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It's seems like an anachronism that Steam games are able to install random junk on your system. Those game installers should be completely standardised and most

It's seems like an anachronism that Steam games are able to install random junk on your system. Those game installers should be completely standardised and most importantly sandboxed. Similarly, IMO it feels shoddy when Steam acts as a "launcher for another launcher" when starting a game.

tempodox 4y ago
[flagged]
- dbeley 4y ago
  That's not true, games without DRMs installed through Steam can be launched without having Steam running. It all depends on the publisher's policy, Valve is just complying.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    In fact sometimes it's required to do that for modded installs, because Steam can't be convinced to launch anything without force updating first anymore and breaks everything if you're not eternally vigilant. sigh I've resigned myself to mostly just buying anything I want to mod from GoG unless it has full Workshop integration.
- Farbklex 4y ago
  Except that it is actually useful and pioneered a bunch of user friendly features that no one else bothered to implement.
  - hinata08 4y ago
    It's not up to them to decide what user want. There should be this thing called 'Free Market', where you don't have to buy whatever stupid improvement is pushed onto the folks. But this platform was awesome for independent developers, who could use it to sell their game, get payments, do the license management, anti-piracy, some amount of support, and even make the installation straightforward for the user (so less support to offer) I can totally get why developers would use Steam to retail their games But let's not forget that clients can be a nuisance, and won't work if they just push features with no value. Games for Windows Live was a nightmare, for exemple
    - vertis 4y ago
      I'm stuggling to make sense of your points. To the extent that I can't tell whether you're coming down on steam or not. But one thing that isn't relevant here is the "free market". The "free market" refers to a system where prices, production, and distribution of goods and services are determined by supply and demand, without government intervention. Examples of threats to the free market include monopolies, price fixing, government regulations, and trade barriers. Steam is not a monopoly, indeed it's one of many ways of getting gaming entertainment. It very rarely even has exclusive games (unlike say XBox and Playstation). It does not,to the best of my knowledge, engage in price fixing or impose trade barriers on others. Government regulations are not relevant in this context because they are not a government entity, nor to they receive preferential treatment under the law with regard to permission to engage in selling software.
      - hinata08 4y ago
        My point was that Steam's point was not focused on the user, it was neither the client nor the outstanding features that made it popular. They were driven by a solid business plan, not "features". It's just a convenient proposition to retail games, because it's easy for the developper, and securing for the buyer. This was an addition to the parent comment. And the previous comment complained about the Steam launcher. The comment was fair, especially on lower end PCs with an old school HDD. He felt like someone was bloating his PCs with functionalities he didn't need. So yeah, the Steam launcher is there because it's a technical requirement to retail games. But I don't agree that it was successful for its new features. It's just ok because it sells games. Games for Windows Live tried to do the features without actually retailing the games, and it didn't work. And I will not reply further. As usual, there are more downvotes than actual replies. I never understood Reddit mobs on that.
    - COGlory 4y ago
      >There should be this thing called 'Free Market', where you don't have to buy whatever stupid improvement is pushed onto the folks. ... you mean the free market Steam operates in? Go use another digital distributor. Go start your own. Nothing is stopping you. I will continue to use Steam because of the value it provides.
- poopooracoocoo 4y ago
  But that is how licensing works for Steam games (that require it). I don't want invasive rootkits, locked down software, or resource consuming software. Steam is light compared to other alternatives. The best option is to buy games from GOG (or another DEM-free store) or from publishers directly, assuming they don't have a crappy launcher. Epic Games Launcher, 2K Launcher, Riot Client, Rockstar Games Launcher, etc are awfully slow and consume a lot of memory and disk space. Steam just happens to be the lightest of them all and therefore people tolerate it more. What Steam does isn't what annoys most. It's what game publishers do with their own launchers.
  - Jare 4y ago
    > buy games from GOG I wish I could agree, but nope, noooo. My GOG account suddenly broke (500 server response upon login) back in 2016 after adding The Witcher 3 to it, and despite repeated attempts over the years to demand that they fix it and restore my games, it remains broken. All I've got are empty promises to look at it, but no results.
    - bentley 4y ago
      You’re totally right that this is bad, unacceptable customer service and worth criticizing. Don’t take my next paragraph as an attempt to downplay your problem, because I agree with your justification. That said: unlike Steam games, your GOG games are not lost when your account gets FUBARed, so long as you backed up the installers. GOG provides that capability; Steam does not. I do back up my GOG installers, just in case I ever get locked out like this. I can’t do that with Steam.
      - ekianjo 4y ago
        > so long as you backed up the installers But assuming you don't, because it would take a huge amount of space, games are lost when you lose your account on GOG as well.
        jeroenhd 4y ago
- maccard 4y ago
