I’m sure there’s plenty of others who like me, are very leery of messing up their systems.
In pre-Internet times, an oft cited statistic taught by marketing courses was that one bad customer experience on average translates into eleven lost customers due to word of mouth. Given the Internet, this value has certainly increased (but who knows how much more)). I have a group of people who I discuss giveaways with, and we all understand the potential damage that can be done by errant giveaways. Every giveawayoftheday visitor has such a group, and there’s plenty of well read blogs out there.
So, I would suggest that you move quickly before your reputation is trashed by a crappy offering from a lousy developer. I’m going to guess that your visitor numbers are going to drop (though your activation request may have jumped, as I certainly tried multiple attempts to get the installation working in a virtualized environment).
About Themida, New Wrapper and Registration
I have the feeling that GOTD (just like its sponsor) is drifting away from the original formula. That said, cumbersome registration procedures, dubious wrapper behavior and “strange” software “calls to home” may put off those seriously interested not only in testing the offered programs but also those willing to provide a valuable feedback to the sponsors/editors of each GOTD offer.
To me, recent GOTD offers could be a shoot-in-the-foot both for GOTD and its sponsors.
Why not to stick to the simple plain Setup-Activate formula?
I bet this would make everybody happy.
There are other ways to protect the interests of software editors…
Themida is so bad Jay Leno said it was more like the Nazi experiment combining Michael Jackson and a republican senator.
Ok, Leno hasn’t said that but you got the idea. lol
You guys think this is not of your concern if you have no freezes at all? Think twice:
Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture (!), Sysinternals’ Process Monitor (!!!!), Maplestory (game) have reports on being unable to run due to Themida being present in the system.
I can’t recall the name but even a text editor with clipboard manipulation functions had its loading prevented by the demon, ops, Themida.
I want to speak open: Software, that can be installed only one time on a special day is absolutely useless to me. I don’t always have the time to explore a software in the grace period. I don’t have the will to use a program “at once”. (E.g. Migrate to SSD from Paragon – I used this one the first time, when I – guess it – bought a SSD).
And: I often have to restore my system with Partition-Images. So what about the time and energy and data I invested in certain programs, that can’t be re-installed?
So far, using Sandboxie, it has never been a great effort to extract the uncrypted Setupfile. I guess an hope it will work in future, too.
People will surely find ways to bypass the “protection”.
If this is not the case – and I’m sure to speak for a whole lot of people – its time to say goodbye. Would be sad, I found a lot oft good through the months…
Agreed, this is Marketing 101
We can all subscribe to http://www.techdirt.com/ to expand our understanding of marketing in the digital age where copying is not stealing, it’s actually making MORE of the original.
Technically, the new wrapper misbehaves and I get the same misbehavior and errors others have mentioned — endless delayor total failure opening the program, halt messages that “someone is watching” or memory read error, and pop-up admonitions from GOTD’s own prior security giveaways that the new program is malicious!
Offer the vendor’s public program with a private key wrapped by GOTD, NOT requiring us to jump through hoops at the vendor’s site and wait around all day for problems to be resolved — the program we install should be downloadable directly from them …
… OR tell us this is a crippled, non-public beta test.
And change the name of this site to BetaTestHeadacheOfTheDay.com
On the one hand, thanks for the platform allowing us to explore software we might not find and explore otherwise. We give copious feedback here, and we recommend the programs we like, and we buy the next versions of the programs we like, and at least, if using a vendor’s program, we’re NOT using their competition, right? They should be grateful for that, right?
On the other hand, there is a tremendous amount of freeware out there, so the vendors should also subscribe to http://www.techdirt.com/ and grow a new set of marketing … bells and whistles, suitable for the world-wide digital age where copying is not stealing, it’s actually making MORE of the original.
I got the same issue as #9 on win 7 x64.
