I created an application that automatically idles your Steam games to extract all of your available Steam Trading Cards. The application automatically finds the games you have drops remaining in, and idles those games one by one until all of your trading cards are in your inventory. This way, you can start up the program and go to sleep / work / away and come back to an inventory full of cards.

Website
Source Code
Official Group

Installation Instructions

Go to the Official Site, download and run the setup.exe file there. The program should launch automatically when the installation is complete. Make sure Steam is open and you're logged in. To start idling, you'll need to click the (Sign In) button and sign in to Steam. Once that's done you should be "in-game" on Steam and the program will indicate as such. Now go watch TV, go to bed, or go on vacation. When you come back to your computer, you should have a pile of Trading Cards in your inventory.

Some FAQ

How does this work?

First of all, the program will determine which of your games still have card drops remaining. It will go through each application and simulate you being “in-game” so that cards will drop. It will check periodically to see if the game you’re idling has card drops remaining. When only one drop remains, it will start checking more frequently. When the game you’re idling has no more cards, it’ll move on to the next game. When no more cards are available, the program will exit.

Do I need to download a game in order for this program to get it's trading cards?

No.

Do I need to be logged in to Steam for Idle Master to work?

Yes, Steam needs to be running and you must be logged in.

Can I play a game while this is running?

It’s possible, but doing so may significantly reduce your card drop rate. For best results, exit this program before playing a game.

How do I close the application?

Simply click the red X on the application.

Is this safe?

Presumably so, yes. The program that simulates you being in-game is no different than other popular methods like using Steam Achievement Manager or "the AppID trick".

Why do I need to sign in to Steam from the application?

When you visit your badges page on Steam, it will show you how many card drops you have remaining in each game. When another user looks at your badges page, they can only see the badges you've completed. By signing in, this allows Idle Master to connect to Steam properly and gives it access to this information that only you can see.

Why should I trust this?

The entire project is open source, which includes the source code for all binaries.

Troubleshooting

Idle Master looks like it's working, but I'm not getting any Steam Trading Cards.

First of all, be patient. Idle Master doesn't make them drop any faster than they normally would if you were playing the game, and each game has a different drop rate. Another thing to check is that your Steam profile correctly shows that you're "In-Game". If Steam doesn't think you're "In-Game", it means something is wrong with your configuration.

10 years ago*

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There's a thread for this? You're the creator?? Woop! I can now finally thank you for all the time you saved me.
Thank you! The app is amazing, and incredibly useful. :D

8 years ago
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Hmm.. was using this for the last few days, and it's amazing! It runs one game at a time, checks as it's supposed to, moves on to the next game etc. All works perfectly. However, today I start it up and instead of running one game, it's running 19 games at the same time! What happened? Any advice how I can get it back to normal?

8 years ago
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That is normal. You can change it in the settings to run all games for 2 hrs (cards only drop after 2hrs) then one at a time or just one only.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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No it's fine. There is a max of 30 or so. After 2 hrs it will run them one at a time. You can change it if you are worried.

8 years ago
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Is there any advantage to running several at once?
I heard that the card drop rate is decreased with more than one game open in Steam - but not sure if that is still effective when Idle Master doesn't actually launch the games in steam.

8 years ago
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It only runs multiple games for the first 2hrs. Since cards only drop after 2hrs of game play it will not slow it down.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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They actually do not drop after 2 hours for everyone.
People that never requested a refund will see their cards drop before the 2 hours mark as well.
Basically if you never requested a refund you lose 2 hours if you set IM to "Idle all together for 2 hours, then one by one".
Not a big deal anyway, I guess, but whatever, this can still be helpful.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Only for some games. Most still take 2hrs, refunds or not.

8 years ago
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Ah, that makes much more sense, yes. Thanks for clearing that up :-)

8 years ago
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I used to set a blacklist for games I really wanted to play, but turn I realized it's stupid.
I mean, unlocking all the cards also unlocks the random booster packs chance, why should I do otherwise? XD

8 years ago
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Didn't notice. :O
Recently all of my games started dropping cards regularly, before the 2hours mark. O_o
It must have been a coincidence, I guess now!

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Best guess is that it runs the ones that are close to spitting out cards first and then after does the multi-game idle.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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I wish there was Idle Master or such for Mac.

8 years ago
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There is a release of Idle Master for Mac (and also for Linux). ;)

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Really, I couldn't find one.

