According to these new numbers from Valve, the Linux customer base is up to 1.96%, or a 0.52% jump over June! That’s a huge jump with normally just moving 0.1% or so in either direction most months… It’s also near an all-time high on a percentage basis going back to the early days of Steam on Linux when it had around a 2% marketshare but at that time the Steam customer size in absolute numbers was much smaller a decade ago than it is now. So if the percentage numbers are accurate, this is likely the largest in absolute terms that the Linux gaming marketshare has ever been.
Data from Valve: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam?platform=combined
Steam is spyware ditch that shit, if you can’t because you MUST play your games you are a junkie with an addiction
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/steam
Why isn’t anyone talking about how much this link is exaggerating all of it’s points? Did anyone read it? Disclaimer: I use steam and I take the good with the bad.
It collects your address, CC info, name etc – It’s an online store. You give it this info to purchase things. It’s quite clear why this is happening. Don’t like it? Don’t shop online. Actually, don’t use a credit/debit card at all because they are certainly recording your spending habits and selling that data.
t was proven that Steam’s VAC system records your internet history and uploads it to an official Valve server – This claim is from a Reddit thread. These redditors reverse engineered some VAC stuff (anticheat for some games like Counterstrike) and found that Steam was (and may no longer be) hashing visited URLS. These hashes were checked locally (within the software, not over the internet) against a list of known hashes for URLS for cheat software. If positive, these hashes were sent over the internet to valve, and could be used for evidence to ban cheaters. This is bad! It is recording user’s internet habits without their knowledge or consent. HOWEVER, it is a total exaggeration to claim Valve is just recording all your internet history and sending it to a server somewhere. Could they do it? This is a risk for closed-sourced software but this isn’t what was happening.
Steam records and publicly broadcasts your program usage habits – Steam does track your program use habits and this is bad! Every console does this now, though, unless you decide to not connect it to the internet. But this site also claims it does it publicly and this is an exaggeration: You are anonymous on steam to the “public” unless you de-anonymize yourself, and you can turn off your “public” broadcast of game play in the settings. The author seems to think steam is a social media network: It only is if you use it that way. It doesn’t recommend friends to you or send you news articles or whatever.
Steam attempts to collect your telephone number – Account theft is a problem on steam. The phone number thing is a way they can implement two-factor for people allergic to learning how to secure their accounts (some people on steam are also children, I must point out). This makes their platform harder for scammers to use. I use their phone app for two-factor authentication, I don’t know if they accept other 3rd party authenticators.
Steam requires an internet connection etc It’s an online storefront program??? You knew what you were getting into when you downloaded it. I don’t like how it needs to be constantly connected, this is bad, true.
Steam is self-updating software – It’s DRM yes, true. It’s annoying, sure.
Yes, I totally get it, I could live in the woods, just use cash to purchase everything and only play unpatched games on offline consoles I don’t connect to the internet. Don’t all AAA games come with some form of DRM these days? Does the person who wrote this article also avoid streaming services and digital cable because it also records your entertainment habits? Do you, @zer0@thelemmy.club? Are you addicted to streaming services and debit cards?
Anyway, this is a ridiculous burden for the consumer to avoid all this. That’s my point. If you’d like this to change, it needs legislation to restrict what corporations do with our data, not SCARY CAPS LOCK IN RED TEXT.
Steam shares your informations with third parties. Since you don’t live in the woods would you mind sharing your name, telephone number and CC info with us?
I don’t need to do this. I already gave it to Steam, why don’t you write an email and get it from them?
Already did that, i offered them a bunch of money and they will sell me all your data
Nice. Well if you learn anything interesting please report back. I will offer you a crisp high five in return for your efforts.
How about letting people enjoy things? If you don’t want to play games or have access to the biggest gaming library there is currently, then it’s fine, won’t blame you. People have the freedom to decide if they want to limit their privacy a bit (while things stated on that website like credit card, address, browsing history, chat logs and forum posts are like: no shit, they sell games, have an internal browser and chats and forums, of course they do that. And with that defenition, you are currently as well on a spyware platform, because your posts are saved unencrypted on your homeserver) to have access to their games where some have invested A LOT of money in, before knowing about such things.