Agree with @10. Themida is used for all kinds of malware. It seems a very poor choice of Gaotd to use this ill reputed system. A very strange move concerning the blog earlier “who to trust in the world of giveaways”. I will not install themida infested software ! This could be the death of GAOTD when Web reputation organisations gets a wind of this.
On my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS/VirtualBox/XP Professional/Sandboxie system (double virtual) I could test the giveawayoftoday without any problem.
And after deleting the contents of the Sandbox and restarting the XP with the previous snapshot I am quite certain my double virtual system will be clean, as it was before.
Reading all the negative realities of Themida, I have to say I’m truly worried about downloading anything from GaotD while they use this program included in their wrapper. The referenced video alone is enough to scare me away until this situation changes. Sorry guys.
To Spectacle: Thank you for all the solid information you’ve given us on Themida software, I’d basically made up my mind that it was all too much trouble with the repeated downloads and haven’t bothered for a while, hoping for some positive changes to be made to the wrapper … and then this …. the clincher.
I won’t condemn GaotD because I think they’ve just made an horrific error, but I will watch this thread, to see if anything changes and I can feel safe downloading here again. At the moment the risk is not worth it.
Sadly,(GaotD) will be amazed at how fast this reaches the various blogs and forums that concern themselves with these giveaways. These are often disillusioned ex-users of the site, who watch for just this kind of thing to report to the public.
It’s already all over the extremely well known Wilders Security forums
( http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php ) with over 50,000 members and where all the major security AV firms have official representation.
There are other programs that do the same thing as Themida and don’t alert the AVs – in light of what’s happened, why not change? In the meantime, tell the vendors that they must DIGITALLY SIGN their software for starters – this should be the practice of ALL software designers – here or elsewhere.
GaotD, I wish you luck, even though I won’t be downloading for a while.
~ Swan
The new wrapper worked well for today’s GAOTD “PageFlip PDF to Flash Converter” on Windows XP SP3.
The last 5 giveaway’s, I could not install because of the new wrapper is of the opinion that I have a monitor program in its memory.
“A monitor program has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.”
As I’m sure I do not monitor program use. The last giveaway was his: “JPG to PDF Converter 2.2”.
Too bad.
Lots of fun for everyone else who can work with the new wrapper.
I then get out.
The monitor program that prevented setup of PhotoMakeUp(it looks like the first giveaway with Themida) was Iobit MalwareFighterPro installed the day before.Iobit has designed a program(MalwareFighterPro) that does not support the use of Themida once installed on the computer.Themida detected the error but was unable to point the Iobit program.The next day FilestreamTurboBrowser was installed without problem.You can follow the unzipping of the giveaway program by looking at the process itself.Use ctrl-alt-del to open the Windows Task Manager monitoring(For Win7 users the last line of a mutiple choice page:Start Task manager).The program to look for in the long list is called Setup.This alleviates a little the very slow process that keeps you waiting and eliminates the double opening of the giveaway file if you think you did not start it.The monitor program issue was the same on XPSP3 32 bit,Win7 32 and 64 bit.Windows has no apparent issue with the program Themida itself.I used the Registry Winner program(also a giveaway)to cleanup the registry with the checkmark on ‘all’.It did a good job.
To resolve the monitor issue detected by Themida, the Iobit Malware Fighter Pro was simply uninstalled.
It refused to run
I get the following pop up error and Windows alert sound
” A monitor program has been found running in your system Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.”
I turned off the Agnitum Security Suite Pro 7.5 program I have running.
I turned off the Iobit Malware Fighter Pro that was running
I turned off Advanced Sytem Care pro
I turned off Iolo System Mechanic
I turned off The Anvir task manager start up monitor.
I turned off process Lasso
I turned off system restore
I turned off everything and tried installing it in safe mode with just the network running. After trying every God Damned Configuration On my Windows XP Pro SP3 edition P.O.S. PC, Including a couple where I even left myself completely vulnerable while trying to get this damned program to instal, it wont. It failed.
So I have given up on it today. Same problem I had yesterday I just decided to complain about it today because I also have this same error with the downloaded game. .
