Frequently Asked Questions
Array ( "Will I be banned for using IITC?",
<<<'END'
Niantic consider IITC (and any other unofficial software) against the Ingress ToS. However, just because
something is against the ToS it doesn't mean Niantic will enforce it.
However, in early December 2013, many people started to believe Niantic were banning people for using IITC. This is not
the case. However, the following events have lead to this belief:
- On 27th November 2013, Niantic released a major update of the standard intel site. A couple of days later there were
reports of user bans for 'excessive intel use'. A couple of people confirmed it was attempts to use the broken IITC Mobile 0.9
that lead to instant bans.
- About a week later, Niantic made a large batch of user bans 'for ToS violations'. Many users reported their only ToS
violation was using IITC - and some said that even IITC hadn't been used. On appeal, many of these bans were
reversed - including some confirmed IITC users
- A week after that and and there were more reports of the same.
Given that a large number of serious Ingress players use, or have used, IITC, it isn't surprising to find
that if Niantic ban someone by mistake, they might have used IITC.
I believe none of these bans are related to IITC. Rather, Niantic have been working on more aggressive catching of
cheaters and other ToS violations - spoofing, bots, multiple accounts, account sharing, etc. These things are inherently
hard to detect though, and Niantic are likely to make mistakes sometimes, banning legitimate players.
Note that Niantic have remained completely silent on the reason for any of these bans. This is partly because if they
did say what someone had been banned for doing, it might lead to cheaters knowing what they can and can't get away with.
However: IITC is against the Ingress ToS - so it's sensible to be cautious. Don't publicly share screenshots
from IITC in the official Ingress community, or with the official Ingress/NIA G+ accounts.
END
),
'takedown' => Array ( "Why is IITC still available? Wasn't it sent a takedown notice?",
<<<'END'
I've seen several comments of the form "IITC was sent a takedown notice, and at this point
it moved to Github and kept going". This is not true.
- IITC was started on Github, by Stefan breunigs.
- Stefan decided to email Niantic, asking if IITC was OK to develop.
- Niantic replied to this request, stating that any 3rd party software is against the ToS and asked that he delete it from Github.
- Stefan deleted IITC from Github. However, the nature of Git meant that many other copies of the project already existed.
- My understanding of the situation, at the time, was that Niantic tolerated IITC. Other software had been sent takedown
requests, IITC had not. However, on an explicit request, Niantic felt forced to reply in strict accordance with their terms.
- I, Jon Atkins, decided to fix up my copy of IITC, and created this website.
- Development continued, the website was polished, a G+ page/community were created. Niantic have not contacted me
with a takedown request though.
So, was 'IITC' sent a takedown request? No - this website, and the IITC G+ page, have not been sent such a request.
END
),
'not-activated' => Array ( "I get a message saying my account isn't activated",
<<<'END'
Occasionally the Niantic servers give this misleading message - what it should usually say is
"Failed to check account status - please reload to try again".
Sometimes this is caused by server issues, and no amount of reloading will fix it. Come back later and try again.
However, another reason for this message is your account being blocked/suspended by Niantic. There
are no (known) cases of this happening due to IITC use, but any use of bots, unofficial clients (e.g. iPhone, broot),
or other ingress mods (auto-drop/pickup apps) could lead to this. In this case, the scanner app will also fail
to work correctly ("Scan failed" error message).
END
),
'broken' => Array ( "No portals are displayed on the map/some portals are missing",
<<<'END'
Two common reasons.
- You have some portal layers turned off in the layer chooser
- Some requests failed - check the status at the bottom-right of the screen
In the second case, wait 30 seconds for the next refresh, or drag the map a very small amount to perform an immediate
refresh.
END
),
'curved-lines' => Array ( "Long lines are drawn curved on the map",
<<<'END'
This is a good thing. IITC has been updated (as of 0.13.0) to draw long links/fields correctly. If you want to understand
why they are drawn curved, see
here.
