Probably to avoid linking to kid diddler instances.
Steam loves to minimize moderation so you’re probably correct
Given that half the games are anime waifu sims these days, I can only imagine what horrors you'd unleash letting people link to their profiles on anime waifu mastodon instances.
Actually no, I don't have to imagine it since I've seen the horrors with my own eyes.
Having gone to Tokyo's Akihabara and gone to the depths of anime waifu hell...
That's disgusting!
Where?
I mean have you seen gamers?
They should use fediseer to accept the top 100 most reputable mastodons
I don't think their devs are having a hard time figuring out how to support different instance names...
Then why don't they accept any instance? Fediseer has an api where they can see the most reputable instances and limit to only allowing those reputable instances.
Because of what everyone else here is saying. If you're a company like Valve, you don't want to open a portal to undesirable content that isn't moderated. They chose the biggest instances with the most users because those are generally going to be the safest ones.
which is why im saying use fediseer so they dont have to hand pick 5 instances
You're missing the point. They chose those instances INTENTIONALLY. They don't need your solution because there is no problem. 🤦
Fediseer chooses instances INTENTIONALLY
Super cool
They probably just wanted a handful so they can slap it in a regex and be done with it.
Website doesn't load
Might have been a temporary issue. It’s working for me.
Try Tor Browser in strict mode. It just loads an empty white page.
Definitely doesn't sound like an issue with Tor Browser in Strict Mode. /s
I doubt that's the case since you can freely link to external sites elsewhere?
The limitations are annoying but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Absolutely! It's representation!
I love this in principle.
I just wish Mastodon instances were viewable without JavaScript. Opening the door to many types of browser exploit and fingerprinting shouldn't be required just for reading.
I love the paranoia of you nerds. It's valid but idk how you spare the effort.
idk how you spare the effort.
When you've been building networked systems for longer than JavaScript has existed, it no longer takes effort to spot design choices that put users at risk. When you've watched endless vulnerabilities be exploited over the years, it's not paranoia, but a real-world problem that impacts real people. At that point, the flaws are impossible to responsibly ignore.
Spreading awareness and showing people how to build safer systems does sometimes get tiring, but I think it's important.
It's simple, when you understand how shaky the foundation of all digital infrastructure is it's impossible to not be paranoid.
The Polyfill incident is bad (that seems to be how the hackers got into the internet archive), and the OpenSSH one could have been really nasty, if it wasn't caught both early, and by chance (a performance engineer at a major software company noticed).
I'd say this comic is more relevant:
I actually gave up recently for my mental health of all things. Turns out accepting being tracked in just about everything I do but also getting all the benefits of living in the future, without the effort spent on mitigation, is a huge relief. Does Google know my daily routine? Yes. Did they when I had the tin foil hat on? Probably also yes.
I find the negatives detract from the benefits too much, usually. Like having your arm cut off and then receiving lovemaking: I am no longer in the mood.
Have you been watching Bad Monkey? Because that’s literally about half the plot.
Same it’s much nicer to enjoy the tech/tools. I still ad block on all devices tho
It's not paranoid to complain about the unnecessity of javascript when all you want to do is read a public text post on a social media platform. I have javascript disabled on some browsers, and it's annoying to have to whitelist a site that really shouldn't need it.
Isn't it basically a fundamental underlying technology of the web I don't understand how you can have it disabled and still be able to access modern websites.
it isn't. that is html and css, some would argue it's html only.
javascript is not needed to load a website. It's useful for interaction, and needed to load content separately and dynamically. without it you get a mostly (but not totally) static document like in Office Word
CSR exists. You know, WASM CSR websites rely on JS to manipulate the DOM.
that does not mean javascript is essential, and mox's point is still very valid.
using WASM instead of JS is not better either. you simply don't need any clientside executable code on a read-only view of a page
That is so bad. They clearly don’t understand the appeal of decentralized systems…
At the same time people on here are defending the centralization of PC gaming on Steam so even fediverse users don't understand decentralization
How do you imagine decentralized gaming? Every game comes with it's own launcher?
Every game tied to it's own console.
Unironically I would buy a UFO 50 console
My friend down the street had an LX back in '83. It was an amazing device but sadly way too ahead of its time.
My fantasy is that PC games become similar to roms, where it's a single file. Maybe encoded is the system specs, OS, etc.
Then the "emulator" just works.
Of course, no financial incentives and a lot of work just to exist. Not to mention, it'll be impossible to do for modern games. But maybe every game that's older than 10 years old gets this treatment.