  Steam itself is optional, it's up to a developer to require steam to be running. Steam does some things like make the default shortcuts launch Appa via steam, but honestly that's probably less confusing for the games that do enforce steam running. Without steam running, there's no access to any of the steam SDK features. Steam running also handled things like authentication, so games don't need to prompt for credentials.
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    However, there's no reliable way for as a user to tell if Steam will be optional for a particular game. I've tried checking pcgamingwiki but it's not always right. And it's usually not optional.
    - maccard 4y ago
      Ok but that's a very different problem to what you said about not being able to launch a game without launching steam. > And it's usually not optional. That's not Steam's fault.
      - usrusr 4y ago
        They might offer a small block of metadata indicating which parts of the API the change uses in its current incarnation. Would fit in nicely with the details about which platforms it can run on.
      - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
        Valve's own games can't be played without Steam. If Steam isn't running when you open Portal 2, Steam will be launched automatically. If you uninstall Steam, Portal 2 just won't start. It would be one thing if Valve was setting an example that publishers were choosing to ignore, but that's not what's happening.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    That's true. I call the Steam API when my game launches and it replies with whether the Steam app is running or not. If the Steam client is not available you simply lose Steam's Input API (customizable controller support) in the game. As a developer I would avoid requiring the Steam client to be running. That's just bad for users.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Very much untrue. Steam even makes it pretty easy to start a game without starting steam. 1. Install the game through steam the normal way 2. in your steam client, go to the game, hit the cog icon 3. go to "properties" -> "local files" -> "browse". This will open a file picker in the location it has installed the game. 4. Make a note of this location then close the picker 5. Go to "general" and see if there is anything under "launch options". 6. You're all set. If you want to shut your steam client down you can still run the game directly by using the path you saw in the file picker at step 4 and (optionally) passing the launch options from step 5 (I know this because I'm currently running "Song of Syx" directly using this option because it's an early access game and is broken when launching via steam for some reason).
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    This only works for a tiny numbers of games if the Steam client is not installed.
    - seanhunter 4y ago
      Way to move the goalposts buddy. The post said "without starting steam" so I replied with how you can do that, not how you can run games without the steam client installed at all. That said if you don't like steam just don't use it. I don't see what would be the point in installing steam, buying games using it and then trying to play them with it uninstalled. At that point you would already have paid valve and literally only be hurting yourself.
      - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
        The problem is that most games are only available on Steam.
      - arka2147483647 4y ago
        Most steam games use the steam api, and do something along the lines of: If steam not running, show error popup.
- no_time 4y ago
  It is. But I feel like It's a compromise that works for all parties involved. Publishers are atleast calmed by the fact you can't just copy a game from machine A to B, and people who are in the know can strip steamstub with an open source tool that shall not be named here.
Gigachad 4y ago
Problem is that anti cheat essentially is malware and it can’t function as anti cheat inside of a sandbox. But it would be nice if any single player game was sandboxed.
- Certhas 4y ago
  I haven't seen anyone in these threads propose an alternative to Anti-Cheat. Just not using anti cheat makes popular games unplayable. Everyone has the choice to just not play them but plenty of people do, and accept the trade off of handing control of their PCs to a third party to do so.
  - II2II 4y ago
    I seem to recall a game giving me the option to install anti-cheat, with the caveat that anti-cheat was required for multiplayer. While it only solves the problem for people who stick to single player, at least the option exists. Likewise, it would also be nice for the option to exist for private servers. If the server admin trusts their users or is okay with anything goes, there is no need for anti-cheat.
    - Ntrails 4y ago
      Anti cheat is also necessary if you design your game around micropayments I assume, so not purely a multiplayer issue. I am ok with that market dying in a fire admittedly..
      - mpsprd 4y ago
        Not necessarily. Usually when micro-transactions are present everything is validated server side, Leading to always online games like diablo 3+. From my understanding kernel level anticheat is to detect things like aimbot, wallhack etc.
        mehlmao 4y ago
        Off the top of my head, Genshin Impact is a mostly single-player game with some multiplayer functionality. It uses kernel level anti-cheat to make sure that microtransactions are protected. This driver had a known vulnerability that did not get patched for years and was used by malicious actors: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse-genshin-impact-anti-cheat-system-to-disable-antivirus/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse... Street Fight 5 did the same thing; it was possible to unlock characters for local play using a trainer. They patched in a rootkit with known vulnerabilities in an attempt to prevent that.
vbezhenar 4y ago
In the end you're getting full fledged binary which can run anything on your system. Also I'm not sure if sandboxing on Windows even exists.
- pas 4y ago
  it does, Chrome and Firefox uses it https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/docs/design/sandbox.md#sandbox-restrictions https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/docs/d... it's not as simple as unshare() for namespaces on Linux, but works pretty well
