(2014-03-04, 11:38)hstegeman Wrote: The biggest problem with xbmc is in my opinion the prejudice that all third party xbmc addons are just crappy and shouldn't be used. I have no problem with the fact that we can't talk about piracy add-ons on this forum. But it's not a fact that all third party addons are crappy and should be seen as viruses. In my experience the best addons are made by third party developers. Without problems I can make a list of the 5 very best third party xbmc addons.
Although perhaps you don't like piracy add-ons, that is your own right, you should at least test them before you can say they are all crappy, I know that's not true based on my own experience.
Nah, I think it's a lot more specific. For example, the Hulu add-on has never been in the official XBMC.org repo, and I love the living crap out of that add-on. I even made it a wiki page:
Hulu (wiki).
You can't find the posts anymore, but there was a time before I was on Team XBMC, before the more strict rules, when I would talk about using IceFilms. I've used the other ones too, like 1Channel, iStream, MashUp, and Navi-X. Navi-X used to be an alternative way to get youtube videos back in the old xbox XBMC days. I can't speak for everyone, but when I call an add-on crappy, then it's because I honestly feel it's crappy.
For example, the whole "maintenance tool" thing, where the file-locker add-ons often can't clear out their own pre-download folders, and sometimes make the entire HTPC run out of space. So they made a second maintenance add-on to clear out the space. That's sloppy.
The video quality on a lot of the file-locker add-ons is pretty crappy too.
The "you might get a virus" thing isn't literally talking about viruses, but it is a reference to when two of the big "third party repo" sites got into a little mini war and started using their add-ons to uninstall each other's add-ons. Plus the whole thing were one of them was tracking users watching habits without proper disclosure or the option to opt-out (since corrected, I hear, but it takes a lot to earn back trust).
The other example is SuperRepo, which doesn't specifically host any specific kind of add-on, but the way they allow anyone to submit add-ons makes it really easy for a prankster to upload a simple python add-on, pretend it is a popular add-on, and have it literally delete all the files off of your hard drive. I guess I shouldn't say that, since it basically puts the idea into some a-hole's head, but unless they do something to beef up security, it will likely happen one way or another.
So even if we didn't have an anti-piracy-discussion rule, I still wouldn't like many of those (specific) add-ons.