How to enjoy LibreWorlds safely
It is essential to understand that by being on the internet, no one is fully safe from cyber attacks. Security controls only reduce the possibilty, sometimes drastically, but never to 0%. The best way to protect yourself while using legacy applications is Defense in Depth (aka layered defense). This is because the kind of cyber attacks carried out against worlds users would fall under "wateringhole" attacks.
- ALWAYS use a VPN while using worlds.com as it only supports HTTP. VPN prevents data leakage by ensuring confidentiality (chats, login info) through encryption. And also protects against MITM.
- Keep your AntiVirus and Firewall up-to-date.
- Remain in official worlds. Any vulnerability will likely invovle communication with private servers, which does not happen by not visiting untrusted worlds.
- There is always the option to use a Virtual Machine to contain Worlds. (guide below)
For what it's worth, disabling auto-upgrades by modifying .ini files or creating a firewall rule can be useful. However, it may cause WorldsPlayer to not run properly, so if you do that you should expect issues that likely wont stop unless you undo the changes.
Virtualizing LibreWorlds
First, you need to download Oracle Virtualbox. Go here: https://www.virtualbox.org/
Then, after downloading and installing Oracle Virtualbox, you need to download a windows disk image (ISO). Go to this link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
Note: Make sure you only download from official websites!
Note 2: There is a lightweight version of windows, called Tiny11 by NTDEV, however i'm not sure how secure it is. It is better to stick to the original windows above.
I am not an expert when it comes to virtual machines, so here are 3 tutorials for installing windows 11 on Virtualbox:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6GE4Vu35IQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWdxMZ2ldYA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IezIpXcGLCQ
or you can just look up "install windows 11 on virtualbox"...
Finally, after everything is finished, you can just download worlds player from worldsplayer.com on the virtual machine, you just open the browser in your windows on the VM and download worldsplayer and install it there, and that is all! :D