  - HAL9000Ti 4y ago
    This is a chromium feature, not a windows one.
    - skissane 4y ago
      > This is a chromium feature, not a windows one. Chromium's sandbox on Windows is built on top of Windows features (tokens, jobs, desktops, integrity levels, app containers) Just like how their sandbox on Linux is built on top of Linux features (setuid, user namespaces, seccomp, SELinux, AppArmor) For both Linux and Windows, the OS kernel gives you a bunch of features you can use to construct sandboxes, but the choice of exactly which of those features you use, and how you put them together, is up to you. Chromium worked out how to combine those features to meet their own security requirements, and has documented that in detail, and open sourced the implementation – there's nothing stopping you from copying the same approach, assuming your requirements are sufficiently similar With macOS, Apple ships a sandboxing mechanism in the OS, known as "sandbox" or "seatbelt", which is what Chromium uses there
- wongarsu 4y ago
  In addition to just taking all privileges way from the process, like Chrome does, there's also Sandboxie [1] and the official Windows Sandbox [2] 1: https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie 2: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr... 2b: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-architecture https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...
frognumber 4y ago
I want complete, end-to-end sandboxes, including for: - Android apps - Chrome extensions - System apps ... etc. These should be capable of providing fake data to the app (e.g. simulating no contacts, no working internet, or a fake GPS location), and trying to break out should be an app store ToS violation.
- xtat 4y ago
  Yep - dream device is a phone that runs android+ios under strict supervision
Timshel 4y ago
Finally made the switch to run linux by default, there is a nice Flatpak for Steam which works quite well. Not the biggest fan of flatpak but to cleanly isolate steam I'll use it anytime ^^. Still keeping windows as dual boot but I only switch to play multiplayer but since I run it only occasionnaly I care a bit less which crap get installed.
philistine 4y ago
Let me go up the stack one level: why does Windows allow this kind of software to install at all !? Couldn't most cheating methods be defeated by requiring a signed executable to run, coupled with a complete lock of the input methods to the signed executable running? I'm at a loss as to why the debate here is on Valve and the devs, when I can't get past the initial step: you can install THAT on Windows?
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  Jeez. A walled garden gated by a bureaucratic rubber stamping process (which I'm sure can't scale with the pace of software creation) sounds awful. Path of lesser resistance: sandbox games. And have weak (serverside)/no anticheat. Cheating in games isn't as big of a deal as malware in your kernel[0,1]. It's just not that important. 0: https://hackaday.com/2022/08/29/genshin-security-impact/ https://hackaday.com/2022/08/29/genshin-security-impact/ 1: https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternals-first-update-includes-denuvo-anti-cheat/ https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternals-first-update-includes-...
  - jezzamon 4y ago
    Cheating in online games is enough to make multiplayer unplayable if it becomes rampant enough, which as a game developer you care about. One example: https://www.ign.com/articles/team-fortress-2-players-protesting-massive-bot-problem https://www.ign.com/articles/team-fortress-2-players-protest... So having some form of preventing cheating is important. Doing it right is tricky I guess
- nokya 4y ago
  It seems to me that the security mechanisms you described already exist. But Microsoft can't prevent the installation of legitimate anti-cheat software while still letting users install whatever they want to. It is a double-edged sword, one comes with the other. Users who seek this kind of protection (i.e., OS editor telling app makers what they can or cannot do) should drop Microsoft and switch to Apple. Also, we should not confuse anti-cheat software with malicious software: if you purchase commercial software from an editor who wants to bundle anti-cheat technology in its product, this is not a malicious installation. The security mechanisms you described are aimed at preventing the malicious deployment of code in your system, not the installation of intrusive software on behalf of the consenting user.
dagmx 4y ago
Unfortunately, windows doesn’t really have sandboxed processes ubiquitously available. There is https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr... However it isn’t available in the Home release. Also unlike macOS or iOS/Android sandboxes, it’s not a process level thing, but rather a VM of some kind. Plus, if it did introduce sandboxing like macOS, you’d see so many people getting pissed off when their applications start asking for permissions, as can be seen in every single thread that comes up here with regards to macOS. Personally I think every OS should have sandboxing by default (perhaps as an opt out) because no amount of being cautious as a user is enough to prevent application overreach.
- totallyfalse 4y ago
  This is false. UWP is literally a sandbox. And Windows also supports containerization.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    Most apps aren’t UWP, therefore not ubiquitous. macOS takes a much more hardline approach to this, which is what’s needed for things like this.
  - the8472 4y ago
    Windows containers are crapshot. Unlike linux containers you must match the exact kernel version. And GPU acceleration is iffy, which is important for games.
- matiasfernandez 4y ago
  https://www.computerenhance.com/p/why-isnt-there-a-createprocess-that https://www.computerenhance.com/p/why-isnt-there-a-createpro...
make3 4y ago
does sandboxing work for things so performance intensive as high end 3d games? (this obviously doesn't apply to low-fi games, including low-fi 3d ones)

