5 days ago - Don't give your password to that friend who wants to check out your skins or to that cousin who just joined the League and wants to know what. Jul 10, 2016 - Even if you're downloading files and staying within the law, here's how you can tell if you're downloading illegal files on a torrent. Again, why pay a few dollars a month for Netflix when you can download every episode of Friends for free? Companies giving the public permission to use their work is blurry. If my friend downloads a game on my pc through his steam can I then play it through my steam e.g Skyrim? If your friend starts playing any game anywhere steam will kick you out of Skyrim. This allows you to link several accounts as a ‘family’ and share your games. NOTE: This does not give other ‘family members’ access. Guest networks allow you to share your Wi-Fi without giving up the sensitive stuff on your network. A guest network is easy to set up, and offers your guests access to the internet without also.
One of the many unsung features of the Steam desktop gaming client is that family members and friends can use it to simulate a shared gaming console. I’m not talking hardware here, but the ability for everyone to play the same games regardless of whether they plunked down $60 for the right to play it.
The feature is called Steam Family Library Sharing, and when it’s set up it allows you to share games from your account library with family members and vice versa. Before you get started, every account that wants to use family sharing must first have Steam Guard enabled, which is Steam’s two-factor verification security feature.
Once you’ve met that prerequisite, click on Steam > Settings, and when the Settings window opens select Family from the left-hand navigation column. Under the sub-heading Family Library Sharing click the box next to Authorize Library Sharing on this computer.
If there are any other local Steam accounts on that computer, you’ll be able to authorize those users to play the games in your library. You can also send a request to other local players to have access to their libraries.
For those of you without other local accounts on your PC, try it with friends. When someone you want to share with comes over, log out of Steam and have them log in. They can then enable sharing on your PC and authorize your account to play their games.
While games can be shared, progress, achievements, and in-game purchases (excluding DLC) cannot. Any in-game activities are saved to the account playing the game, not the game owner’s account.
Steam limits users to share their libraries with up to five others and on a maximum of 10 devices at one time. Family sharing cannot be used to allow access to specific games—it’s the entire library or nothing.
Other people can only play your games when you aren’t using them. If you start to play one of your shared games at the same time as someone else, the other person will be given a few moments to save their progress and get out or to buy the game themselves.
Not all games are available for sharing due to technical limitations, regional restrictions, subscription requirements, and the like. Also keep in mind that you don’t want to share you library with anyone who’s got a fishy reputation. Valve is merciless when it comes to cheats. If someone uses your account to cheat at a game protected by the Valve Anti-Cheat system, and gets caught, your Family Library Sharing privileges could be revoked and you might get banned from playing that game altogether.
Even with all the caveats, Steam’s Family Sharing is a great way to expand your library without tapping your bank account.
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If you let someone use your computer, they could gain access to your saved passwords, read your email, access all your files, and more. Instead of looking over their shoulder, just use your operating system’s guest account feature.
Guest accounts are found on all desktop operating systems—from Windows and Mac to Ubuntu, Chrome OS, and other Linux distributions. The Guest account isn’t enabled by default on Windows, so you have to go out of your way to use it.
Why You Should Use Guest Accounts
RELATED:Why Every User On Your Computer Should Have Their Own User Account
We’ve covered why it’s a good idea to use separate Windows user accounts, and using a guest account is ideal for the same reason. There’s no need to create a dedicated user account for temporary guest users. The built-in guest account gives your friend limited access, allowing you to leave them alone with your computer and let them browse the web without giving them access to all your passwords, private documents, email, social media accounts, browser history, and everything else you do on your computer.
Guest accounts aren’t able to install software, configure hardware devices, change system settings, or even create a password that applies to the guest account. Guest accounts can shut down your computer—that’s about as much harm as they can do.
The guest account allows users to browse the web and use typical applications, so it’s a great way to give someone else access to your computer without feeling compelled to look over their shoulder. Even someone you trust may not access your personal data maliciously—they may open your browser, head to Gmail to check their email, and see your inbox if you’re already logged in. They’d then have to log out and log into their account, and you’d have to log back into your accounts when they’re done. Avoid this headache by using the guest account instead.
Enabling the Guest Account in Windows
Enabling the guest account is different for Windows 7 and 8 than it is for Windows 10. In Windows 7 and 8, you can enable the guest account pretty easily. From the desktop, click the Start menu and start typing “user accounts.” Click on “User Accounts” in the search results. From this menu window, click “Manage another account.”
Click “Guest.” If the guest account feature is disabled, click “Turn On.”
RELATED:How to Create a Guest Account in Windows 10
Windows 10, unfortunately, hides this feature a bit…partly because Microsoft would like you to exercise a bit of data security, and partly because they’d like everyone to use official Microsoft user accounts. Enabling the guest (or “Visitor” account) requires Administrator access and a bit of command-line legwork, but it’s all explained in this guide.
Once you’ve enabled the guest account, it will be appear as a separate user account in the bottom left corner of your login screen. Anyone can log in as the guest account after booting your computer or accessing it when it’s locked.
You can log out of your current user account or use the Switch User feature to stay logged in, keeping your programs open and your account locked while allowing the guest to use your PC.
Once they’re done, they can log out of the guest account. Note that their browsing history, logged-in websites, and any other files or data they left lying around will remain accessible to future users of your guest account. Guest users should log out of any websites they accessed or just use a browser’s private browsing feature inside the guest account.
Is Giving Your Friend Your Login To Download Game Illegal Phone
If you’re worried about what files the guest user can access, feel free to log in as the guest user and poke around. By default, files shouldn’t be accessible as long as they’re stored in folders under your user folder at C:UsersNAME, but files stored in other locations like a D: partition may be accessible. You can lock down any folders you don’t want guests to have access to with the security properties dialog.
If you like, you can also rename your Windows guest account.
Enabling the Guest Account in macOS
On a Mac, you can log in as the guest user by selecting the Guest User account on the login screen. If this option isn’t available, you’ll have to enable it.
From the desktop, click the System Preferences icon in the dock (the one with the gear.) Click “Users & Groups.”
Click the lock icon in the lower-left corner, then enter your administrator password to access advanced functions.
Click “Guest User,” then click the check box next to “Allow guests to log in to this computer.” Don’t click “Allow guest users to connect to shared folders,” unless you want to give them access to your personal files.
Log out. You’ll now have a guest user account accessible without a password. Once your guest logs out, all their data will be erased (unlike Windows).
Using the Guest Account on Ubuntu
On Ubuntu, the guest account is enabled out of the box. You can select the Guest user on the login screen to log in as the guest account. Like macOS, all their data will be wiped when they finish and log out of the guest account.
Using the Guest Account on a Chromebook
RELATED:How a Chromebook is Locked Down to Protect You
Google’s Chromebooks also offer a guest mode. Like macOS and Linux, all guest user data will be automatically wiped when the guest user logs out.
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