Idle Master or ArchiSteamFarm ?
IdleMaster is straightforward and easy to use, very user-friendly, and is best for people with a single account who don't mind idling with client open (ie, a "normal" Steam user). ASF is less user-friendly, but lets you idle without client open, lets you idle multiple accounts, and lets you do Steam API commands through it. Thus, if your usage of Steam is more complex, you may prefer ASF. ASF also has much more visible support in place, though it also has a rather unpleasant community to deal with, so interactions on it can go either way.
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So, i just want some cards and i have only one account.
I think Idle master is the best for my use,
thanks for explain ^^
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The only thing "Why people can get banned with Idlemaster is "
If they play on Vac server+ running Idlemaster .
And the Steam card glitch works better with Idlemaster .
But i use ASF on my own because of the variety of commands .
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im not that active on vac games but a friend of mine that showed me Idle master got banned but that is perhaps 2,5years ago
so things can change öÖ he did a new steam acc because of that anyway but he uses Origin and Ubisoft instead of steam now
btw thanks for cleansing me :D
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Read the answers below, if you're using Idlers and play vac server, you'll have the "Vac auth error" and steam no longer allow you to play on vac servers, I experienced that as I said above, I was so scared that I reinstalled my windows xD (I thought it was because of a virus or something) but you only need to close it and restart your pc.
Other software can do the same thing, like Ccleaner for example, Steam do and know the difference between a third part program running while you're playing and cheat engine, but to prevent any dirty stuff you can't play anymore on vac server.
I'm not saying the vac system is infallible, there is always false positive but it is much better than people usually think. You don't get random ban for nothing.
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After 3 years I don't have ban, and I even played Vac game (cs:go) with IM running a couple times. Still no ban...
So why are you spreading fake info? Do you even used it so you can know what you're talking about?
Lugum
ASF Fanboys incoming.
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I go to work leaving IM idling. Did that for a good few years. No ban whatsoever.
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That's totally incorrect. xD
Vac-protected servers don't even allow you to play anymore if you've used card farming programs previously, so you merely need to restart your pc if you've farmed cards before, but you won't get a ban.
What steam card glitch? Where you can just change games rapidly and get their cards fast?! It's on idlemaster too.
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I have both programs installed, last few months i used ASF.
Week ago i returned to idlemaster (used it for years before) - its fast, easy to config and easy to use. But i have only one account.
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ASF. IM is good if you want something super easy to install/setup or to abuse the Steam glitch that drops card quickly - for anything else, use ASF.
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To use car metaphors, ASF has a couple dozen cup-holders, but it's hard to get the engine started.
Most of us don't need more than the basic selection of cup-holders, and prefer something that's simple to use over something with add-ons we'll likely not have need of. In short, if none of the features ASF provides seem overly important to you, than there's no reason to use ASF over IM, anymore than getting a car with extra cupholders is going to be necessary if you're the only one driving and don't have a strange beverage fixation.
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I don't do anything else than drop card.
So i think Idle Master is the best for me, Thanks for explain ^^
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asf is better imo. it doesn't need to have steam client running, good to be run on vps, it have options to be connected to remotely, it runs on Linux
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If you have only one account, are only interested in farming cards and want something quick and easy to setup then Idle Master. If you want more features and what not then ASF.
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There's sort of a complexity to the comparison that shades interpretations. I've come to look at the question of IdleMaster or ASF as---excusing the rough analogy---a digital watch versus a smartphone. Those two both tell time, with the watch being simpler by far and arguably better at that one isolated function, but the phone does so many other things too that its hard to just talk about that basic purpose "okay, I just want to just look down and see the freaking time."
Honestly, the card farming is tertiary for me at this point. ASF is this whole other technology entirely that I'd still keep running without any card farming capabilities, thanks to the ability to:
- redeem keys (particularly many at a time)
- tell me the name/appID of keys that I redeem or already own
- quickly add free licences
- generate SteamAuth codes
- send cards on my other accounts to my main
- automatically manage and confirm certain trades
- do it all on one thousand accounts as easy as on one
And, again, that's totally absent the card farming attributes. I'm sure others will elaborate the dozen other things it can do when it comes to how you farm cards that above and beyond IdleMasters simple capability to farm cards along the lines of just wanting to know the time.
I do want to specify that the workings of ASF are so outside of my sphere of knowledge that it's been like learning another language this year or two since I started using it and moved from the simplest usage to implementing all the features it has to offer. However, largely in thanks to the very helpful guides and programs like ASFui which dumb it down enough for usage without running steamchat/remembering inputs/risk of getting them wrong/etc, ASF has become an essential component for managing my library and impossible to imagine leaving behind.
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For one account IM is easier to use, but if you have more than one account or need any of the extra functionalities ASF is great.
I bassicaly control most thing on my two alts via ASF and have an IM install for my main that I never use (cos I don't like idling my main, the program works fine).
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ASF: good program, lot of useful features and pretty compact. Only one trouble on first start - reading faq for setup config.