8 years ago
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You have to download the code from this link: https://github.com/jshackles/idle_master_py

I'm running it with Linux, but I think that with Mac is similar. When you are in the main directory of Idle Master, go to Releases > OS X, you have to modify the setting.txt file. Under Documentation you can find the instructions.

After this, you have to run Idle Master using a terminal. On Linux I have to type python2 <path>/Releases/OS X/start.py : probably it's the same with Mac.

8 years ago
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I don't know if I have python install, I think yes. But it's a shame there's no interface.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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I don't see how there is a Mac version. Idle Master too has source code, unfortunately it requires you to know how to code, compile etc...which I'm nowhere near to know how to do.

8 years ago
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Then perhaps you need to read again, because it's very well explained in the wiki how to run ASF on OS X.

8 years ago
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Even with Idle Master, I've been falling behind ever since Steam added the two hour requirement.
"185 games left to idle". Sheesh. ...maybe I should leave it running overnight.

8 years ago
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1 or 2 times in a day idlemaster is logging off automaticly
the question is way is it doing that?
its idling, 2 hours later is it not longer connected with steam
do i have wrong settings or whats the problem
is there a fix somewhere? have other peoples the same problem?

thx for help

8 years ago
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If you log in with the same account on a browser or another computer, the other connection will log out.

8 years ago
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no other log in`s
just the steamclient and idlemaster are on
its idling, i go outside, i comeback and idlemaster is logged off
i dont know why
havent the smartphone app or somehting like that
just from alone its logging off

8 years ago
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Strange. It should log off from time to time now, but not that frequently.

8 years ago
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Rest in peace.

8 years ago
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Out of curiosity, does one still get the drop cards during free weekend for a specific Steam game?
Provided Steam still runs those campaigns

8 years ago
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Thank you for idle master

8 years ago
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hey, first of all thanks for this. its awesome :)

one question: can i idle my games simultaneously? or do i have to idle a single game by a time?

8 years ago
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It will idle a batch of games that haven't passed the first 2 hours mark at the same time (each game needs to pass 2 hours of playtime before it starts the drop process).. by batches of 25 games if I remember right. Then it will idle games 1 by 1 to get the card drops. Idling more than 1 game to drop cards doesn't make them drop faster, actually it's the contrary, it stacks the drop rate of the multiple games and make them drop really slow if you do that.

8 years ago
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You can idle 30 games simultaneously up to the 2hr mark. :p

8 years ago
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not all games have the 2 hrs mark anymore

8 years ago
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Mmh any source to corroborate that statement? Because that's been imposed by Steam since refunds are available.

8 years ago
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no but you can try it by yourself some games need only ~1h for all cards

8 years ago
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thanks :)

can i play games while its idling? or would it slow down the drop again?

8 years ago
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It will slow down the drop rate even if the game you play doesn't have card drops.

8 years ago
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and you should end idle master if you want play a game with VAC servers only for safety

8 years ago
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I've been running it all the time when playing Dota 2. No issue at all.

8 years ago
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nice to know. but is the droprate slower compared to drop rate without playing? can you confirm this?

8 years ago
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if you play a game and idle another it'll make the drop rate... really slow, almost to the point of not getting any at all..

8 years ago
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R.I.P Idlemaster

8 years ago
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?

8 years ago
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from what I've seen today, it no longer seems to be dropping cards

8 years ago
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I'm using an older version, it's working just fine. Just takes longer.

8 years ago
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I'm using v1.4.0.0 right now. No issues here, it's working as usual.

8 years ago
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might try it again now, it was idling the same game for 3/4 hours with no drops

8 years ago
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i started with this program today, 10 hours idled (2 hours i playd another game meanwhile) and i got 10 cards. i think its okay

8 years ago
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Idling complete. Started around the beginning of December.

1393 hours, 26 minutes
1601 cards idled. (probably more, I have noticed it doesnt count some)
1019 games eligible for booster packs - maybe 400 - 500 games idled.

8 years ago
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lol xD

8 years ago
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View attached image.
8 years ago
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I don't think the idling will ever stop for me :( lol

http://prnt.sc/agce3c

8 years ago
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Still working just fine for me.

Although, I left it for half an hour, with no cards in my inventory. but when I returned, I had 30 cards in my inventory from 30 different games. So somehow it dropped one for all of them at the same time.

In total, I believe I've idled over 1000 games with it in the last few months. 70 to go now, although that number sometimes climbs too.

