Widower Is It Safe To Use?

is it safe to use ?
do they steal your data and info like most programs?

Widower? do you mean windower?
one can assume a widower is not safe to use, unless you are looking to become a widow.


In all seriousness, if you do mean windower, Windower is use at your own risk. You can be banned from ffxi for using third party tools, windower is a third party tool.

That said it is a very wide spread and commonly used tool, but that does not change the fact that it's use is against the ffxi ToS.

Your risk just using windower is small but once you start using addons or plugins that risk can become very large, some plugins or addons can be used to exploit the game, see things like the great metal dupe event a few years back for an example of that.


Windower does not collect anything beyond usage data like "I am on a windows XP machine" and stuff like that, BUT an addon you download from some sketchy back alley could do/collect anything it wants.

Disclaimer: I am, at the time of writing this, on the windower dev team

Huge numbers of us use Windower and have for 10-15+ years, the people that work on windower love the game. It's as safe as you can get from a 3rd party product.

Having said that, don't just download addons for it from random places. Use the ones that are installed from the launcher.

It will steal your mind and soul until all you know if addons addons and more addons. If you're particularly vulnerable, you could become an addon developer, and at that point the only salvation is rapture.

i think it safe

So long as you don't walk to up to a GM and scream "I USE WINDOWER!" you're safe. I once fell into the floor in Jugner Forest (near the zone to Davoi) and called a GM. They asked me "Are you using any third party tools?" and I was like... "No". They asked me to log out and see if that fixes it.

I logged in vanilla (no windower) and it fixed right away. Had I said yes, the GM would have had no choice but to ban me. SE are fully aware it exists, but they are more concerned about, for example, damaging tools that poshack characters across zones or dupe items. Stick to simple quality of life things like recast timers & mini-maps and you'll be fine.

Windower is not 100% safe, but, c'mon... I think we can say Windower itself is 100% safe.

Some listed and unlisted plugins/addons on the other hand is very much a different story, obviously.

Most applications for FFXI are safe*, if they are not intended for explicit cheating or circumventing game mechanics. Even then, stealth/moderate use very rarely alone gets a Person banned. What will almost always get a person in trouble is being an idiot and brazenly using certain apps inn the open, or just making enemies with the wrong people who will report you. SE isn’t sitting around at every corner scanning who is using what; you actually have to go out of your way doing something nefarious to get noticed.

With that all being said, technically speaking, every application, including windower is use at your own risk, and can get you banned. However, I’ve seen more often than not, the people who get banned for “windower” are really doing something else dumb, like pos hacking across maps or running at flee speed with retaliation active. Things like JA0 alone don’t draw enough attention to get your hemmed up, and neither does windower. I’ve watched people use EZ farm for years and never get touched, but they use it somewhat covertly to the point they never get caught. Anchor on bumba won’t get you banned. And then there’s people who just openly use multiple programs at once and complain that windower caused the bans. lol. It’s all the other stuff people do while using windower that isn’t safe. Always been that way.

Keep in mind OP is asking if it's a password/account theft system, not about rules being broken by using them.

I want to expand on this a bit, the launcher collects this data and it's handled by Google Data Analytics for us so it's all anonymized by the time we see it.

Oh fuk
/delete windower
/delete game
/throws the PC overboard

j/k


kinda :p

Do you have any analytics data on which addons are downloaded / used?

Windower is as safe as you want it to be. The official plugins/addons have proven to be safe, with the majority of them having a client (player) side focus. Such as TParty, Treasure Pool, Enemybar, Infobar, etc. All these do is either scan data that the server is sending to the client, and either displaying it, or letting the player change its appearance/manipulate the UI. Addons like gearswap take this a step further, allowing you to “safely “ send information back to the server, in the same fashion as a native macro/gear set. The only difference is, is that it automates some of the swaps based on game condition, like weather and buffs.

It’s when you get to the unofficial/player created stuff that things can get dangerous. Without looking at the hack side of things, addons that allow item dupes, pos hacking, etc is what will start to get you banned. But really, this is typically only the case IF you impact someone else’s game experience, screw with the economy, or blatantly use cheats in public.

Addon usage data isn't collected, only plugin. We've been meaning to collect addon data for . . . ten years or something now.