tempodox 4y ago

[flagged]

dbeley 4y ago
That's not true, games without DRMs installed through Steam can be launched without having Steam running. It all depends on the publisher's policy, Valve is just complying.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  In fact sometimes it's required to do that for modded installs, because Steam can't be convinced to launch anything without force updating first anymore and breaks everything if you're not eternally vigilant. sigh I've resigned myself to mostly just buying anything I want to mod from GoG unless it has full Workshop integration.
Farbklex 4y ago
Except that it is actually useful and pioneered a bunch of user friendly features that no one else bothered to implement.
- hinata08 4y ago
  It's not up to them to decide what user want. There should be this thing called 'Free Market', where you don't have to buy whatever stupid improvement is pushed onto the folks. But this platform was awesome for independent developers, who could use it to sell their game, get payments, do the license management, anti-piracy, some amount of support, and even make the installation straightforward for the user (so less support to offer) I can totally get why developers would use Steam to retail their games But let's not forget that clients can be a nuisance, and won't work if they just push features with no value. Games for Windows Live was a nightmare, for exemple
  - vertis 4y ago
    I'm stuggling to make sense of your points. To the extent that I can't tell whether you're coming down on steam or not. But one thing that isn't relevant here is the "free market". The "free market" refers to a system where prices, production, and distribution of goods and services are determined by supply and demand, without government intervention. Examples of threats to the free market include monopolies, price fixing, government regulations, and trade barriers. Steam is not a monopoly, indeed it's one of many ways of getting gaming entertainment. It very rarely even has exclusive games (unlike say XBox and Playstation). It does not,to the best of my knowledge, engage in price fixing or impose trade barriers on others. Government regulations are not relevant in this context because they are not a government entity, nor to they receive preferential treatment under the law with regard to permission to engage in selling software.
    - hinata08 4y ago
      My point was that Steam's point was not focused on the user, it was neither the client nor the outstanding features that made it popular. They were driven by a solid business plan, not "features". It's just a convenient proposition to retail games, because it's easy for the developper, and securing for the buyer. This was an addition to the parent comment. And the previous comment complained about the Steam launcher. The comment was fair, especially on lower end PCs with an old school HDD. He felt like someone was bloating his PCs with functionalities he didn't need. So yeah, the Steam launcher is there because it's a technical requirement to retail games. But I don't agree that it was successful for its new features. It's just ok because it sells games. Games for Windows Live tried to do the features without actually retailing the games, and it didn't work. And I will not reply further. As usual, there are more downvotes than actual replies. I never understood Reddit mobs on that.
  - COGlory 4y ago
    >There should be this thing called 'Free Market', where you don't have to buy whatever stupid improvement is pushed onto the folks. ... you mean the free market Steam operates in? Go use another digital distributor. Go start your own. Nothing is stopping you. I will continue to use Steam because of the value it provides.
poopooracoocoo 4y ago
But that is how licensing works for Steam games (that require it). I don't want invasive rootkits, locked down software, or resource consuming software. Steam is light compared to other alternatives. The best option is to buy games from GOG (or another DEM-free store) or from publishers directly, assuming they don't have a crappy launcher. Epic Games Launcher, 2K Launcher, Riot Client, Rockstar Games Launcher, etc are awfully slow and consume a lot of memory and disk space. Steam just happens to be the lightest of them all and therefore people tolerate it more. What Steam does isn't what annoys most. It's what game publishers do with their own launchers.
- Jare 4y ago
  > buy games from GOG I wish I could agree, but nope, noooo. My GOG account suddenly broke (500 server response upon login) back in 2016 after adding The Witcher 3 to it, and despite repeated attempts over the years to demand that they fix it and restore my games, it remains broken. All I've got are empty promises to look at it, but no results.