And before you say: but it is open source!: Doesn’t hold the administrators back from still selling your data using software analyzing the database. And to give more examples what would be spyware with their definition:
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Reading comprehension required
"and with that definition, the platform you are currently as well on a spyware platform… " “And before you say: but it is open source!: Doesn’t hold…”
Talking about lemmy, easy to miss the transition
Yes, sorry, wasn’t well written.
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I do go with you, that nobody is stopping them using it. I was just pissed from the statement of the author of the comment, saying, if you don’t stop using it, you are just an addict. That is simply not true, because of the bullshit DRM, one is bound to the platform. I aswell try to get away from DRM as much as possible but I of course reject ditching Steam completely. I won’t throw away all the games I bought just to get rid of “spyware” or rather not-perfectly-privacy-friendly-marketplace-software using the horror DRM is.
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Steam pushed gambling down their throat with lootboxes. They now have to play and win prizes or their dopamine hits the floor
Which one(s)? Very interested to know if Valve is breaking the law by operating their digital storefront.
Sure, I get that, but as I said, if you already “own” quite some amount of games on steam I think it’s reasonable to not have your money completely wasted by refusing to use steam at all. Social bindings are an “issue” as well. If the multiplayer game you want to play with your friends is for some reason bound to steam, then many will choose their friends over their privacy. And I think we all know how hard it is to get others away from their comfort zone. Same with the debate to get rid of Discord.
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Huh, didn’t know that there are workarounds for some games to get rid of DRM. Good to know.
You have the absolute freedom to be stupid and i have the absolute freedom to call you an idiot
Sad that you don’t even try to defend your view but rather resort to straight up insult me instead. That’s how we discuss in the internet nowadays.
Sad that you can’t understand someone making a point
Ok so this will be the last comment on this thread, I just want to make one final thing clear and I suggest that we get out of our way afterwards.
I totally understand, that selling data to third parties is a bad thing, but even your cited site doesn’t claim, that valve sells one’s private data to third parties and their privacy policy also doesn’t state it (at least the german version I have read through), even more they explicitly state in 5. that they don’t sell data to third parties. They only state that they give it to third parties where they more or less have to.
Now one has to decide if they trust valve to hold on their own PP but that is always the case for every platform, even open source ones,because again, no one can easily verify, that they don’t do shady business with your data, because they won’t give you ssh access for obvious reasons.
Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty paranoid as well: I don’t use any Microsoft products anymore (except minecraft), I stay away from Meta and Google as well by using e.g. signal and matrix for communication and have lineage on my phone, I use noscript because I don’t trust every website’s JavaScript and host my own instances for gaming servers, git and other stuff on my netcup server.
But I step out at some point where convenience wins over more privacy and security. I don’t package and compile everything myself, have verified the souce code before myself, because I trust the maintainers. I don’t have a completely open hardware PC, where I have built and verified everything myself, because I trust chosen manufacturers that they haven’t tampered with it (and don’t have the time or even money to do that).
Hey, try being kind. No need to start name-calling, no matter how much you disagree with this person about their personal choice to use a platform.
What do you think it’s worst: being called an idiot in the middle discussion or having all your data mined maliciously and sold to third parties and having your kids abducted into gambling?
Why not neither? Why don’t you be kind AND avoid steam? If your motive is as morally driven as you seem to imply, then I’m sure you would have a much higher success rate at converting people to your cause if you didn’t call them names.
To be stupid is not a slur it’s also a fact. If you smoke cigarettes to look cool knowing they are bad for you, you are stupid. If you use steam and everyone keeps telling you that it’s bad but you overlook it and don’t want to understand, you are stupid.
Ok so first of all, “everyone” is restricted to you and stappern. Now what’s the difference between you two? Stappern made actual good and valid points and got me convinced a bit more to stay away from steam as much as it is possible for me in my situation without even insulting me once. If you really think you could get others convinced of your opinion by just insulting them, then I think it would be cool for you to call you stupid.
And that the comparison between doing something that reduces your lifetime and overall quality of live vs. giving others the data they need to stay in compliance with the various legal systems and get you the things you bought WITH money (because you seem to also understand downloading foss software as buying), is so farfetched that it’s even crazy to come up with, should be clear.
Okay cool thanks.