Also I'm not a OS engineer and maybe this is what Proton is doing with Linux.
Then pure decentralized gaming on any OS - computer, browser, raspberry pi, "smart Fridge", whatever has the specs. And the game just works.
The idea is for games to be launcher independent/compatible with many launchers. If I wanna play a game I got on gog I could use the official launcher, heroic, mini galaxy, or I could even use no launcher and just download the game installers directly
And how would a launcher identify you've actually purchased the game? You still need a central source for that. Hypothetically I guess there could be an activitypub like protocol that all storefronts could use to sync purchases, but that opens up a whole other can of worms, such as account linking, purchase duplications, refunds. The main questions with this hypothetical are
Why would stores implement this when they don't really benefit from it?
Why would the users want it when it means creating more accounts and linking them? Why not just stick to one platform that best covers your needs? I guess there would be the "what if Valve turns bad?" argument, but company turning bad is at best a once in a decade situation. If that's the only reason then the feature won't be used 99.99% of the time.
There's also a question of who pays for the data? Games are huge and the cost of keeping storing them is factored into the price of the game. However, if you buy from store A and download in store B how is store B supposed to stay afloat when they only eat the cost of storing the game.
As for going completely launcherless, how do you solve updating the game? Steam was originally made to solve the patching problem, because each patch would effectively shut the entire game community down while everyone waited for everyone else to patch their game.
I think will be something more like gog or itch io
What makes either of those decentralized?
I think people just prefer Steam to Epic or EA's store fronts. Whenever GoG gets brought up, the only major complaint is is that there's no official Linux launcher, even when there are Linux binaries for the games.
GOG's Windows launcher is bad so it's not really a big loss. Heroic Launcher is excellent and supports more than just GOG
It's not very good, but does the job. I mainly used the Mac version before jumping ship entirely. I was surprised that they made a Mac version, but no lINUX version. If you ever wanted to know true pain though, the Mac version of the Epic launch was true trash. Nothing worth playing on that anyway though since they discontinued Unreal Tournament.
Heroic launch has been pretty good for any of the modern games I've tried it it. Eventually, I want to get some of the old Star Wars games running though.
The instance I'm on isn't federated with every other instance. Why would you expect steam to effectively federate with every instance?
What? I'm not following. Steam isn't federating with anyone. This is about having a link to an external site. Nothing more. Has nothing to do with federation directly.
Probably to avoid linking to kid diddler instances.
Steam loves to minimize moderation so you’re probably correct
Given that half the games are anime waifu sims these days, I can only imagine what horrors you'd unleash letting people link to their profiles on anime waifu mastodon instances.
Actually no, I don't have to imagine it since I've seen the horrors with my own eyes.
Having gone to Tokyo's Akihabara and gone to the depths of anime waifu hell...
That's disgusting!
Where?
I mean have you seen gamers?
They should use fediseer to accept the top 100 most reputable mastodons
https://gui.fediseer.com/
I don't think their devs are having a hard time figuring out how to support different instance names...
Then why don't they accept any instance? Fediseer has an api where they can see the most reputable instances and limit to only allowing those reputable instances.
Because of what everyone else here is saying. If you're a company like Valve, you don't want to open a portal to undesirable content that isn't moderated. They chose the biggest instances with the most users because those are generally going to be the safest ones.
which is why im saying use fediseer so they dont have to hand pick 5 instances
You're missing the point. They chose those instances INTENTIONALLY. They don't need your solution because there is no problem. 🤦
Fediseer chooses instances INTENTIONALLY
Super cool
They probably just wanted a handful so they can slap it in a regex and be done with it.
Website doesn't load
Might have been a temporary issue. It’s working for me.
Try Tor Browser in strict mode. It just loads an empty white page.
Definitely doesn't sound like an issue with Tor Browser in Strict Mode. /s
I doubt that's the case since you can freely link to external sites elsewhere?
The limitations are annoying but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Absolutely! It's representation!
I love this in principle.
I just wish Mastodon instances were viewable without JavaScript. Opening the door to many types of browser exploit and fingerprinting shouldn't be required just for reading.
I love the paranoia of you nerds. It's valid but idk how you spare the effort.
When you've been building networked systems for longer than JavaScript has existed, it no longer takes effort to spot design choices that put users at risk. When you've watched endless vulnerabilities be exploited over the years, it's not paranoia, but a real-world problem that impacts real people. At that point, the flaws are impossible to responsibly ignore.