  - bentley 4y ago
    You’re totally right that this is bad, unacceptable customer service and worth criticizing. Don’t take my next paragraph as an attempt to downplay your problem, because I agree with your justification. That said: unlike Steam games, your GOG games are not lost when your account gets FUBARed, so long as you backed up the installers. GOG provides that capability; Steam does not. I do back up my GOG installers, just in case I ever get locked out like this. I can’t do that with Steam.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      > so long as you backed up the installers But assuming you don't, because it would take a huge amount of space, games are lost when you lose your account on GOG as well.
      - jeroenhd 4y ago
maccard 4y ago
Steam itself is optional, it's up to a developer to require steam to be running. Steam does some things like make the default shortcuts launch Appa via steam, but honestly that's probably less confusing for the games that do enforce steam running. Without steam running, there's no access to any of the steam SDK features. Steam running also handled things like authentication, so games don't need to prompt for credentials.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  However, there's no reliable way for as a user to tell if Steam will be optional for a particular game. I've tried checking pcgamingwiki but it's not always right. And it's usually not optional.
  - maccard 4y ago
    Ok but that's a very different problem to what you said about not being able to launch a game without launching steam. > And it's usually not optional. That's not Steam's fault.
    - usrusr 4y ago
      They might offer a small block of metadata indicating which parts of the API the change uses in its current incarnation. Would fit in nicely with the details about which platforms it can run on.
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      Valve's own games can't be played without Steam. If Steam isn't running when you open Portal 2, Steam will be launched automatically. If you uninstall Steam, Portal 2 just won't start. It would be one thing if Valve was setting an example that publishers were choosing to ignore, but that's not what's happening.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  That's true. I call the Steam API when my game launches and it replies with whether the Steam app is running or not. If the Steam client is not available you simply lose Steam's Input API (customizable controller support) in the game. As a developer I would avoid requiring the Steam client to be running. That's just bad for users.
seanhunter 4y ago
Very much untrue. Steam even makes it pretty easy to start a game without starting steam. 1. Install the game through steam the normal way 2. in your steam client, go to the game, hit the cog icon 3. go to "properties" -> "local files" -> "browse". This will open a file picker in the location it has installed the game. 4. Make a note of this location then close the picker 5. Go to "general" and see if there is anything under "launch options". 6. You're all set. If you want to shut your steam client down you can still run the game directly by using the path you saw in the file picker at step 4 and (optionally) passing the launch options from step 5 (I know this because I'm currently running "Song of Syx" directly using this option because it's an early access game and is broken when launching via steam for some reason).
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  This only works for a tiny numbers of games if the Steam client is not installed.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    Way to move the goalposts buddy. The post said "without starting steam" so I replied with how you can do that, not how you can run games without the steam client installed at all. That said if you don't like steam just don't use it. I don't see what would be the point in installing steam, buying games using it and then trying to play them with it uninstalled. At that point you would already have paid valve and literally only be hurting yourself.
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      The problem is that most games are only available on Steam.
    - arka2147483647 4y ago
      Most steam games use the steam api, and do something along the lines of: If steam not running, show error popup.
no_time 4y ago
It is. But I feel like It's a compromise that works for all parties involved. Publishers are atleast calmed by the fact you can't just copy a game from machine A to B, and people who are in the know can strip steamstub with an open source tool that shall not be named here.