8 years ago
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it's not working properly for me. I don't know why. games don't change when they drop their cards so I have some games with over 15 hours logged that I wouldn't even play 20 minutes otherwise lol.

8 years ago
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Will I get a virus? I read the FAQ but I'm just curious cause I just bought a new pc ;_;

8 years ago
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Hi :) At first I have to say thank you for this nice app , but there's a problem with the badge page in steam in my country [ its been filtered -_- ] , I just wanted to know if there is any way to change the steam badge page link from HTTP to HTTPS ?!

8 years ago
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project has been shut down since months, it still works for some (perfectly for me) but not for others, use archi steam farming bot instead, a little advance to use but great farming bot once you get use to it, im running it without problems on my vps + the dev reply fast.

http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/gCxhN/archis-steam-farm-asf-idle-master-alternative-windowslinuxos-x

Alternatively you can get its source code from github, make some changes and compile yourself?

8 years ago*
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Thx for the reply , have u used ASF urself ?
just wanna make sure its safe like idle master

8 years ago
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its perfectly safe and many users use it

8 years ago
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Thx <3

8 years ago
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Running on my server without any problems, just use it with default settings

8 years ago
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Is IdleMaster dead?(

8 years ago*
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It's no longer being updated, so you use it at your own risk. It works, but if something stops working, no one is going to fix it.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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yeah thanks, I've been using ASF since I wrote this comment.

8 years ago
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Not sure if anyone has had this luck today but i just got 68 cards in the past 4 hours using idlemaster letting it idle all games in my account at once,it was only supposed to do it for 2 hours then switch to single games to get the card drops, the only thing i can think of is its steams new inventory software they rolled out yesterday not limiting the card drops to single games currently.

EDIT: i should also mention if you already have two hours on the games and it wont idle them all at once then that old trick is working again where you can let a game run for 5-10 sec and switch to the next one and get another drop.

7 years ago*
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Well I don't know if it's luck... You can Idle all games up to 0,5 hours, and just go and skip all games, you get drops. :)

7 years ago
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I can confirm the 5-10s trick seems to work, nice catch!

7 years ago
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Well I don't normaly wait for 5-10 secs, just instantly switch to other game and I get the drop.

7 years ago
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You're right, instant switching is giving drops. Nice. Any idea what's causing this?

7 years ago
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i just found another trick that worked for me when first idling a new batch i got all my cards from all my games in just a few minutes this time,started to idle 10 games for the two hours but had an update to install so had to restart my system after i did i had 10 cards in my inventory so got me thinking lol, apparently every time i close idle master and restart it i get one card per game running i did this about 7 times in a row only waiting a few second between each restart and got all my cards.

7 years ago
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Is this still working? Have like 300 Cards to idle and ASF will take a week or so :o

7 years ago
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its temperamental but yea its still dropping cards faster then it should sometimes i have to restart the program for it to start dropping again.

7 years ago
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Okay thanks, im going to test that later, will safe me alot of time :D

View attached image.
7 years ago
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Anyone getting Badge Page Didn't Load Will Retry in X Seconds Error since yesterday ?
It was working perfectly fine until yesterday but now it just doesnt work anymore ...

And dont tell me to use ASF , Thanks ....

7 years ago
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Have this error on my wife's steam acc, no prob on mine...(

7 years ago
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Does she have.... Many games to idle ?

7 years ago
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Not as many as myself of course, cause she doesn't participate at setamgifts))

7 years ago
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Its not that then ... no clue what went wrong :|

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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That sux .... :|

And now that the guy who made it is not working on it i doubt it will get fixed either :c

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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I cant idle specific games with ASF .

7 years ago
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You can.

7 years ago
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how ?

7 years ago
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!play {appid}

7 years ago
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i cant type anything in the window ...

7 years ago
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m3h duno its nuclear science for me ... i barely made it work for my brothers account i dont want to re setup it ...

I just asked if idle master is broken or something and specifically asked to not redirect me to that thing ...

7 years ago
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You said you couldn't idle specific games. I corrected you. Then you asked how. So I linked you.

7 years ago
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Okay okay thanks .

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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No issue here, 22 games left to idle and 24 pages worth of badges.

Sometimes it's just Steam being difficult and not serving the badge page correctly. Best thing to do is to retry after a while.