Spreading awareness and showing people how to build safer systems does sometimes get tiring, but I think it's important.
It's simple, when you understand how shaky the foundation of all digital infrastructure is it's impossible to not be paranoid.
Relevant XKCD.
The Polyfill incident is bad (that seems to be how the hackers got into the internet archive), and the OpenSSH one could have been really nasty, if it wasn't caught both early, and by chance (a performance engineer at a major software company noticed).
I'd say this comic is more relevant:
I actually gave up recently for my mental health of all things. Turns out accepting being tracked in just about everything I do but also getting all the benefits of living in the future, without the effort spent on mitigation, is a huge relief. Does Google know my daily routine? Yes. Did they when I had the tin foil hat on? Probably also yes.
I find the negatives detract from the benefits too much, usually. Like having your arm cut off and then receiving lovemaking: I am no longer in the mood.
Have you been watching Bad Monkey? Because that’s literally about half the plot.
Same it’s much nicer to enjoy the tech/tools. I still ad block on all devices tho
It's not paranoid to complain about the unnecessity of javascript when all you want to do is read a public text post on a social media platform. I have javascript disabled on some browsers, and it's annoying to have to whitelist a site that really shouldn't need it.
Isn't it basically a fundamental underlying technology of the web I don't understand how you can have it disabled and still be able to access modern websites.
it isn't. that is html and css, some would argue it's html only.
javascript is not needed to load a website. It's useful for interaction, and needed to load content separately and dynamically. without it you get a mostly (but not totally) static document like in Office Word
CSR exists. You know, WASM CSR websites rely on JS to manipulate the DOM.
that does not mean javascript is essential, and mox's point is still very valid.
using WASM instead of JS is not better either. you simply don't need any clientside executable code on a read-only view of a page
SSR then.
Mastodon has RSS built-in. Just add ".rss" to the URL to get the RSS feed.
It also does have an API which can be used by apps, including alternate frontends which don't use JS.
That is so bad. They clearly don’t understand the appeal of decentralized systems…
At the same time people on here are defending the centralization of PC gaming on Steam so even fediverse users don't understand decentralization
How do you imagine decentralized gaming? Every game comes with it's own launcher?
Every game tied to it's own console.
Unironically I would buy a UFO 50 console
My friend down the street had an LX back in '83. It was an amazing device but sadly way too ahead of its time.
My fantasy is that PC games become similar to roms, where it's a single file. Maybe encoded is the system specs, OS, etc.
Then the "emulator" just works.
Of course, no financial incentives and a lot of work just to exist. Not to mention, it'll be impossible to do for modern games. But maybe every game that's older than 10 years old gets this treatment.
Also I'm not a OS engineer and maybe this is what Proton is doing with Linux.
Then pure decentralized gaming on any OS - computer, browser, raspberry pi, "smart Fridge", whatever has the specs. And the game just works.
The idea is for games to be launcher independent/compatible with many launchers. If I wanna play a game I got on gog I could use the official launcher, heroic, mini galaxy, or I could even use no launcher and just download the game installers directly
And how would a launcher identify you've actually purchased the game? You still need a central source for that. Hypothetically I guess there could be an activitypub like protocol that all storefronts could use to sync purchases, but that opens up a whole other can of worms, such as account linking, purchase duplications, refunds. The main questions with this hypothetical are
As for going completely launcherless, how do you solve updating the game? Steam was originally made to solve the patching problem, because each patch would effectively shut the entire game community down while everyone waited for everyone else to patch their game.
I think will be something more like gog or itch io
What makes either of those decentralized?
I think people just prefer Steam to Epic or EA's store fronts. Whenever GoG gets brought up, the only major complaint is is that there's no official Linux launcher, even when there are Linux binaries for the games.
GOG's Windows launcher is bad so it's not really a big loss. Heroic Launcher is excellent and supports more than just GOG
It's not very good, but does the job. I mainly used the Mac version before jumping ship entirely. I was surprised that they made a Mac version, but no lINUX version. If you ever wanted to know true pain though, the Mac version of the Epic launch was true trash. Nothing worth playing on that anyway though since they discontinued Unreal Tournament.
Heroic launch has been pretty good for any of the modern games I've tried it it. Eventually, I want to get some of the old Star Wars games running though.
The instance I'm on isn't federated with every other instance. Why would you expect steam to effectively federate with every instance?
What? I'm not following. Steam isn't federating with anyone. This is about having a link to an external site. Nothing more. Has nothing to do with federation directly.