So I've played since day one and well I do remember the old days of CTMod and all those things.

There has long been an addon manager that ask nothing and is probably copied by every other addon manager in some way. There's a way to get around both the curse website and the addon managers... The original manager is still around!~

https://www.wowmatrix.com/faq/alternate-download

So you can use that nice little python program to update addons, and one of the original sites that addons were hosted on is still around too. Curse never had a monopoly with addons and their attempts at trying to do so is making a huge mess of many addons and what they don't realize is that we use such things because it gives us more time in game and we certainly don't need a spybot running in the background, esp. from a company with a very poor reputation.

https://www.wowinterface.com/addons.php

Is where I've been getting my addons for almost 2 decades now. I see a lot of arguing and people stressing over all this. Well, there's a healthy solution and I hope many of you start to use the originals and the true community based addons that aren't some poor coder trying to scrape some bucks out of the wow playerbase while not even playing themselves.

Remember; addons come and go. I don't have one single addon from vanilla and while you may think you can't live without DBM or whatever curse offers, I assure you there are very good alternatives which are often far better than those who copy the originals and attempt to profit from their addon.