If your motive is as morally driven as you seem to imply, then I’m sure you would have a much higher success rate at converting people to your cause if you didn’t call them names. So why not be kind? Do you gain anything at all by calling someone stupid? Does it make them more likely to stop using steam? Does it reduce the amount of data Valve collect from users? Does it just make you feel smart?
I just tell people the truth
Technically we have the absolute freedom to call you an idiot too though. Nobody has to care about what you think matters.
Always funny to see this Mr.robot like nutcase linked Just read through what this person considers spyware and have a bit of a laugh
Man thinks the while world is after him with that level of paranoia
Hello, what’s your real name and your street address?
Hm, do I give my info to a random Looney on fucking lemmy
Or
Exchange that info with a company that offers.me a service in return
I think ill take my chances with the company
Are you trolling or something? How else can you conflate two wildly different situations like this, of course I wont give you my info, thats entirely a different situation
I promise that i won’t give them to anyone, the company you are talking about states they sell them to others
They do not state that. In 5. : https://store.steampowered.com/privacy_agreement/
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@stappern @zer0 steam ??
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@stappern “gaming outside of steam”
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@stappern oh ok. Game console? Don’t have one, can’t afford
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Which storefront do you use to buy games? And does it accept crypto or something?
Cool article, but it bases most of its claims off Valve’s ToS for steam, their privacy policy, and an old Reddit post that has multiple people disputing its claims in comments. So no actual traffic snooping or any individual research into what the application is actually doing.
Yea they’re definitely going to store purchase-related information (Name, Address, Cc info, etc.), just about every digital storefront does. Where’s the actual danger at?
Would you mind sharing your name and address and cc info? I need these for a scientific research, you can send them in pm if you don’t want to post them here, i promise that i won’t share them with anyone else
Lol. So you’re go-to argument for this is false equivalence. Steam is a digital storefront. Vavle can’t process digital payments without that information.
Also, research funding is a very real thing and anyone requiring funding is using an actual payment processor (Stripe, PayPal, Wire/ACH) which is going to require that information anyway.
Do you operate a payment processing company? Where can I find your privacy and compliance policy? Why do I need to send my financial credentials directly to you (an individual)?
Yeah that argument falls apart very quickly when we apply real-world policies to your hamstrung argument.
I’ve bought and play hundreds of games without having to provide a single information.
Great anecdote, but that doesn’t change the fact that any storefront that processes digital purchases and handles currency is going to require payment information and is essentially required to record that info to stay in compliance with federal regulations. At least here in the US where Valve is based. So remind us all what your argument here is?
Most of these stores sell your data to third parties and do that just for profits. Remember that we are on the linux sub. What data was recorded when you bought your linux?
Sure. But until you bring some proof that Valve is actually selling my financial data, I’m going to chalk this up to baseless claims. So far, all the proof you’ve provided has been a hysterical article that cites Valve’s own ToS and Privacy Policy and makes claims that Valve is basically operating the exact same way as all other digital storefronts do when consumers make purchases online. It also claimed that Valve is tracking my internet history citing a reddit thread with multiple comments debunking the claim.
That depends. I use actual RHEL quite a bit considering it’s what I’m familiar with and what’s used in my workplace. Before I could setup any of my personal servers that use RHEL9, I had to provide all the exact same information you requested. My laptop is running FreeBSD, which cost me nothing considering it’s not sold in a storefront. Not sure what you’re getting at with this unless this is once again some false equivalence.
Look, I’m all for moving away from Steam if there’s an actual compelling reason to do so. Valve doing illegal shit that no one’s reported is certainly a legitimate reason for me to move off the platform, but neither you nor the only other person in this thread claiming Valve is the literal devil have provided any legitimate reasons not to use the platform. If all it takes is a hysterical article with some bogus claims and bold text for you change how you consume products, I got this huge bridge to sell you.
It’s stated on their privacy agreement that they collect and sell your data. Did you read it all before signing up on steam? On the bogus website you mentioned it is also explained how even “anonymized” data can be point back at you. Any big tech has been doing illegal shit for decates, it’s all over the stories, just go on lemmy frontpage to see same shit gafam do. Steam is the company that promotes gambling to kids, they are no exception in this world.