Quoting: Solitary

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: Solitary

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: TheRiddickAllot of the mouse capture issues are related to people with more then 1 monitor, which apparently is not many of us. This results in the problem being prevalent apparently since testing is mostly done on single monitor setups.

Yep, all of my mouse issues are when my pointer would leave the right edge of my primary game screen and appear on the left edge of my non-game screen.

For Fallout 4, I can work around the problem slightly by repositioning the virtual layout of my monitors to be above/below each other. It doesn't actually fix the issue, but you're much less likely to look directly up while playing! When you do, you'll still get the freeze as the mouse 'leaves' the game space, but it's much easier to deal with.

Couldn't you just disable one of the monitors before you start the game?

Would mean moving all my windows back over when I'm done... not sure if that's more of a hassle to be honest! I'll do some tests this weekend though and report back.

I am not sure I understand what you mean? Are your app's windows tied to the specific monitor? I would expect they would be on their own separate virtual workspace and just disabling a monitor won't move anything.

Oh... or do you have just one workspace stretched across two monitors?

Yep, exactly that. Hmmm, you have me thinking though - I could just put Steam into its own workspace and then turn off the monitor? Options. At my PC now. I'll have a play about.

[EDIT: Well, that worked pretty well. I put Steam in a separate workspace, turn off the second monitor, play Fallout 4 flawlessly, then turn the monitor back on again when I'm done and switch back to my "main" workspace - all my windows are correctly positioned. Excellent!]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Solitary

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: TheRiddickAllot of the mouse capture issues are related to people with more then 1 monitor, which apparently is not many of us. This results in the problem being prevalent apparently since testing is mostly done on single monitor setups.

Yep, all of my mouse issues are when my pointer would leave the right edge of my primary game screen and appear on the left edge of my non-game screen.

For Fallout 4, I can work around the problem slightly by repositioning the virtual layout of my monitors to be above/below each other. It doesn't actually fix the issue, but you're much less likely to look directly up while playing! When you do, you'll still get the freeze as the mouse 'leaves' the game space, but it's much easier to deal with.

Couldn't you just disable one of the monitors before you start the game?

Would mean moving all my windows back over when I'm done... not sure if that's more of a hassle to be honest! I'll do some tests this weekend though and report back.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheRiddickAllot of the mouse capture issues are related to people with more then 1 monitor, which apparently is not many of us. This results in the problem being prevalent apparently since testing is mostly done on single monitor setups.

Yep, all of my mouse issues are when my pointer would leave the right edge of my primary game screen and appear on the left edge of my non-game screen.

For Fallout 4, I can work around the problem slightly by repositioning the virtual layout of my monitors to be above/below each other. It doesn't actually fix the issue, but you're much less likely to look directly up while playing! When you do, you'll still get the freeze as the mouse 'leaves' the game space, but it's much easier to deal with.

[EDIT: Well, this proton has no effect on Fallout 4's mouse capture - I still freeze when my mouse leaves the main window. BUT, see my edited comment below for a pretty sweet workaround. Obviously, it would be better if Wine/Proton actually handled multi-monitor better though.]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Reckon I'll give Fallout 4 another shot to see if they've improved the mouse capture in that game.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

And Steam Play sales are confirmed to count as Linux sales, so the platform stats should be fairly accurate for purchases too.

I might dip back into this game. It's a huge amount of fun and ran flawlessly (literally) under Steam Play last I tried it. I have about 40 hours already.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: devnull

QuoteAnd that's just the bits that stand out as individual utterances. In context, much of the rest of what you said is very dismissive and snide, as well.

Yes, that happens in a discussion where two people don't agree.

You can still discuss without being snide.

Let's all just remember that someone is sitting at a keyboard and be excellent to each other. This devolved from an honest question about why people hate Discord to a real mess of back and forth that wasn't productive for anyone.

I'll post the results of the privacy report when I receive it, in the vague notion that someone might still be interested.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Well, I got my strawman mixed up with my ad-hominims, oops. Humble apologies for my "drivel". But at least we're both done with this thread.

Just to recap though, people who use Discord have been called:
* Boomers (whatever that means?)
* Apathetic (the implication is laziness)
* Addicts (to Web 3.0, I think?)
* Clueless

And still no evidence on Discord abusing their privacy policy. Devnull is convinced that if "it's on the screen", that means "it's being sent to Discord". Fair enough. I disagree. Perhaps I'll change my mind when the Privacy report comes in.

@Ehvis, no idea where Discord is based, no, but they offer the freedom of data option right in the settings of their app, and refer to it in their privacy policy.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: scaineBut to address your arguments in turn:

1. How do you know the data is collected even after I turn the option off? What are you seeing that you base this comment on?

2. It's not baffling, unless you don't understand how they work, maybe. Flatpacks and Snaps run their payload in a sandbox. So if you run Discord in a sandbox, it can't expose your privacy (beyond the login credentials, I suppose). It can't, for example, quiz the process list to see what games I'm playing, even if the logger is allowed to run AND the option to turn it off is ignored. As an aside, it's not a strawman - I wasn't attacking you (the definition of a strawman argument), I was referencing that every single argument against Discord appears to be because it's proprietary. To elaborate, I think that if you put aside the issues you have with the company behind it, you could trust Discord if it was open source, because then you'd have hard evidence that turning off the process logger has no effect. Correct me if I'm wrong. But this way, you could see the source. You could code out unwanted behaviours and compile it yourself to ensure integrity. Hence, all the issues people have with Discord is that they don't trust Discord to do what they ask it to do (e.g. don't record my game activity).