The Game & Daily Program give away I downloaded have both been deleted.
I give this a big thumbs down for it being broken Plus I give GAOTD program wrappers & security tech team a great big Middle finger. I HAVE given them the middle finger due to the new Themida installation wrapper program being a buggy bit of crap ware.
The old program wrapper worked for me about 90% of the time. I would rather have a program that instals & works on my P.O.S. (piece of Shi* Computer) 90% of the time than one that wont install at all.
I am not impressed. What good is a program that wont bloody work ?
This probably spells the end of all the free games and programs I got from GAOTD =( if this bleeding program wrapper wont work for me how many others are in the same boat ?
I refuse to try anything else. Agnitum security pro restarted. Downloaded file deleted. I will go back to playing Runescape and other online games for free. AS FOR the need of trying out new FREE PROGRAMS I will go back to getting them off of Dot-tech instead. & daily Software giveaway.
While they might not have daily programs they are at least using a installer that works. If it’s not broke why bother to fix it only to just end up breaking it ?
Hello,
I was unable to activate today´s giveaway due to Norton Antivirus 2012
installed on my system.
Ruta completa: No disponible
____________________________
____________________________
En los equipos a partir de 07/07/2012 a las 17:17:37
Último uso 07/07/2012 a las 17:17:37
Elemento de inicio No
Iniciado Sí
____________________________
____________________________
Muy pocos usuarios
Menos de 5 usuarios de la Comunidad Norton han usado este archivo.
____________________________
Muy nuevo
Este archivo se lanzó hace menos de 1 semana.
____________________________
Alto
El riesgo de este archivo es alto.
____________________________
Detalles de amenaza
Protección SONAR supervisa el equipo en busca de actividades sospechosas de los programas.
____________________________
Archivo de origen:
winrar.exe
Archivo creado:
activate.exe
____________________________
Acciones del archivo
Archivo infectado: d:\users\flo\downloads\giveaway of the day – pageflip pdf to flash converter – hacked\activate.exe
Se eliminó
____________________________
Acciones de la red
Evento: Actividad de red (Realizado por d:\users\flo\downloads\giveaway of the day – pageflip pdf to flash converter – hacked\activate.exe, PID:8920)
No se realizó ninguna acción
____________________________
Acciones de la configuración del sistema
Evento: Comienzo del proceso (Realizado por d:\users\flo\downloads\giveaway of the day – pageflip pdf to flash converter – hacked\activate.exe, PID:13228)
No se realizó ninguna acción
____________________________
Huella digital del archivo – SHA:
b314662838ea0722a4a224afdefdc1495d70b58b7a66bd856aa894ef97df401b
____________________________
Huella digital del archivo – MD5:
0547a8153d77ab774150c51a185ee92a
____________________________
Add my name to the list of people bothered by Themida. Here’s the basic problems:
1. It’s causing problems for a huge number of people, including me — just refusing to work.
2. It’s sketchy software with a sketchy reputation, which all the posts here show is well-earned.
3. It simply doesn’t work at its primary purpose. That is — ultimately, if you’re making your software available to people, they can pirate it. This is inevitable and inescapable. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take reasonable steps to make that harder and make it take longer, of course, but it’s not worth inconveniencing legitimate users over it. This is especially true for GoTD — I can understand harsh anti-piracy on a new release, where slowing down pirates for a few days or weeks can be extremely valuable because it creates a window when people who might have pirated will buy your software.
But that’s not true for something that’s been out for a while (as is the case for everything that GotD covers.) Bluntly, nearly everything on GotD has already been cracked and is already available on file-sharing networks long before it appears here; it makes no difference whether the GotD version is crackable or not.
So I don’t feel it’s worth inconveniencing legitimate users over theoretical exploits. Anyone who could crack the old GotD installer? They’re also capable of ignoring the installer and cracking the software it installs. And most of the time they already have anyway, so what’s the point in worrying about it so much?
