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Curse Voice Boasts Safety From DDOS And Swatting For 1.1 Million Monthly Users
If you’ve attended a major gaming convention, chances are you’ve heard or seen the name “Curse.” The company was started almost a decade ago as a way for founder Hubert Thieblot to organize add-ons for World of Warcraft (which he claims to have played for 16 hours per day at one point). Now, the company maintains over 40 websites, including LoLNexus (for League of Legends), MMOChampion, and FUThead (for FIFA Ultimate Team) among others.
In 2014, Curse launched its own VOIP service to compete with the likes of Teamspeak and Mumble. The platform is entirely free and protects user IP addresses from DDOS and other harassment and incursions (similar to Razer Comms).
The company boasts over 3.5 million installations and 1.1 million monthly active users, with League of Legends and Smite the most popular on the service. The platform also features group messaging and an overlay, as well as voice matching for those playing the same game using Curse Voice.
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Curse also offers a client that manages add-ons for a number of different games, with usership of 2 million per month against 6 million total installations.
The company employes over 140 and is based out of Huntsville, Alabama, but maintains offices in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, London, Berlin, and Sydney.
While Curse isn’t the only player in the market, it is part of a growing movement to provide additional security to users. Because services like Curse Voice and Razer Comms are server-based, IP addresses aren’t exposed to chat partners.
Protecting this data helps put an extra layer between users and those that might seek to expose personal information like home address and other contact details. This has led Curse to make a bold claim that it can help prevent “swatting,” the practice of calling in fake police reports to trigger an armed response at an innocent’s house.
“We have DDOS protection built in, which is a big deal now because of the swatting issues that have happened,” Curse vice president Donovan Duncan says. “Some of these issues are ruining lives, and making people feel really unsafe online. So we've built the program from scratch for gamers which makes the overall voice experience that much better, i.e. no swapping server information, passwords etc., and then the entire thing is in the cloud, so you don't have to worry about someone getting your IP when you use Curse Voice. Most of the big streamers and online gamer personalities have actually adopted Curse Voice over the competition for this reason alone."
As identity protection becomes a larger concern online, using programs like Curse Voice or Razer Comms to chat with strangers can help protect users’ identities. You can check out Curse Voice here and Razer Comms here to decide which is right for you.
Our Take
I don’t typically engage in voice chat with people I don’t know while playing PC games. This means that Skype is usually a safe bet. However, I’ve been considering diving back into a PC MOBA, and that means an app like Curse Voice might be a good idea for pick-up games. I’ve seen too many people I know suffer from swatting to know that it’s something I want to protect my family from.
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