7 years ago
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i have the same issue since today. yesterday it worked fine.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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thanks for sharing, yes, it works now)

7 years ago
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Ohh thanks for this! I really didnt want to use ASF with my main account. Its fine with alts, but Im not really trusting it with my main. Finally I can use idle master again! :)

7 years ago
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So you don't trust the open source ASF, but you trust a random zip file uploaded to google drive by "someone"?

I find this very confusing.

7 years ago
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Idle master is open sourced too you know that right?

and yeah, Idle master doesnt store your pw and login in anyway, but ASF do. that, and some strange makes it more reliable for me than ASF

7 years ago
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Yeah, Idle Master is, but a random zip file on google drive? Someone could put anything in that and say it's an Idle Master update.

7 years ago
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You can like ... scan the thing b4 opening it like every sane person does ?

7 years ago
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Your logic fails entirely here. If somebody wanted go put malware in that custom IM zip then you'd already lose steam account.

IM stores entire cookie allowing attacker accessing everything with no problems, ASF uses encrypted login keys. Only because you do not see this does not mean that it's not there.

7 years ago
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Hmm that make sense. I didnt want to offend you in anyway. Its just the IM uses the Steam login for auth which seems safer for me.

So I still didnt want to offend you, I admire your work, and its much easier for me with your program. I use it everyday, its just the pw and login easily acessible which bothers me.

Since you going to read this anyway, I want to tell you Im sad you changed the steam guard method, and I cant use ASF directly, just with the import. That basicly kills the meaning of using ASF as guard if I have to put it on my phone anyway.

To sum up.: Im sorry if I offended you in anyway, I love your work, and really thankful for it

7 years ago
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You didn't offend me, everybody can use whatever software he wants, or noone at all, as it's also not my objective to make one solution for everybody. ASF and IM target entirely different groups of people, and while ASF wins in terms of functionality, security and development, it's still not for everybody. I just adressed your statement - IM is not more secure than ASF, even much less secure if you carefully examine what credentials are used and kept for both ASF and IM.

That basicly kills the meaning of using ASF as guard if I have to put it on my phone anyway.

ASF was never supposed to be general-purpose steam authenticator.

7 years ago
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YES! I too have this problem. I hope we don't get ban for using this software now...

PS: I cannot load the steam badge page too...

7 years ago*
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7 years ago
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thanks, can you access your inventory? because I can't for some reasons

7 years ago*
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me

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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It works again, thank you for your heads up Sa6peto! :3

7 years ago
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Python version still running strong on Linux - the code involved in the issue is not even there. :)

7 years ago
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I have a bit similar problem, but not exactly the same one. I tried to sign in with idlemaster just now, but while it was loading badges, it signed out and wanted me to sign in again. o.O Kept trying, kept failing. :(

7 years ago
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what time need to drop cards?

was before 2hrs for first card and every 0.5 hr for next card

last games i idle was 6.4 and 8.8 hrs to get 3 cards from every of this games

7 years ago
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It usually depends on the game.

7 years ago
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i never idle so long before

almost 9 hrs to get 3 cards, its insane

7 years ago
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depends on game. i had one game running on asf for 17 hours straight to get 4 drops or you can get all drops in less than 30 minutes

7 years ago
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depends if you asked a refund recently or not

7 years ago
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Nah this theory already got debunked.

7 years ago
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If you really want some fast drops and have say 10 games to idle or more you can set idlemaster to run games single and then the games under 2 hours. Then open steam behind it so you can the inventory count. Once idlemaster loads skip your first three games and then skip a game each time your notifications change in numbers. I got about 130 drops in about 5 minutes. Just remember to logout of steam and log back in our it will think you are still running a game after you exit idlemaster

7 years ago
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ASF is much better in my experience

7 years ago
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the good thing in idlemaster is that you can play anygame you want while idling.And the cards still drop, i use them both though

7 years ago
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Just wanted to know if this is still something that can be used. If yes, are the links in the original post most updated for the tool or have to dig through comments in the past?

Help is appreciated. Thanks

7 years ago
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You can join the official steam group for it and find an updated version of it. The original dev has long since quit due to steam's idiotic changes in regards to forcing a mobile authenticator on us.

I'm using version 1.4 by Nightgrinder, but there might be more up-to-date versions than that, I'm not sure.

7 years ago
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After a hiatus a new version was uploaded 2 months or so? It still works fine.

7 years ago
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It still works just fine. I keep using it the last few days.

7 years ago
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It's a nice program.
Switched to Archi's Steam Farm a while back though.

A bit more complicated but it supports multiple accounts and updates itself.

7 years ago
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