It feels like this is being done more to create a talking point that can be used to reassure edgy software vendors than something that serves any practical purpose. It doesn’t actually do anything but inconvenience users, practically speaking, because even if your installer is protected by an invulnerable shield, the software inside never is; and because by the time software is old enough to offer on GotD, anyone interested in pirating it has already done so five times over.
You are now using a new GOTD wrapper, using a tool named THEMIDA. It is impossible to me install any software since you begun to use it. I eventually use tools like “procmon” or “filemon” to check how programs are using my computer and these softwares install some “drivers” automatically. Even though I not execute any of these tools together with “GOTD setup” the built-in THERMIDA accuse the presence of “…a monitor program has been found running in your system…”. This is not true. No program is actually executing…. So, I think from now it is useless to continue follow this site because it is impossible to install the offered programs. I hope you can fix this error of THEMIDA or change for another “wrapper” and then you will make sure the programs can be installed with security for the vendors
Thermida is an insidious rootkit and even accepting that there are usually conditions to giveaways, there is no way I plan on installing any program that comes complete with a rootkit. That’s a “condition” that’s not worth the benefit of trying a new program. While some GOTD vendors might find the use of Thermida acceptable, I imagine there are others that would absolutely NOT want their product to be associated with a rootkit.
This Downloaded program also refused to run. I get the following pop up error and Windows alert sound “A monitor program has been found running in your system Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.” I turned off the Agnitums Security Suite Pro 7.5 program I have running. (Which finally stops my AV from deleting the setup file as a virus) I turned off the Iobit Malware Fighter Pro that was running it too reports the new GAOTD program as suspicious.
Just in-case these programs where interfering with the install I also turned them off. Advanced System Care pro, Iolo System Mechanic. Anvir task manager & start up monitor, Process Lasso & then last but not least, I turned off my PC’s system restore. After I turned everything off & trying to install the programs in safe mode, with just the network running. Even, After trying that install on this Windows XP Pro SP3 edition PC, failed to install.
I tried to install it a couple of times where I left my computer completely vulnerable to the Internet. Something I am loath to do, after doing that to try & get this program to install, it still wouldn’t work. I tried a few more times because I wanted yesterdays media browser & todays game & PDF Flash converter. I got to the point where I was starting to swear at the machine & the program. I had to finally give up on installing them as a lost cause.
GAOTD Your new wrapper has failed me & left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I have given up on it. I had all the Same problem’s today that I had yesterday. I decided to post a complaint about it on here today. Because I have the same errors that everyone else is. I give this a big thumbs down. Plus I give the GAOTD programmers and the tech team a thumbs down due to their choice to use the Themida installation wrapper. A program THAT could be being used to hide anything they want from our av scanners.
The old program wrapper worked about 90% of the time for me I was pretty happy with that. I would rather have a program that installs & works on my Computer 90% of the time, than a wrapper that wont let me install anything at all. I am so disappointed in this. Why wont the program wrapper work on my computer just what is preventing it from installing I have shut down every possible secondary function & then some to try & get it to install.
This probably spells the end of my coming here & of my telling my friends to come here when GAOTD has some software i know they would be interested in checking out. I will no longer promote GAOTD on the blogs & forums I post on. Nor will I advertise it via E-mail to my friends. & this is why I wont be doing that anymore. GAOTD can no longer be trusted as safe site to use. If Hackers, Virus Programmers & Malware distributors like to use Themida to hide there malicious programs & codes. What is stopping GAOTD from distributing Malware, spy-ware or some nasty viruses on to my machine with out my knowledge?
I am sorry GAOTD Project team I can not trust you or with a good conscious recommend for my friends & family to come here for all the free games and programs that we used to get here. =( if this program wrapper wont work for me or my friends & I can also see many other posters complaining about it.
