When attempting to install Reshade it gives the error "Existing effect files found in non-default location. Please remove them first to avoid duplicates."
This is an asinine suggestion for multiple reasons.
First, if I want duplicate effects, that is no business of the Reshade installer.
Second, a warning for non-technically experienced users is fine, but blocking the install with no option to bypass is unnecessary.
Third, the installer scanning the file system beyond the installer's root directory and the selected game's path is completely unacceptable.
The installer scanning the file system beyond what is strictly necessary and selected and without any prompt or permission is a complete invasion of privacy and far oversteps the installer's bounds. This seems more like something like spyware or a trojan would do and if I had not been using Reshade for years at this point, I would have immediately uninstalled it.
I would like answers to the following questions:
Am I required to run the installer in a virtualized environment to protect my privacy?
Which servers does the Reshade installer connect to and communicate with? (Github, update checker, ...)
Does Reshade, at any time, send any data rather than receive?
These are serious privacy concerns, past simply an over-aggressive installer. At no time, did I ever give Reshade permission, nor agree to anything, regarding having all of my folders and files scanned, in order to search for these "duplicate" effects.
Looking past these extremely concerning privacy issues, Reshade should have nothing to do with the actual source shaders. Not only are there many good, valid reasons to load duplicate effects (e.g. multiple UI masks), but if I wanted to stack a hundred ambient occlusions, that is my choice, not the installer's. Reshade is simply a tool to load shaders into the game, not an actual shader manager. While the installer has moved more and more towards being a manager for better or worse (worse in my opinion), the actual Reshade injector works perfectly fine and sufficiently. There should be a way to bypass the installer or manually install the dll file without having to go through the installer, or at the very least, Reshade should warn rather than completely block the installation. Better yet, simply give the user the option.
The effects were, by the way, the only effects that you are forced to download and install. Again, a lack of options. I already had an existing installation which I deleted the dll of troubleshoot another issue. Even if I had backed the dll up, I would still never be able to update to a newer version of Reshade, since I would not have the dll for the new version. There is simply no reason to completely block the installation just like there is no reason to force download any shader.
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