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And here I stand feeling like I'm from another world, wondering why people get so many games if they're going to have a computer play them...
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Cards generally depreciate over time, sometimes to significant degrees, so often it's not a question of not playing games, but of expecting to not play them soon enough (to not take a sizable loss in potential wallet funds). Likewise, I think some people view cards from unwanted games in a bundle as a way of getting a partial refund of that bundle's purchase price, and thus activate them with that in mind. As such, the intent there never was to play the games, but the individuals didn't go out of their way to get the games, either; they simply went with what seemed expedient after a purchase they were going to make anyway.
Of course, plenty of people purchase bundles solely to farm them, in pursuit of a profit or, at least, of enough of a discount that they can feel satisfied spending a few cents just to increase their library size and Steam xp. Similarly, in that vein, others view Steam itself as the game, or don't think past basic desires of obtainment, and thus don't put much consideration into the games they obtain past "want" and "want more".
Finally, there are enough free-key promotions out there that anyone with any inclination toward it can get games solely for the purpose of farming them for wallet funds for games they actually do want- and while sites like Humble offer quality games, sites like IndieGala.. well, those freebies are best left to the attentions of idling software.
There's a wide range of potential considerations involved, and several of those considerations are based in sensible perspectives.
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That makes total sense, thanks for this elaborate answer.
I would give it a gold star if we were on Reddit, but accept my whitelist as a meager replacement :).
I personally don't want to clutter my inventory with games that I don't plan on playing, but I can definitely see an advantage to using up the trading cards of games I haven't played yet.
I didn't know that they depreciated with time, I've just had all of mine just sitting in my inventory, telling myself that maybe one day (aka probably never) I'll find friends with whom trade them to get a few badges...
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I use ASF for alt accounts, and SingleBoostr for main.
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It depends what you expect from idling program. I created ASF because IM didn't offer features that were crucial for me. First and foremost working on Linux, and secondly working without Steam opened or even installed, since I wanted to idle 24/7 on my Linux server. That was the foundation back in 2015 when ASF V0.1 was released, today it goes far beyond that.
You might want to check idle master comparison in ASF FAQ, especially the first point. To me the fact that IM constantly breaks for hundreds of people and requires clearing of AppData every once in a while is absolutely unacceptable, but for other person absolutely unacceptable might be the fact that ASF comes without a GUI, so it comes down to "it depends".
I definitely wouldn't agree with majority of people above that say "use IM if you have a single account" - this is not true at all, ASF offers a crapload of features and today the focus is actually shifted more towards primary than alt accounts. For example the sole fact that you can idle offline or tell ASF to not idle your refundable games bought in Steam store is an example of two awesome features that ASF offers that IM does not, but even if you said that you don't need any of that and you want plain good old idle of everything under no extra conditions, then ASF still offers better compatibility, support, is updated all the time with monthly stable releases and up-to-date with Steam changes, for example with recent change that requires from you to idle all games to 3 hours, and not 2 like it was in the past with IM (which still didn't get updated regarding this). This is on top of the fact that you don't have any VAC issues with it, while IM is confirmed to cause VAC issues, officially by Steam.
It's still up to you, but Idle Master wasn't updated since October 2015, with only one important hotfix applied back in January 2017, because it broke for good back then. 3 years without any real development is enough reason for me to not use something, regardless what it is, but there are also people that will claim that it "still works" regardless of all the issues mentioned above, so there is that. To me something that breaks on usual basis isn't "working", but maybe you have different opinion.
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Thank you for the reply, and for all other people who replied to my question.
I already download all the .rar stuff for both system and only install IM for now but with your comparaison, i'm gonna take more time to install ASF and see from my point of view, what is the best for my use.
^^
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the only thing that made me not using IM is because one of my friend use it, and when he use it his status us updated every 2 seconds because he change the game that often, and the pop-up is very annoying. he said it makes the card drop faster
that made me have to turn off my chat, and because of that I can't use chat to communicate with my friend who I played with
no to mention I use ASF with 2fa enabled, thus I can't send command to my bot to confirm trade, and my phone is not rooted so ASF is my only 2fa authenticator
summary, if You use IM like what my retarded friend did, I'd rather You to use ASF
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depends, but there is
https://github.com/Ezzpify/HourBoostr too
if you havent you should have a look at it
I use it and ASF. yeah. my 2¢
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in Idle master have a way to farm all card games in same time, can have some trouble if use this ? comom i farm one by one.
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You mean farm 30 games (iirc) at same time up to 2h then 1 by 1? For a long time I used 1 by 1 only, then I didn't farm my cards for maybe 1 year so when I started again I had too many cards to drop (about 1,3k) so I used the simultaneous option, I got no problem till now.
Don't play vac games while you're idling and you're fine.
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oh really thank you!, i have 490 cards to drop, i was scary use to farm at same time. I always farm 1 by 1, but now ill start ^^
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Which one is the best ?
And can you explain why if you have some time ?
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