Steam (overlay rant)
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:59 am
No good reason, really. The word "Principles" is far too majestic and powerful to be wasted on the likes of a mere grudge. Laziness is another factor. Improved performance and security a third and fourth reason behind it.
Grudge:
It was annoying in the past, when I'd accidentally open it during gameplay. Trying to check my K/D ratio (or score) with , while sneaking with [SHIFT] held down, resulted in my accidental death: shift+tab… Overlay opens, I lose control of the game, let go of shift, my character stands up, *boom*, I return after closing the stupid overlay to find out that I received a nasty headshot while I was "AFK". K/D ratio ruined…)
Laziness:
First I just disabled the overlay shortcut but found that apps can still open it so it had to go completely. I did more than just turn it off in the settings. (Because it kept running in the background, despite my choices!) So I deleted the dll and exe files associated with it. Also denied permission to anyone trying to recreate them (update-proof) so even if Steam is reinstalled, the web helper portion of it will not return. Sure, I could re-enable it by undoing all that protection I applied, and doing a repair install of Steam, but all that only for the minute it takes to accept the unorthodox GDPR of one game? No thanks. Too much work. Also I heard Steam uninstalls every single game along with itself — definitely not going to test that rumor on my own skin. (Makes sense too, Steam is DRM, if the DRM goes, the games it protects would surely go too.)
Performance:
Steam child processes hog resources. Not having to run the overlay along my games is resources saved. I already have a browser, why run two more, per game… Yes there really are two web helper processes spawned next to games - I open 5-6 games at once, that's 12 web browsers running in the background, checking steam, watching achievements, keeping a pointless copy of my friends list, tracking time, etc. (What else does the overlay do? I haven't seen it in years.)
Security:
I don't use steam's built-in "whatever it's called" web engine to browse the store/community either. It could have hidden/unknown vulnerabilities, it could be an old version of the webkit engine (known to be vulnerable), or maybe something much worse (IE6!?). Let's not go there…
If I see a notification, I open my secure browser to check steamcommunity.com manually. If I want to buy a game, I buy it through store.steampowered.com (where I can autofill my details, adblock steam's more annoying sections, and trust my connection really is secure.
Grudge:
It was annoying in the past, when I'd accidentally open it during gameplay. Trying to check my K/D ratio (or score) with , while sneaking with [SHIFT] held down, resulted in my accidental death: shift+tab… Overlay opens, I lose control of the game, let go of shift, my character stands up, *boom*, I return after closing the stupid overlay to find out that I received a nasty headshot while I was "AFK". K/D ratio ruined…)
Laziness:
First I just disabled the overlay shortcut but found that apps can still open it so it had to go completely. I did more than just turn it off in the settings. (Because it kept running in the background, despite my choices!) So I deleted the dll and exe files associated with it. Also denied permission to anyone trying to recreate them (update-proof) so even if Steam is reinstalled, the web helper portion of it will not return. Sure, I could re-enable it by undoing all that protection I applied, and doing a repair install of Steam, but all that only for the minute it takes to accept the unorthodox GDPR of one game? No thanks. Too much work. Also I heard Steam uninstalls every single game along with itself — definitely not going to test that rumor on my own skin. (Makes sense too, Steam is DRM, if the DRM goes, the games it protects would surely go too.)
Performance:
Steam child processes hog resources. Not having to run the overlay along my games is resources saved. I already have a browser, why run two more, per game… Yes there really are two web helper processes spawned next to games - I open 5-6 games at once, that's 12 web browsers running in the background, checking steam, watching achievements, keeping a pointless copy of my friends list, tracking time, etc. (What else does the overlay do? I haven't seen it in years.)
Security:
I don't use steam's built-in "whatever it's called" web engine to browse the store/community either. It could have hidden/unknown vulnerabilities, it could be an old version of the webkit engine (known to be vulnerable), or maybe something much worse (IE6!?). Let's not go there…
If I see a notification, I open my secure browser to check steamcommunity.com manually. If I want to buy a game, I buy it through store.steampowered.com (where I can autofill my details, adblock steam's more annoying sections, and trust my connection really is secure.