Steam’s hardware survey gathers a narrow set of hardware info, shows you what it finds, and asks permission before sending. It is completely transparent forthcoming and optional. That is not hoovering up your data.
And what gives about hardware.
The personal data is the scary stuff.
The payment history, the invested money, browsing history, mouse movement tracking, other programs installed on the pc and so on.
Yeah, the one thing I would say is that you can never be 100% certain what data is being gathered by closed source software, especially if there is an encrypted communication channel. Saying that though, Valve are decently trustworthy.
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EA is worse with data collection imo. Or at least just as bad.
Steam has always done a little bit of it, particularly their hardware surveys, but even then it’s never felt so creepy when they do it.
At least the hardware survey is voluntary.
Steam’s hardware survey gathers a narrow set of hardware info, shows you what it finds, and asks permission before sending. It is completely
transparentforthcoming and optional. That is not hoovering up your data.And what gives about hardware.
The personal data is the scary stuff.
The payment history, the invested money, browsing history, mouse movement tracking, other programs installed on the pc and so on.
Yeah, the one thing I would say is that you can never be 100% certain what data is being gathered by closed source software, especially if there is an encrypted communication channel. Saying that though, Valve are decently trustworthy.
Agreed; I would much prefer games and their storefronts to be open-source.
Of what we have today, though, most of Steam’s competitors are far worse in this area.
Special nod to GOG, which lets you download games with a web browser. (Does Itch do this, too?)