I wonder just how many others are in the same boat that I am but they don’t bother to post a complaint about it. I wonder GAOTD just how many will walk away instead ? I absolutely refuse to try anything else to install the games & programs. Because of this mitigating facto r as soon as I restarted my Agnitum security pro the Downloaded file was removed from the folder & quarantined plus Outpost popped up a report declaring it as suspicious infected file & wanted me to send it in to Agnitum for further study.
That was even after I had approved it to run on my PC by adding it to A.O.S.P 7.5 exclusion list . My outpost security software really does not like the Themida wrapper you are now using. I will go back to playing the free on-line games instead of using the downloads from here they are not as good as having them installed on my PC but it is better than nothing. As for my need of trying out new programs I will have to settle for what I can get from other sites instead.
While the other software sites will not have as many free programs as the GAOTD site does they do offer some great free programs from time to time not to mention the daily software they do give away is being done with a wrapper I can trust. One that is not masking the files completely from the AV Scanner I use to protect my PC. If My AV is triggering & deleting the program wrapper as suspicious again I am sorry … but your program has to go.
While these other software sites might not have the same quality of daily programs that you guys do they at least are using a installer that works on my PC. I have posted this complaint numerous times & yet it is still not been approved it seems to keep being deleted? I wonder why that is ? I think the sites moderators don’t like my insulting GAOTD. It might also be being deleted because I am bad mouthing GAOT D for their use of the Themida wrapper. Something that many Malware & virus infested programmers like to use to hide their content.
TL/DR
I really, wanted yesterdays progam & todays game. The Game give away & the Daily Program give away I downloaded have both been deleted by my antivirus scanner as suspicious.
I clicked to add them as exceptions. So the AV quit deleting them. I then turned off everything possible & tried to install the game & programs. I Still end up getting a pop up error with the critical error alert sound
The error reads as follows
“A monitor program has been found running in your system Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.”
Same problems as above on Vista 64-bit/Norton 360.(slow,error codes) Frankly,with the vast majority of the recent offerings,it’s just not worth the trouble/possible risk. Looks like GOTD’s benefit to me in the future is going to be for suggestions for freeware alternatives to the crippled GOTD installs. May relent if a really tempting one comes along,but I’ll be dammed if I”m going to downgrade my systems security for a shot at something I probably would’nt have purchased if I’d seen it on a store shelf.
When I tried to install today’s game I get the following error message on both an XP and a Vista Home Premium 32 machine:
Extracting files to D:\Downloads\20120707 folder
The archive is either in unknown format or damaged
http://blogs.mcafee.com/mcafee-labs/who-digs-the-elephant-trap
The new wrapper got bigger size(aprx 4mb) than old only 900 kb…
so we have to wasted our valuable bandwidth of 3.1 mb everyday, 91 mb a month & 1 gb a year…!!!!
try to made it small
And in last, none of the regular user can crack software if it is wrapped with old wrapper….and cracker can crack anything in spite of you made a very hard protection like dongles or other…
then why are you wasting time & increase the difficulties of the lovers of this site…!!!!!
I agree with many here. If the only way to install GGOTD games involves “temporarily” disabling my virus protection, or booting my computer into “Safe mode” to install the program, then I’m afraid I’m not going to be downloading and installing software from your site(s) anymore.
There’s no free game or piece of software worth potentially compromising my computer system’s integrity over.
So long, and thanks for all the games.
Sorry, I don’t want to read this topic now. But maybe I have a solution for Running monitor problem. It helped me with yesterday programs. I didn’t try to install today ones.
If closing programs is not enough:
1. Turn off your internet connection
2. Go to internet connections
3. Make a copy of your connection
4. Go to its properties
5. Uncheck all unusual components
6. Connect to internet using this connection
7. Run the installer
Please, write if this helps you.
Setup crashes always, even with AV, etc. disabled and DEP allowed.
Win 7×64
We’re back to square one Windows XP SP3 crashes badly.
The initial problem of the new wrapper returned.
To DrWoo in above no.27 comment: many programs have issues once installed and Norton antivirus makes no exception.Try some other
antivirus program like Avast Free to name one.Experiment new programs if you can afford to devote some of your time and see for yourself any benefits there are in doing so.
