Want to farm some cards and dont know whicht program to use /:

Well, Idle Master still works fine and I've been using it for a long time, so you could try that. ;)

Idlemaster if you only have one account.

I'm still using Idle Master, even though it's no longer supported. I haven't used ASF, but I'd say you can't go wrong no matter which one you pick.

I use ASF, and I only have one account. I do have several games that are VAC protected.

They both do the same. Idle master might have issues with having to log back in but it's easier to use. Both have secondary functions the other doesn't. I now swapped to ASF due to the login issue, but I miss the idle order choices of idle master.

ASF..

Not even close.

IdleMaster has a more user-friendly interface, but I'd still recommend ASF even if you have only one account because IM is no longer updated and it can stop working at any time. Stopped working for me about 2-3 months ago but it's still working for others, so I guess it depends from one another, but it will eventually stop working for everyone because Steam keeps changing.

Both have pros and negatives, but both get the job done. Idle master is easier to configure that's for sure.
But once configured ASF seems the laziest choice, so I'm using that for now. :P

Idle Master. I try to configure ASF, but nothing happen. I have 2500+ games and idled abou 5k+ cards without problem. Only problem was broken shortcut on desktop (IM run, but missing info).

Steam, you download and play the game for a few hours. :P

ASF is like Linux - it is very versatile, slim, customizable and reliable, but the UI might scare you at first sight (it isn't hard at all though. They even added a GUI a while ago which makes things even easier)
Idle Master is like Mac OS - It looks nice and is very user friendly, but there aren't a lot of options, no support for alt accounts and it is missing a lot of other features that ASF offers.

Also, apart from that analogy, Idle Master will not be updated or supported anymore (though from what I've heard it still runs just fine), while you can always contact Archi directly here in the forums if you are having any issues (Archi is a VERY helpful person, but if you decide to use ASF, please do him a favor and always search the Wiki BEFORE asking him.)

If you prefer Windows over those two, you might as well just run all the games, cuz they are all supported :P

I use both.

When I initially tried ASF I remember thinking it looked too complicated for me. Maybe I just missed it, but I don't think the config-generator was part of it at that time. Tried again a few weeks ago and with the generator found it very easy to set up.

I now use IdleMaster on my main 24/7 as I don't want to stop idling when I launch a game which is what ASF does. On a couple of alts I use ASF. Love the feature where I can send keys to the alts.

Use idlemaster if you're logged in and actually playing something else (as far as I tried, ASF doesn't work if you're ingame), and otherwise ASF

Idlemaster - risky/unsupported but it's very easy to set up and you can idle batches of 25 games at a time to 2 hours game time
Pro/con: You can run games with it, but don't have it running when you're on a game's server with anti-VAC.

Idlemaster's python version should run on non Windows OS, or older Windows OS.

ASF - safe/supported, harder to set up but it walks you through its set up ,or alternatively you can look at its guide on wiki. It's not that hard, I got 99% done with setting it up, had to stop cause I couldn't run it
Can run without starting the client, can idle on +1 accounts, I think there's some advanced features e.g having the alt accounts sending the trading cards to your main, + probably other stuff. Archi's a wizard.
Con: Stops idling when you launch a real game.

EDIT:: If your account is limited to drop cards after 2 hours, you can run multiple games on it too.

It should run on Windows, Linux and OS X.

Which program to use.

Steam. ;3

ASF all the way.

ASF. I can't complain at all.

Idle Master is easier to set up, ASF works better once it's set up.

If you're only going to do the idling thing once, I'd say use Idle Master. Otherwise, ASF will be less hassle in the long run.

https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/eqqAIbI

More reading regarding safety - https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/rEzosGB

Everybody has his own favourite tool and asking such question is like asking if you prefer red over yellow or vice-versa.

I always try to ignore the fact that I'm developer of ASF when it comes to SG discussions (apart from one specific ASF thread) and be neutral when it comes to comparison, including what user needs/wants.

There are three major advantages of using ASF over IM for typical user - safety, offline farming and compatibility.

Safety - ASF is the only idler that guarantees being VAC-free, as it does not communicate with your currently running Steam client at all - you don't even need to have it installed. This is first major reason why ASF was created, to create something that cooperates with Steam Network, and not emulating tool tricking Steam Client into thinking that there is something specific happening. There are no official words of Valve regarding this matter - but as always, you will get those words when it's too late, as recent CS:GO gambling fiasco showed. I guess you don't want to hear that IM is unsafe when you already get VAC or account banned - me neither, that's why I created ASF to be non-intrusive. Whether the possibility of IM causing issues will cause issues or not, that's up to you to decide, so far it did not, but saying that it never will is far from being true or even half-safe assumption. I prefer to be safe rather than not, especially if I have a choice between those two.

