Will you now activate your Steam Mobile Authenticator?
In Valve's theory, everyone has one ONLY becaue its almost 2016 already... I guess that Im gonna activate it (again, it was pissing me off when had to grab my phone EVERY TIME I wanted to log in, even on my own pc...) if I have to.
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IT SUCKS MAN. i know it did.
Pissed me off.
what happen was going to play a ranked Dota 2 match at a local cybercafe with friends, but i ended unable to login into my account because i left my phone at home. In the end, i had to create a temporary account and we only played public matches the entire day....
hahaha...so sad...
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you don't have to log in when Steam is in your startup folder. i have the mobile authenticator activated for quite some time, and i never have to log in after a restart.
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Storing credentials on the PC let's you login without confirmation. Changing users however, requires them.
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Idk why but I had to do it everytime. Wasnt that annoying as I had my phone most of the time but Steam was laggy on my phone, thats what made me change it back to email verification
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Funny thing is, if you have Windows or Blackberry phone, no steam app for you, so owners of these effectively don't have a phone as far as Valve is concerned...
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Wow. didn't know it exist. thank you so much for the link, batler0 !!
it still in beta. hmm..
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Personally, I used the steam mobile app (because my phone's an Android) so I couldn't tell you how good the app is.
The 0.2 now supports encryption. So, in theory, you're good to go as long as your pc isn't compromised.
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Got excited then read: "This still requires that you have a phone capable of receiving SMS". T_T
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ah..yeah, googling a bit, it seems Google Voice could be used as an alternative (if you're in USA)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=495405494
not sure if there's alternative for croatia.
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Why dont they just say "Steam will get rid of trading"?
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Why don't you just say "We're all so impatient that all transactions must happen NOW NOW NOW, or else!".
Man this hyperbolic stuff is pretty easy. :3c
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Indeed, it is! And it is fun, too :) Ehhhr I mean:"it is the most easy ever and it is fun like hell!"
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One obsession less for me (card hoarding/crafting/trading).
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Ouch. With over 100 million user accounts and over 10 million active users daily, I don't think Valve will even glance at that petition unless it gets way over 100k signatures...
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Still 27k Is a lot of users...
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Yessssss......sadly......Need atleast 50% of steam population Thats nearly five millions subscribers? to make steam focus to the thing.
cough blood
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I don't think so, many Steam users doesn't even know you can trade on Steam and another bunch doesn't care at all, majority doesn't know about the poll and many are too lazy to sign it. I think your poll is much closer to the real numbers than 25k signed divided by the whole Steam population are. But Steam is doing this thing for some reason and it is impossible to tell how big disapproval must be raised to change their minds. I too don't have a smartphone so I don't like this change.
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+1
Agree. Lot of my friend always says WTF are those trading cards, badges, profile level you are talking about?
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this mobile authenticator is crap, I installed it but now I need to open up my phone every time i try to log into steam for any reason what so ever. Whether it be letting my kids log into their accounts, or trying to run Idle master while I sleep, logging in via the webpage.. I understand steam wants to help reduce scammers but I think this is probably one of worst possible ways to do so. Ahh well, wonder what they'll add next to try and protect people from themselves..
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what happens if you lose your phone or it gets stolen? would you have to contact support to be able to get back in your account?
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They give you a backup code that you can use to deactivate mobile authentication. I had to use it recently when I reset my phone and steam app started giving me wrong codes. If you don't have the backup code, you'll have to contact support though.
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I guess people couldn't not click on those CS:Go png links the scammer level 0 accounts kept using to steal account information. who just randomly clicks on links people they don't know put up in chat. like seriously it's 2015, you should know better than clicking on some link provided to you by a person who just added you...
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I have smartphone with Android, but dont want use this app with mobile auth.
I like mobile phone number binding, this is flexible and easy way.
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Yes, it is. Why steam doesn't do that? why not do that way? unless NSA has been tapping your phone line Everything gonna be ok.
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Don't have a smartphone. Trying to get my trading done before the 9th.
Will I need this Authenticator nonsense to sell leftover cards and crap?
Also, I'm calling it now: they are going to do something to affect gems in the near future--like, before the end of 2016, probably before the end of 2015. I don't know what, or whether it will be good or bad, but they will do something.
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i don't think so. its only for items involve in the trade window between two users.
Really? what gonna happen to gem? ROFL. it was a stable currency till now.
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I don't know, but the gem market went crazy a week ago (the price went up more than 10% overnight). Like if somebody leaked something about them.
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The mysterious plot steam planted behind "Steam Mobile Authenticator" i assume.
