Should I fear Steam?

[ratix2]

unfortuanetly (last i checked, please send me the memo if i missed it) we're discussing NOW, not IF OR WHEN. right now steam is quite secure

Ok, so RIGHT NOW I have your word that Steam is secure. I feel so safe now, because if it is safe today, it cannot possibly be unsafe tomorrow. Not that the security of Steam was all that big on my list of things I don't like about Steam, you just seemed to nitpick this one. Even IF Steam was 100% secure, and always will be, it still doesn't change the fact that I see no reason - now or ever - to install a piece of software I do not desire or like.

I don't like Halflife. I don't like Valve. I played the original Halflife out of boredom, half of Blue Shift for the same reason. I despise Team Fortress Classic, Opposing Forces, and Counterstrike. I outright HATE Halflife 2. I played it end to end again out of boredom and to see what everyone was apeshit about it for. I only bought the Orange Box because of Portal, the one thing Valve ever made that I liked. Portal was awesome enough that I installed Steam on my PC, regardless of how much I hate the f'ing thing.

just running windows, even if you have good security, your putting yourself at hundreds of times more risk to viruses, hackers, identity theft, keyloggers, spyware, etc. than steam is going to probably ever going to have, in fact i very seriously doubt that steam is going to put you or anyone at any more risk than they would be in in the first place. you even mentioned being able to exploit the automatic patching to install programs without user approval, however you fail to take into consideration the fact that such a thing is already possible, its possible to write a malicious program that starts up and runs without any user approval or even knowledge, there are ways to take control of a persons computer without their consent or knowledge and do basically whatever you want with it, there are ways to do all of these things that you think/claim steam could open up a door for people to do, and they all at least one thing in common, they DONT require steam, all they require is for someone to be running windows...

... its asanine to say that steam is any more of a security risk than your already at.

Shows how little you know about computers. For people who know what they're doing, you can actually make a PC quite secure. Windows XP isn't a giant mesh screen that lets just about anything through, it is in fact quite secure if you disable certain weak points. My main PC has no virii, no spyware, no adware or other malware on it. Not a single byte of data goes through my ports without my approval, and when desired, I can connect to the internet through multiple proxies and a pair of hardware and software firewalls. My important files are encrypted, and my most valuable data is kept on an external non-networked drive. The closest thing I have to a weak point on my system is Steam, and it will be uninstalled once I grow bored of Portal.

sorry, but the fact that i had/have no way of knowing that your a paranoid scitzophrenic with too much child porn on your hard drives donesent prove or disprove a thing about what i do and dont know. the fact that you seem to believe that even anything more than a single percentage of people with steam accounts, let alone people as a whole, do anything more than using some crappy anti-virus program thats outdated before its released proves that you dont know anything about people, not that i dont know anything about computers.

most people take little to no security measures, let alone go to the extent you have gone to. and even then, there are still security holes and exploits that can be levied aganist your computer, you know why? BECASUE YOU USE WINDOWS, AN OPERATING SYSTEM THAT MAKES UP 94% OF THE COMPUTERS IN THE WORLD AND THUS THE MOST HACKED OS IN THE WORLD!!! no matter what you do or the security measures you take there are holes and exploits in the os itself, the programs you use (steam is one of them yes, but it doesent have nearly as many holes as many of the other programs you probably have on your computer), and people know how to exploit them and get around your security without you finding out s***. you want security, use linux.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Uhm... Okay then. I think I get the gist.

 

[werepossum]

I love Steam, but then I also love Half Life and CounterStrike. I especially like not having to get out my CDs to play and the auto updates, and consider those enough to offset any additional security risk. I haven't downloaded anything; I too prefer a hard copy. But as long as you have your account number, you can always rebuild; Valve keeps a record of what games you own.

I do wish Steam would handle multiple hard drives. I prefer keeping games separate from my boot drive, but Steam installs everything on the boot drive, which has only 20 GB free. (Wow, ONLY 20 GB! The first PC I built had two 360KB floppy drives, and the first hard drive I added was a 20 MB drive which, when formatted with an RLL controller, held 30 MB and required reformatting every two or three months. Damn computers are awesome today!)

Regarding password theft, the only ones I've received have been along the lines of HELLO i m VAVLE technucl spport ther eisa problum yur acownt pleas I ned yur paswurd If that gets your account password, that's natural selection.

I've had only one virus problem, due to Norton Anti-Virus. Turns out if you renewed online directly with Symantec, you didn't get the new version; they merely continued updating the old engine and providing new virus definitions. (Ain't that just lovely? Symantec gets all of $50 instead of part of $30 at Staples or WalMart for a new copy, and in return they shaft you.) The old version detected the virus, but was unable to remove it or stop it from spreading. After a long tech support to Symantec, a class A hissey fit, and a midnight trip to WalMart, I had a new copy of McAffee and shortly thereafter no more virus. I don't know if that policy still stands for online renewall, but if you're going to do that make sure of the terms before you do it. Other than that I think the whole security problem for PCs is vastly overstated.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

Steam USE to be bad, now it isn't, the only people who hate are the people who got pissed off and uninstalled it, and haven't seen how it is now.

(oh yeah, and I know there are some people who just don't like it for some silly reasons but, whatever, you know what I mean.)

 

[Cameoflage]

Ignoring the flamewar: I use and don't mind Steam, despite having heard that it kicks puppies and eats babies. I find it a handy game-purchasing system, and I begrudgingly respect its anti-piracy capabilities (as I'm kind of a pirate myself).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Should I fear Steam?

No. Not when there's that serial killer creeping up behind you.