Gigachad 4y ago

Problem is that anti cheat essentially is malware and it can’t function as anti cheat inside of a sandbox. But it would be nice if any single player game was sandboxed.

Certhas 4y ago
I haven't seen anyone in these threads propose an alternative to Anti-Cheat. Just not using anti cheat makes popular games unplayable. Everyone has the choice to just not play them but plenty of people do, and accept the trade off of handing control of their PCs to a third party to do so.
- II2II 4y ago
  I seem to recall a game giving me the option to install anti-cheat, with the caveat that anti-cheat was required for multiplayer. While it only solves the problem for people who stick to single player, at least the option exists. Likewise, it would also be nice for the option to exist for private servers. If the server admin trusts their users or is okay with anything goes, there is no need for anti-cheat.
  - Ntrails 4y ago
    Anti cheat is also necessary if you design your game around micropayments I assume, so not purely a multiplayer issue. I am ok with that market dying in a fire admittedly..
    - mpsprd 4y ago
      Not necessarily. Usually when micro-transactions are present everything is validated server side, Leading to always online games like diablo 3+. From my understanding kernel level anticheat is to detect things like aimbot, wallhack etc.
      - mehlmao 4y ago
        Off the top of my head, Genshin Impact is a mostly single-player game with some multiplayer functionality. It uses kernel level anti-cheat to make sure that microtransactions are protected. This driver had a known vulnerability that did not get patched for years and was used by malicious actors: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse-genshin-impact-anti-cheat-system-to-disable-antivirus/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-abuse... Street Fight 5 did the same thing; it was possible to unlock characters for local play using a trainer. They patched in a rootkit with known vulnerabilities in an attempt to prevent that.

vbezhenar 4y ago

In the end you're getting full fledged binary which can run anything on your system. Also I'm not sure if sandboxing on Windows even exists.

pas 4y ago
it does, Chrome and Firefox uses it https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/docs/design/sandbox.md#sandbox-restrictions https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/HEAD/docs/d... it's not as simple as unshare() for namespaces on Linux, but works pretty well
- HAL9000Ti 4y ago
  This is a chromium feature, not a windows one.
  - skissane 4y ago
    > This is a chromium feature, not a windows one. Chromium's sandbox on Windows is built on top of Windows features (tokens, jobs, desktops, integrity levels, app containers) Just like how their sandbox on Linux is built on top of Linux features (setuid, user namespaces, seccomp, SELinux, AppArmor) For both Linux and Windows, the OS kernel gives you a bunch of features you can use to construct sandboxes, but the choice of exactly which of those features you use, and how you put them together, is up to you. Chromium worked out how to combine those features to meet their own security requirements, and has documented that in detail, and open sourced the implementation – there's nothing stopping you from copying the same approach, assuming your requirements are sufficiently similar With macOS, Apple ships a sandboxing mechanism in the OS, known as "sandbox" or "seatbelt", which is what Chromium uses there
wongarsu 4y ago
In addition to just taking all privileges way from the process, like Chrome does, there's also Sandboxie [1] and the official Windows Sandbox [2] 1: https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie 2: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr... 2b: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-architecture https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...