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I was thinking abut that too, but the price increase is higher. I mean I did try out authenticator before realising I need BlueStacks to actually trade, and I saw the modified prices. They are also higher.
Still, I hope you are right. Gems are the only thing besides cards I use on Steam.
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It could be that people are anticipating gems being used for any upcoming Winter sale event. Buying them now is a gamble that some market flippers are taking.
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I hope too. I doubt Valve would hold another auction, but maybe people still hope for that.
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Not at all. This doesn't prevent anyone from trading, it just means that upon a completed trade, the items are held in limbo for three days so that both parties have chance to back out.
It may not be the most effective system, but with so many people complaining of being scammed, this is yet another attempt to force people to seriously look at the trades they're making. Seems futile though, given that people will just ignore the held trades just like how they click through without examining trade windows. It's one thing for an attentive person to be played by a scammer, but another for someone just to be too lazy to secure themselves. You can't cure stupidity / laziness / greedy asshole scammers. Heh \:3/
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The 3 day period isn't to give you time to think about it and change your mind. If you cancel a trade in escrow, it places a trade hold on your account.
Forcing everyone to use the mobile app for instant trades because a few users are stupid enough to not properly secure their accounts and get scammed is ridiculous. Let us opt out of the mobile crap and accept responsibility that we'll lose our items if we get scammed/hacked.
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If it were only 'a few' then I would agree with you, but due to the sheer volume of trades going down through Steam, I wonder about the kind of legal pressures they might be getting paranoid about. They already got (rightfully) punched about their refund policy, but when it comes to losing potentially very expensive rares in a system that actually lets you turn a profit through trade, I can see where the heavyhandedness comes from.
The trade hold makes sense from a business standpoint, because Steam want to track down accounts that have been hijacked and used as a link in the chain of 'laundering' scammed or stolen items. It doesn't just effect careless people, because after an item is thrown through the laundering process, a totally legit and careful person can actually purchase said item only for it to be recalled due to how it was acquired further back in the line.
I totally agree that it's an imperfect and clumsy way to go about things, but I see this as Valve trying to swim up a waterfall. Security vs loopholes is always an arms race that takes ten times longer to build a wall than it does to dig under one. The problem does seem to be that they're trying to safeguard against careless users, and while yeah they really are trying to push the mobile authenticator pretty hard, they're still pushing it with a good reason.
They're a long way off finding a good middle-ground, and it does inconvenience normal traders, but that's really all it hinders us by. It's an annoyance, but the trade-off is a more security. The community is voicing it's annoyance, so they'll keep trying to streamline it. It needs time, and hopefully more iterations before we find the sweet spot.
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Valve isn't doing this to protect anyone, that's just the cover story. They don't make money off trades, they make money off the market. Making trading a pain in the ass pushes more people to using the market. This is going to split the trading community in half, those that can trade instantly and those that have to go through escrow. People that can trade instantly are going to start asking if others if they can trade instant, and if not they're not going to trade with you.
The number of people being scammed is very small compared to the number of active traders. Valve isn't in any legal trouble since you agree in all that fine print no one reads that Valve isn't responsible for losses due to you being scammed/hacked. With Android emulators and programs like WinAuth and Steam Desktop Authenticator, it only adds an extra step for scammers/hackers, but it also makes it also harder for you to recover your account if they succeed.
The mobile authenticator makes your Steam account less secure if you lose your smart phone. I use Steam guard to secure my account. It's protected by email and and a phone for SMS messages. I don't have a smart phone and I don't store my email and steam passwords, so if someone stole my computer, they can't take over my account without my phone too. If they steal my phone, so what, it's just a phone.
Securing your account with email and the mobile authenticator makes it easier for someone to take over your Steam account if your phone is stolen or lost. The majority of people have their email on their phone, the same phone with the mobile authenticator. You're basically giving someone everything they need to steal your Steam account in one convenient place.
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well...don't be sad...last year(or at the begining of this year) our ex-prime minister said that every child that is in first grader should have a tablet so they won't need to give any more manuals for them
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i have an adroid phone but it's old and can't use the google play app or whatever it's called, I tried to get the .apk but that isn't working either so I don't know what to do. I wasn't planning on getting a new phone and I certainly won't just because valve decided to fuck their trading system one day.
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You can only use BlueStacks, but for someone like me who uses Steam on a number of different computers (4 daily, another 2 regularly), it isn't really an alternative. Also, if you have a work computer, you couldn't access Steam at all then, since they rarely if ever et you install something like an Android emulator (unless you already work with it :D).
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Ahhh !! BlueStacks !! Totally forgot about that. i used it a few years ago while its still in beta. Its heavy and always crashes. I wonder what happen to it now.