 

[josh797]

I am starting to think you guys are not talking about steam powered computers...

yeah i mean maybe we are talking about water cooled commputers...but on second thought, probably not

 

[Minhef]

I absolutely hate the thing. This is because me and my brother bought the orange box, him for the Team Fortress 2 side of it, while I opted for the more singleplayer side.

This was, wether due to my general ignorance of the thing or whatever, crushed by steam. Being the amiable idiot that I am, I allowed my brother to install Team Fortress 2 to HIS steam account. Lo and behold, should I try install the Half-Life 2-ey goodness onto my steam, I am unable to, and seeing as said brother is heavily into counterstrike (he played about 11 fucking minutes of TF2), I have yet to complete any of my games.

 

[EnzoHonda]

I generally like Steam. I bought a couple of games and it was nice to be able to avoid going into a store and feeling like a loser (the older I get the more I feel like a loser when browsing video games, I don't know why, everyone plays them now). I think it also makes things more difficult for pirates (I'm sure some people have/will find a way around it). I've downloaded a few "free" games over the years, but I still think it's best for people to actually pay for games that hundreds of people work on.

My only complaint is when a game will give me "Validating... 100%" and not let me get past. Then I have to do various things to get it working again. Thankfully it hasn't happened that much, but it's still annoying. I currently put it in the "growing pains" category and hope Valve gets it fixed.

 

[ImperialPyromancer]

I think Steam is quite good, the only complaint being that my connection to Steam Friends goes down far more often than I'd like, and sometimes takes TF2 with it.

 

[stompy]

Well, I don't mind Steam, though, I don't really have a gaming PC, so yeh. Though, from what I've seen from Steam, it looks alright.

- A procrastinator

 

[Anniko]

Reason to not like steam:
You don't own the games, http://consumerist.com/consumer/drm/valve-deactivating-customers-who-bought-orange-box-internationally-314690.php

The gist is, these people bought the Orange Box overseas, got it shipped to them, they activated the game and started playing it for a few weeks, then they got up one day and it didn't work because Valve didn't like them paying less for a completely legitimate copy of the game.

Reasons I don't like steam:
The auto-updater doesnt work. If I want to play a game when I don't have a net connection or my net's been capped, then I can't play the game if it hasn't updated. Considering there's always a good 3-4 hours where I'm not playing a game and it can update, it should update, but it doesn't.

I don't own the games. See above, if Valve doesn't like me, then they can disable my 100 dollars of games and I've got no way to get them back.

Unstable. I've recently been getting kicked out of games because VAC couldn't authenticate, I'll usually be playing the game for a good 10-20 minutes then just get kicked for no reason other than their server had a hiccup.

 

[Zer_]

Anniko, guess what? You don't actually own any of the games you purchase. Any game company can just say "Okay you're not allowed using that CD key anymore online, good day sir."

What can you do about that? Nothing. When you Purchase the game, you're purchasing the rights to use the game.

When people had their Orange Box de-activated, the consumer was not to blame, but neither was the developer. This was a mistake on the retailers part, which in all honesty the complaint should have been lodged against the retailer. Had that idiot NOT gone to Valve all angry and pissy about it, and actually gone to the retailer instead, Valve might have even offered to back up the consumers.

"The auto-updater doesnt work. If I want to play a game when I don't have a net connection or my net's been capped, then I can't play the game if it hasn't updated. Considering there's always a good 3-4 hours where I'm not playing a game and it can update, it should update, but it doesn't."

Uhhh... What? So when your net's been capped, you're complaining that you can't download a patch? Aren't download limits your ISP, and NOT Valve? Get a brain.

Also Steam DOES auto update, and it DOES work, but it won't update until you try launching the game, this is for one reason really. Most people don't want Steam to download a bunch of patches at night unless they really need to. This was a decision by Valve because they actually had complaints about this. People were busting their download limits because they kept Steam open.

I think the only time I've ever had VAC authentication issues was when I was trying to connect to a game server, it would give me a VAC error, which sucks yeah, but whatever I reconnect one more time and it works.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

It was PC cancer but not anymore! I really see no reason not to get it, even if you don't need it, chances are you'll need it later...for valve stuff at least.

Still there are a lot of good deals on steam and now I've been spoiled with being able to download games and have them all in one little launcher - then have all the games auto update.

Still, it's not a threat if you don't need it and don't want it to take up space, then just get rid of it.

 

[broadband]

eh sorry for resurect this old thread but im about to buy the orange box, ive never registered a game, (except 2 mmos) but i readed somewhere that steam can be used for observe the internet activity of their users, which is something i would like to keep for myself.

(sorry if i butchered the english languaje trying to explain myself but simply isnt my native languaje, if someone knows spanish...)

 

[the monopoly guy]

eh sorry for resurect this old thread but im about to buy the orange box, ive never registered a game, (except 2 mmos) but i readed somewhere that steam can be used for observe the internet activity of their users, which i dont like.

(sorry if i butchered the english languaje trying to explain myself but simply isnt my native languaje, sorry,if someone knows spanish...)

1 Registering games on STEAM isn't a problem
2 I have never heard of them monitering your internet activity (I doubt that would be too good for business)
3 It's language
4 I'm sure more then a few people speak spanish

 

[broadband]

thanks

 

[Specialist1924]

Steam's monitoring abilities are similar to Xfire...you can see what you're friends are playing only if they're logged into the 'Friends' section of steam (so you can play games without being on the 'Friends' part). The advantage for a game like Team Fortress 2 (included in the Orange Box) you can join your real life friends and that way know who you're playing with/against, and on other games you can co-op the story mode over the internet.

While I have used Steam for this a little bit, I'm much more familiar with Xfire, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

[broadband]

so the internet monitoring thing, its just for games huh, so i dont have to worry that they get my email or some stuff like that? good.