Offline farming - If there is any idling thing that annoys me it's my friends playing a game only to turn out they're farming it. ASF allows you to farm offline, in a way that you can stay "Online" for your friends on Steam (or AFK, DND, whatever status you wish), and at the same time silently farm the game, so nobody is annoyed due to your fake playing status. This is something IM can't do due to it's nature, and it's one of the few ASF features I really love and would never bother going back. Whether this feature is useful to you, or not, depends on how much you respect your friends and if you care about not confusing them. For me - that's important. Finally my friends stopped asking me if I'm playing or farming, because my status perfectly reflects what I'm doing, and everybody knows when I can be asked to switch the game and come for multiplayer party, or when I'm busy working on stuff.

Compatibility - IM causes hell lot of the issues - majority of those you can't see. Sometimes it simply stops working, sometimes it says that it's working while it's not, sometimes it's not working at all, sometimes people are running into weird issues like "Steam is not running" and hell lots of other problems. You can easily search either Steam discussions or even SG ones to find out about this - you can even ask people above. This is partially due to it's nature and the "hackish" steam client way, and partially due to not including all necessary workarounds to cooperate with steam network and it's quirks. ASF has built-in logic to handle that, it can handle your unstable internet, it can handle steam downtimes, it can handle networking issues, it can handle going back to life from Windows hibernation, and many other things that WILL break IM and require a restart. This is super-important for me, as I'm running ASF on my Linux server and I want to be sure that it's running fine without me keeping an eye on it. I run it this way since the beginning, and it's rock stable - more stable than any other service I'm running there. Once you set up ASF and make it working, it will work till you close it, forever.

Those are a few arguments why ASF is a good choice. ASF has lots of other functions that are very useful for me, for example SteamTradeMatcher feature and ASF 2FA, thanks to which I don't need to accept STM trades anymore, as ASF can automatically trade my dupe cards and complete badges for me, which is a great time-saver. It's not possible to list all of them, so just visit ASF on GitHub if you want to learn about them all. It is harder to set up than IM, partially because of that, and partially because thanks to that it can remain stable and compatible on all setups. On the other hand configuration is done only once, so you can have a choice between spending initial ~30-45 minutes on setting up ASF, and have a reliable program that will work whenever you launch it, or spend 10-15 minutes on IM, and return back to it's quirks every once in a while, because suddenly it "stops working" for one reason or another. Apart from that - ASF is supported, and I always try to keep wiki updated, as well as answer all questions - also on SG. IM is abandoned, nobody cares about it's users, it can stop working anytime and support doesn't exist. It's very likely that eventually it will stop working for good, but nobody can foresee this apart from Valve.

Decision is upon you.

BTW, those are also reasons why ASF was born.

Idle Master vs. Archi's Steam Farm comes down to two basic questions at present:

How komputer are you?

How many bots you control?

If you are terrible with computers you're not going to want to set up ASF. It isn't difficult, but most people would rather just fire up IM instead.

If you're just farming for a single account, then the benefits of ASF over IM are mostly nonexistent. ASF's superiority to IM scales quickly with the number of accounts you need to farm.

My suggestion: I say use ASF. I use ASF. I've used Idle Master. But also, ignore fearmongers who try to scare you with nonsense about VAC-bans, or try to use that IM is no longer being updated as a reason alone to not use it.

P.S. Ignore Archi. "I always try to ignore the fact that I'm developer of ASF when it comes to SG discussions (apart from one specific ASF thread) and be neutral when it comes to comparison, including what user needs/wants." Archi has an ASF bias that he can't see. It doesn't mean the things he's saying are wrong (they generally aren't), or that he's lying (he isn't), or that you shouldn't use ASF (I already recommended it), just that he doesn't realize he isn't objective.

I've used both for ages , ASF wins hands down ,brilliant piece of software.
Start by opening ASF-ConfigGenerator.exe and clicking on the +sign (top right) ,give your "bot" a name (any name)
Then all you need to do is add 3 things :
Enabled (change from False to True)
Steamlogin = (your steam account username)
Steampassword = (yout steam account password)

Then run ASF.EXE and it will start will start farming from the config you you just made.

You can add more accounts if u want and it will farm those too.
Remember if you have steam mobile authentication on your Steam account you might need to add the password from that into the ASF cmd window
before it will proceed.

ASF can do other stuff too but this is an easy way to get it running for just farming cards.
sidenote:
This is what worked for me ,if anyone wants to add something ,feel free :)

sidenote:
There's an ASf gui that someone made ,it's on steamgifts somewhere ,i was using it for a bit when i first started but i don't use it now.

I wanted to thank you all of you guys as each one of you helped me so much. And yeah I think I will go with ASF as it doesnt seem to be that complicated at all and is still supported.