END
),
'uninstall' => Array ( "IITC Desktop: How do I uninstall/disable IITC or plugins?",
<<<'END'
This depends on your browser.
- Chrome + Tampermonkey: Click on the Tampermonkey icon (a dark square with two circles at the bottom) and choose 'Dashboard'.
- Firefox + Greasemonkey: Click on the arrow next to the monkey icon, and choose 'Manage user scripts'.
- For Opera, remove the scripts from the userscript folder. For Chrome without Tampermonkey, go to the Tools->Extensions menu.
From here you can remove/disable individual plugins or IITC itself.
END
),
'mobile-plugins' => Array ( "IITC Mobile: Is it possible to add other plugins to IITC Mobile?",
<<<'END'
Yes it is!
- Create a folder named "IITC_Mobile" in your home directory.
- Inside this folder, create a new folder named "plugins".
- Copy all your additional plugins to this folder.
- You should see your plugins listed above the official plugins.
Note:
- The filename has to end with *.user.js.
- If you don't know where to find your home directory: Enable dev-mode in the settings and follow the hint.
END
),
'debug-data-tiles' => Array ( "What do the colours mean in 'DEBUG Data Tiles'",
<<<'END'
The data from the Niantic server is download in square tiles. Sometimes requests fail. The colours show this status
visually. The outline colour shows the state of the request:
- Blue: data requested, waiting for response
- Grey: queued, waiting for other requests to finish
- Green: successful request/cached data fresh
- Red: Dark red for a complete request failure, lighter red for an individual tile timeout
The colour within the square shows the state of the data:
- Blue: data requested, waiting for response
- Grey: queued, waiting for other requests to complete
- Green: successful request
- Yellow: data from cache
- Red: request failed - no data from cache
The status message at the bottom-right of the screen gives a summary.
- If all requests were successful/fresh from cache (i.e. all green borders) the status is 'Done'.
- If some requests failed, but cached data was available (i.e. some red border/yellow fill) the status is 'Out of date'.
- If some requests failed, but no cached data was available (i.e. some red border/red fill) the status is 'Error'.
The tooltip for this message gives more details.
END
),
'no-penalty' => Array ( "Will Google/Niantic penalise me for using IITC?",
<<<'END'
There have been rumours that Niantic/Google have been asking people to stop using IITC, and penalising users
with a loss of points for doing so. This, as far as we can tell, is a hoax. Consider the following:
- Before penalising users, they would request that this site is taken down. This has not happened.
- Any such request would come via email, not via a Google+ message. Ingress is not closely tied into the Google
account system unlike, for example, Gmail; an email, like they already use for portal submissions, is the only
communication method available.
- The message I've seen talks about "points" - when they should be talking about "AP".
Some notes from a Hangout available here
with further details.
END
),
'cheating' => Array ( "Isn't using IITC cheating/an unfair advantage?",
<<<'END'
IITC only uses data that is sent from the Ingress servers to the browser - it just displays it in an easy to use format.
With the right skills it is already possible to see this data using the browser debugging console, and
there were, and continue to be, other browser add-ons that display this data - just not widely available.
Having a good quality, feature rich add-on, available to all - Enlightened and Resistance - ensures one side does not
have an unfair advantage.
END
),
'export' => Array ( "Can you add an export feature?",
<<<'END'
No. As it stands IITC is tolerated, but not officially accepted, by Niantic/Google. Adding in features that
allow exporting of data outside the browser environment, or break additional Ingress terms of service
is likely to trigger a takedown request from Google.
END
),
'otherapp' => Array ( "I used another {ingress mod/IITC plugin} and it's broken - can you fix it?",
<<<'END'
Probably not, no. If the plugin is not listed on this site, it's not part of my IITC distribution.
I do accept new plugins (see the Developer page for links to Github), but I do not accept any that
allow export of Ingress data outside of the browser or make use of data not retrieved by the standard intel website.
END
),
);
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";
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# faq list
foreach ( $faq as $name => $value )
{
$title = $value[0];
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print "
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