r/Steam_Link • u/Prestigious_Wolf897 • 17d ago

Security concerns

Concerning Steamlink.. my son lives primarily with his father but will be with me most of the summer. He has a steam account on the computer that is at my house and now he wants to play at his dad's. They want to use his dad's chromebook which I guess will not download steam but can download the steamlink. They kept discussing around me that he was going to bring the chromebook over to link it. I said absolutely not..I am not having his dad's chromebook linked to my computer. Am I wrong? I think this is very much a privacy issue.?

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u/KeyboardSlappr 17d ago

Your concerns are definitely valid. You can control the host computer (in this case your pc) from the computer that is connected to the host through steam link.

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u/KeyboardSlappr 17d ago

I would suggest buying your son a better laptop and just letting him log into steam on his new computer

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u/Prestigious_Wolf897 17d ago

That sounds like the simple fix. I wish it was that easy

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u/Diz933 17d ago

A free alternative that might work for your son is the service, GeForce Now. It works similarly to how the Steam Link works, but the user remotely connects to a computer owned by Nvidia instead of using your personal computer.

There is a free tier that, in my experience, works fine for most games. The only downside is that you are limited to 1 hour play sessions, but you can simply start a new session after the current session ends.

You do NOT need to repurchase any games to use it, it'll ask the user to log into their Steam account when launching a game for the first time. Save progress should also carry over, assuming the game supports cloud saves. Most do.

Lastly, another limitation, is that you can only play games supported by GeForce Now. A ton of games are supported, but not all.

If you are unfamiliar with Nvidia, they are one of the major companies supplying videogame hardware to both computers and some video game consoles. So they are a reputable company.

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u/Prestigious_Wolf897 17d ago

I appreciate the information but his friends already all play through steam

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u/Diz933 17d ago

I'm sorry, I think you misunderstand. He WILL be able to play with Steam friends, because it uses Steam in conjunction with GeForce Now.

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u/mrpena 17d ago

GFN is the best answer here, it uses his current steam library to play games that he owns via Steam. there's a 99% chance that your son uses discord to communicate with his friends, so the steam client is probably not even necessary to game with his friends while he's at his dads.

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u/Maniacal_Coyote 17d ago

He'll still be able to play with his friends on Steam; I used GFN for Destiny 2 when the system requirements became too intense, and I was able to play with my friends no problem.

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u/virrk 17d ago

Or because I'm not willing to install Destiny's anticheat on my workstation.

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u/Packetdancer Link hardware 14d ago

As others noted... Nvidia's cloud gaming stuff (GeForce Now) is basically letting someone rent a computer in the cloud. That cloud computer will have Steam installed, and the user can download their Steam games there and play them via Steam Link. So it would work just the same as doing Steam Link to your computer, except that it connecting instead to a computer out in the cloud that only has your son's games on it; no privacy issues, because your stuff isn't ON that machine.

And it is considerably cheaper than buying a second actual physical computer would be. And since he'd be logged in on Steam on both, his saved games and such would automatically be synchronized so he could also play locally at your house.

(And you can get a pretty nice gaming spec that way, so it might actually be a better experience than just remote-controlling your PC would be. AND has the added benefit that you don't have to worry about him trying to game while you actually need to use the computer for something.)

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u/Prestigious_Wolf897 17d ago

My ex insists that it works like any other account and he would just be logging into steam and only able to log into steam

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u/figmentPez 17d ago

Your ex either has no idea what he's talking about, or he's lying to you.

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u/KeyboardSlappr 17d ago

No if you have another computer connected to your computer you most definitely can control the host computer. I’m doing it right now so I can stream movies I have downloaded on my pc to my TV in the other room. If you are suspicious he may try some thing nefarious I definitely would not cave.

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u/Zelvan 17d ago

If steam is running they'll be able to connect up and browse the PC. If steam is set to run as admin will have full access to everything on the PC and install anything.
Personally I'd be confident to setup something securely but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

If you're comfortable with managing windows user accounts you could create a normal none-admin local account and then they can link up to that account.
As long as your folder permissions are configured correctly they won't be able to access your files or install anything.

Installing software will prompt for your admin account password so youd want to setup the games in advance.

I'd also put the PC on its own isolated subnet just to be secure and prevent network snooping but this is unlikely a concern.

I would like to note steamlink isnt going to be a great experience over the internet connection. Probably not worth bothering.