Well. here, i kinda switch around laptops. So i were to play games with heavy graphics, i uses my sister's laptop. If i am downloading games, i use my own 1.00Ghz laptop. And if my friends invite me playing dota2, we always go to a local cybercafe to play.
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BlueStacks is more stable, but huge still. Plus maintaining your account on several computers is a pain.
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I have a cheap Windows 8.1 (10) tablet that can run Steam, Idlemaster and Bluestacks. I just plug it into a usb port and leave it idling/charging all day and night if required :)
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Not an option for everyone, sadly. I mean I do have a smartphone now, finally managed to earn enough, but I got a Lumia (for various reasons, and I'm happy with it). And no Steam app on Windows Phone. And I won't buy another gadget just to log on to Steam with it. Heck, maybe if it was a YubiKey sized stuff, I would, but even that would be ridiculous. I'm handling sensitive information for a gigantic corporation daily and my workplace has less security than my Steam account.
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Considering it needs a Windows service (or, based on the process explorer, a whole bundle of them) running to even work, I think it is very unlikely that it is even possible.
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Fun fact: in my language, "escrow" sounds exactly like our word for "swindler". This can't happen for no reason :)
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It's god damn terrorism. I fucking hate Valve and everything they did in the last year.
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Well since I have a windows phone, no trading or market purchases for me :3
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Since I don't use Android or iOS, I'm basically out in the cold on this one. Good job,, steam.
I don't really trade anyway, but it's annoying for them to do a change like this. They're already forcing a variety of things to make trading worse, and now this is just another pain. Sure, if your account is compromised, it's a lifesaver, but then again, if you have Steam Guard and other things set up and you're careful with your password/username, you shouldn't have issues.
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I think there are some android simulators for PC, just do a search on google and i'm sure you'll find something.
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The way I see this screwage on Valve's part is that they will introduce Windows phone app as well to cover the rest of smartphone users and they will still miss the point that NOT everyone should have a smartphone to be able to use their service conveniently and it still will be discrimination to those who don't have the latest generation of smartphone.
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I already use it, and I love it. 2FA makes things immeasurably safer for everyone.
That being said, it's absolutely ridiculous that they don't support modern standards for it. Microsoft, Facebook and Google all accept the same standards for doing this. There are programs like Authy or Google authenticator that will allow you to add all your standards-compliant 2FA accounts to the same app; and with Authy, for example, you can even have the app installed on your computer.
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I've used mobile authenticator for maybe a year now.
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Good, maybe now we won't get "I've been scammed/hacked" threads every week.
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Easier to physically steal. Overall, a Steam account is easier to hack/steal since it's visible on the internet.
The person who stole that phone would must likely sell it on Craigslist and not know what Steam is. Also, your phone provider is able to lock your phone useless so the robber would lose access to credentials.
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So what you're telling me is a Steam Account Hacker is willing identify you, fly to your location, and hack your device. That's a small chance compared to accounts being stolen every day from link downloads and ease e-mail access.
As for the antivirus and keylogger software, phones do not allow you to download software from third-party links. The user would have to manually enable the option in order to download. Also for antivirus/malware users, check /g/ or your phones apps. Depending on your phones brand, you'll get at least some bloatware security.
With Steam Authenticator, you're just adding an extra wall. Sure it's still vulnerable to hackers but it's safer because of that extra wall.
P.S: You're also ignoring the chances of your phone being steal for the propose of gaining access to your Steam account which is slim to none.
P.P.S: Taking a look at your Steam page, I remember you from the Payday conversation we had. I'm just going to end our conversation here since we have very different viewpoints and experiences.
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I've been using it for a month or two now, after gettin' scammed once on my CS GO items (got em back, thanks awesome guy at support).
Aint found anything negative or noticed something that makes trades and stuff more complicated, all i can say is that after someone have managed to hacked your account it feels so much safer.. : ) That's my points, so much drama around this app! :D
Edit: Why no "Already did" in the poll!! Sadface :'(
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Good to hear.
well. lol. why didn't i think of that.. ahaha
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Did you loose your inventory? :(((
Everyone told me they aint gonna do anything, and a magic wizard appeared and restored everything even all my stattrak kills on weapons.
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Yea. Same happened to me. Steam support was good. Took 3 weeks though, but ateast I got it all back.
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Yeah same here, they don't have the fastest support but have promised to focus more on that in the near future.
I had lost all hope, when that mail finally arrived and i checked my inventory =D Like a kid on christmas again.
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As mentioned above ,
Any alternative for someone who doesn't have a smartphone like me?
Tried WinAuth. Currently it doesn't have trade mobile confirmation.
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