@sbarre: I know you two are both mostly arguing ideological differences here, but as an aside and a fellow oldie I'd like to point out addressing someone with "Listen kid..." when you have no idea one way or another is very rude and makes you look like a complete asshole. If you're an older person you are supposed to be more mature then cheap digs like that.
Point taken. I didn't consider it a "dig" but I suppose it could be taken that way.
I'm just tired of the uninformed FUD being spread about Epic, and the very real and unacceptable consequences that it leads to when people spread it, like the awful way the Ooblets devs were treated recently.
@tropesage 's arguments were just blindly parroting what other people were saying, and that have been debunked. Anyone who has worked in software and product development - and understands how software works under the hood - would know that the whole "locally encrypted file" debacle is blown completely out of proportion simply because people are looking for absolutely any contrived reason to be outraged at Epic.
I would say "people should know better" but my point was that young people won't know better, unless we tell them they should know better. But I agree I could have chosen my words more carefully.
From Valve "The Steam Client locally saves data such as the list of games you own, your friends list and saved login tokens (similar to information stored in web browser cookies). This is private user data, stored on the user's home machine and is not intended to be used by other programs or uploaded to any 3rd party service."
Or are you going to say that valve doesn't understand software and product development?
@sbarre: They explicitly did not get user permission that is the whole reason it became an issue in the first place. "Vogel does admit, though, that "the launcher makes an encrypted local copy of your localconfig.vdf Steam file" automatically and without explicit user permission". No one could give them permission to access that data and transmit it, cause they never asked permission to copy it in the first place.
"Still, Sweeney acknowledged that Epic making local access to Steam files without direct permission might justifiably rub some users the wrong way. "You guys are right that we ought to only access the localconfig.vdf file after the user chooses to import Steam friends,"" that is them admitting to being morally not technically wrong. You really need to learn the difference kid.
Can you source your security researcher comment?
Steam already had competition in gog, uplay, origin and others. I get it though you saw a bunch of fancy marketing and bought it hook, line and sinker.
I have super-extra bad news for you: Most of the programs on your computer do all kinds of stuff to your filesystem without asking for your explicit permission, including accessing files created by other programs.
The part that matters here, whether that information was transmitted to Epic, was only done with the user's explicit permission.
You are welcome to hold whatever beliefs you wish, but I encourage you to do it in a well-informed manner. It will serve you better.
I have super duper extra bad news for you cause epic admitted it was wrong of them to do that. Thus that would make you the one who is not well informed. Sounds like you need to take your own advice.
Also the Reddit thread linked in the article investigated the transmission claim and it seems to be false.
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