To Rick Frog in no.31 comment: turning off monitoring programs does not resolve the setup problems you encounter. I experienced the same thing. Try uninstalling monitoring programs instead doing so one at a time.See no.25. Too many monitoring programs can slow down and cripple your computer to some extent like unexpected reboots etc.Many of those monitoring programs are readily visible in the taskbar in the bottom right of your video screen.
XP Pro, SP3, 32-bit, 2.5GB, AVG (free version), ASC (6-month license you gave away a short while ago), IMF (6-month license you gave away earlier this week), Ipsos Panel Plus Application (FAQ/Information sheet here: http://media.ipsosinteractive.com/deploy/templates/iis-toolbar/FAQ.html).
Obviously, I managed to install IMF – though I did get the “Themida: A monitoring program…….” issue when installing it, but turning off AVG, ASC and the free version of IMF allowed the installation.
Yesterday (7th July), I tried both the PDF to SWF converter AND Arcanorum, switching off ALL of the above – both individually and collectively (as well as IMF piecemeal), but nothing worked. I even ran ASC’s Deep and Quick scans and re-tried, but no joy.
A note to Themida’s developers:- Since Themida is so (understandably) concerned about “a monitoring program”, surely it should seek out that program’s NAME and TELL US so that we know what to turn off, rather than being left guessing and, potentially, open to who-knows-what malware as we attempt to install perfectly legitimate software?
I must disable Norton Internet Security 2012’s antivirus feature in order to run the new GAOTD installer. That’s uncomfortable, at best.
hello, i also have problems to install the giveaways.
on my notebook, i only get 100% cpu-load – and nothing works.
and on my normal pc, it shows that the archive is defect.
please fix this problem, or use the old key wrapper.
(xp sp3 user ;))
I can no longer install software that is downloaded from Giveaway of the Day or Game Giveaway of the Day.
“Window cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have permissions to access the item.”
Run as administrator – same result.
Shut down antivirus, firewall – same result.
Giving up.
I have to agree with many other longtime users that the new wrapper is causing more problems than it is worth. I can’t install without making changes to my systems security.
Telling people to downgrade their security is not appropriate.
This new wrapper obviously needed a lot more development before it was deployed. I really consider it to be intusive DRM/rootkit. It’s overkill.
I suggest that you will likely lose alot of longtime users and supporters over this poor decision to use Themida.
If it won’t allow me to install the give-a-ways without compromising users systems, your days as a valuable site are likely numbered.
Win 7 64
Norton 2012
You are now using a new GOTD wrapper, using a tool named THEMIDA. It is impossible to me install any software since you begun to use it.
Norton’s Sonar stops the installation and then deletes it. Unsafe.
I have been a user of Game Giveaway for many, many years and have thoroughly enjoyed the games I’ve gotten. But I guess I will have to become a non-user as I can’t install the games anymore because of this new “wrapper” whatever that is.
Please fix this or this website will disappear:(
seem to have same problems as above nortons deleets pls find work around thx
Fishdom Premium. Windows 7, 64-bit, it reports “Themida: A monitor program has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.
I run Symantec Endpoint Protection, IOBit Malware Fighter, Spybot S&D.
How about a less cryptic error message so we know what’s causing the error? Maybe tell us the name of the process or the name of the program so we can decide to remove it from our system. This new security method has made GAOTD products totally useless to me. Please reply, acknowledge and fix this. I’ve tried killing several processes, including IOBit and Spybot to no avail. Darrin
I also get “Themida: A monitor program has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.”.
I have to state that as much as I looked forward to downloading at least one game each weekend, I can no longer do so. I am NOT a computer geek and/or Wiz so everything you say to do about “Safe Mode”, etc. is Greek to me. I really don’t understand why it’s changed now… but thank you for all the games in the past. This Fishdom game look like one I may have liked. Take care, be safe and have a wonderful life everyone!