3. My steam profile is public. Hence, my game activity, recorded by discord, has no value to discord. At least in the context of "should I run discord, since it collects my game data"? Is your public address valuable? Not if it's freely available in a phone book it's not. It's only valuable when it's collated against other data sets. In summary, it's certainly of no importance to me. I don't consider "what I play" to be an interesting piece of information that I need to protect. Again, for the avoidance of doubt, if you do, that's cool, and perhaps admirable, and you shouldn't use Steam, or Discord.

1. Part of the collected data is visible in the interface and keeps being updated after you turn off the feature. Too much work to check whether it sends stuff back home, but it was enough for me to restrict discord to a very limited access user account.

2. If that was correct, then snaps couldn't be used to work with your files. Since they can, it must be a bit more complicated. Don't know much about snaps and the likes though.

3. Steam only lists the games you play in steam. Discord records *everything* that runs on your system.

It's perfectly fine for everyone that wants to accept that. I didn't and took measures to prevent it.

1. Ah, so turning off the "share my game" feature keeps the process running, but just doesn't share the data? Yeah, that's not great, but presumably at the root of devnull's point about Discord wanting to collect the data regardless of whether you want to share it with your friend list. I suspect that if you see this behaviour, it almost certainly is sending the data to Discord - otherwise, why not just end the process logger directly?

2. Not sure about Flatpacks and how they interact with filesystems, but Snaps can only see the directory they're run from, usually ~/snap/<somedir>. More reading here: https://ubuntu.com/blog/a-guide-to-snap-permissions-and-interfaces. So running Discord inside a Snap prevents all system and file access except when you soft/hardmount inside its own directory.

3. Discord collects and sends... everything? How do you know? It definitely looks for "known apps" and that list includes games and OBS. Bit of a stretch to suggest that this is sending all my process info out. Unless there's evidence to suggest otherwise.

I've requested my data via a freedom request. When it appears, I'll share a summary of the results here.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: devnull

Quoting: scaineSorry, I'm not really following. Why can't I opt-out? The option is right there under "Game Activity".

The option you're referring to only affects updating your status. As of last week the data is still collected.

Quoting: scaineOr if we're back on the proprietary software hate, and it's an issue of trust (or you have actual proof that the option doesn't change anything) there's always the option of running it in a Flatpak or Snap, I suppose.

Your strawman isn't going to work. Proprietary has nothing to do with what I said. Fact that you'd suggest Flatpak or Snap as options is baffling.

Quoting: scaineBut if the option really does nothing, wouldn't that be weird?

Yes, that's my point.

Quoting: scaineAfter all, it's not as if my game activity is
a) worth anything and
b) not already public on Steam

The importance you place on your privacy, or lacktherof, is not my concern. The data -is- valuable and no, it isn't public on Steam. Profile is set to private.

You're being weirdly hostile about this. But to address your arguments in turn:

1. How do you know the data is collected even after I turn the option off? What are you seeing that you base this comment on?

2. It's not baffling, unless you don't understand how they work, maybe. Flatpacks and Snaps run their payload in a sandbox. So if you run Discord in a sandbox, it can't expose your privacy (beyond the login credentials, I suppose). It can't, for example, quiz the process list to see what games I'm playing, even if the logger is allowed to run AND the option to turn it off is ignored. As an aside, it's not a strawman - I wasn't attacking you (the definition of a strawman argument), I was referencing that every single argument against Discord appears to be because it's proprietary. To elaborate, I think that if you put aside the issues you have with the company behind it, you could trust Discord if it was open source, because then you'd have hard evidence that turning off the process logger has no effect. Correct me if I'm wrong. But this way, you could see the source. You could code out unwanted behaviours and compile it yourself to ensure integrity. Hence, all the issues people have with Discord is that they don't trust Discord to do what they ask it to do (e.g. don't record my game activity).

3. My steam profile is public. Hence, my game activity, recorded by discord, has no value to discord. At least in the context of "should I run discord, since it collects my game data"? Is your public address valuable? Not if it's freely available in a phone book it's not. It's only valuable when it's collated against other data sets. In summary, it's certainly of no importance to me. I don't consider "what I play" to be an interesting piece of information that I need to protect. Again, for the avoidance of doubt, if you do, that's cool, and perhaps admirable, and you shouldn't use Steam, or Discord.

I don't understand the anger I'm getting from your comments. Apologies if I've misread your tone.

You're being pretty vehement about this though, so I might actually do a data freedom request, from their privacy policy:

QuoteHow can I access the personal data you have about me?
If you would like to submit a data access request, you can do so from the “Settings” page of the Services, where there is a button to download your data. We will then start the process and provide you a link to access the personal data that Discord has on you within 30 days.

Could be interesting to see what kind of data they've collated about me.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: devnull

Quoting: scaineWhy the Discord hate here? Every time someone shouts "spyware" about this app, I do another little search on the internet and yet every time, I seem to end up on the usual fairly paranoid forum and reddit posts that simply put Discord in the same basket as Steam and Facebook.

Well, you're reading Reddit. Not sure why I'm surprised?

As one who has been vocal about it many times all I can say is bullshit. Look at their client yourself if you think people are being "paranoid" (why is that even derogatory here?). The process logging is a --TINY-- part of the problem. And no, you cannot just "opt-out", try it. Go on, we'll wait. What's that? You can't?

Sorry, I'm not really following. Why can't I opt-out? The option is right there under "Game Activity".

Or if we're back on the proprietary software hate, and it's an issue of trust (or you have actual proof that the option doesn't change anything) there's always the option of running it in a Flatpak or Snap, I suppose.

But if the option really does nothing, wouldn't that be weird? After all, it's not as if my game activity is
a) worth anything and
b) not already public on Steam

View this comment - View article - View full comments