frognumber 4y ago

I want complete, end-to-end sandboxes, including for: - Android apps - Chrome extensions - System apps ... etc. These should be capable of providing fake data to the app (e.g. simulating no contacts, no working internet, or a fake GPS location), and trying to break out should be an app store ToS violation.

xtat 4y ago
Yep - dream device is a phone that runs android+ios under strict supervision

Timshel 4y ago

Finally made the switch to run linux by default, there is a nice Flatpak for Steam which works quite well. Not the biggest fan of flatpak but to cleanly isolate steam I'll use it anytime ^^. Still keeping windows as dual boot but I only switch to play multiplayer but since I run it only occasionnaly I care a bit less which crap get installed.

philistine 4y ago

Let me go up the stack one level: why does Windows allow this kind of software to install at all !? Couldn't most cheating methods be defeated by requiring a signed executable to run, coupled with a complete lock of the input methods to the signed executable running? I'm at a loss as to why the debate here is on Valve and the devs, when I can't get past the initial step: you can install THAT on Windows?

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
Jeez. A walled garden gated by a bureaucratic rubber stamping process (which I'm sure can't scale with the pace of software creation) sounds awful. Path of lesser resistance: sandbox games. And have weak (serverside)/no anticheat. Cheating in games isn't as big of a deal as malware in your kernel[0,1]. It's just not that important. 0: https://hackaday.com/2022/08/29/genshin-security-impact/ https://hackaday.com/2022/08/29/genshin-security-impact/ 1: https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternals-first-update-includes-denuvo-anti-cheat/ https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternals-first-update-includes-...
- jezzamon 4y ago
  Cheating in online games is enough to make multiplayer unplayable if it becomes rampant enough, which as a game developer you care about. One example: https://www.ign.com/articles/team-fortress-2-players-protesting-massive-bot-problem https://www.ign.com/articles/team-fortress-2-players-protest... So having some form of preventing cheating is important. Doing it right is tricky I guess
nokya 4y ago
It seems to me that the security mechanisms you described already exist. But Microsoft can't prevent the installation of legitimate anti-cheat software while still letting users install whatever they want to. It is a double-edged sword, one comes with the other. Users who seek this kind of protection (i.e., OS editor telling app makers what they can or cannot do) should drop Microsoft and switch to Apple. Also, we should not confuse anti-cheat software with malicious software: if you purchase commercial software from an editor who wants to bundle anti-cheat technology in its product, this is not a malicious installation. The security mechanisms you described are aimed at preventing the malicious deployment of code in your system, not the installation of intrusive software on behalf of the consenting user.

dagmx 4y ago

Unfortunately, windows doesn’t really have sandboxed processes ubiquitously available. There is https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr... However it isn’t available in the Home release. Also unlike macOS or iOS/Android sandboxes, it’s not a process level thing, but rather a VM of some kind. Plus, if it did introduce sandboxing like macOS, you’d see so many people getting pissed off when their applications start asking for permissions, as can be seen in every single thread that comes up here with regards to macOS. Personally I think every OS should have sandboxing by default (perhaps as an opt out) because no amount of being cautious as a user is enough to prevent application overreach.

totallyfalse 4y ago
This is false. UWP is literally a sandbox. And Windows also supports containerization.
- dagmx 4y ago
  Most apps aren’t UWP, therefore not ubiquitous. macOS takes a much more hardline approach to this, which is what’s needed for things like this.
- the8472 4y ago
  Windows containers are crapshot. Unlike linux containers you must match the exact kernel version. And GPU acceleration is iffy, which is important for games.
matiasfernandez 4y ago
https://www.computerenhance.com/p/why-isnt-there-a-createprocess-that https://www.computerenhance.com/p/why-isnt-there-a-createpro...

make3 4y ago

does sandboxing work for things so performance intensive as high end 3d games? (this obviously doesn't apply to low-fi games, including low-fi 3d ones)