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Achievement Unlocked: You Should Be Using These 7 Steam Tips and Tricks

Whether you’re new to PC gaming or a seasoned pro, these tricks can level up your gaming experience.

Steam is a popular gaming platform that has about 120 million active monthly users, according to Finances Online. Steam lets you play PC games alone or with friends, and it’s compatible with third-party controllers. Plus, there are always sales on games, so you never run out of something fun to play.

If you know where to look, the service has more to offer than a massive selection of games and bundle deals. Here are a few tips and tricks every Steam user should know to get the most out of the platform. 

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Share your library with friends 

If you have a massive gaming library through Steam, it’s possible to share with friends and family. You can select up to five users who can access and use your library across 10 devices that you’ve authorized. 

Open the Steam app and click Steam in the top left corner of the screen. Select Settings (Windows) or Preferences (Mac) and choose Family in the side menu. Click the box that says Authorize Library Sharing on this computer.

You can also revoke access by clicking your username in the upper right corner of the Steam app and choosing Account Details in the drop-down menu. From there, scroll down to Family Settings and click Manage Family Library Sharing. Under Sharing Status, click Revoke on any devices or accounts you no longer wish to have access.

Turn on Steam Guard and two-factor authentication

steam-2steam-2

Steam Guard can add an extra layer of security to your account.

Steam/Screenshot by Shelby Brown/CNET

Steam Guard can serve as a useful tool to provide an additional level of security against unauthorized access. To set it up on the desktop app or browser, click your username in the top right corner. Click Account Details in the drop-down menu and choose Manage Steam Guard under Account Security. 

When Steam Guard is enabled, you can have codes sent to your phone or email, as well as deauthorize other computers or devices other than the one you’re currently using that might have saved your login information. Steam recommends sending Guard Codes to your phone to also serve as two-factor authentication.

Set up Family View

Family View can serve as a useful tool for adults who share an account with younger users. The feature lets families customize which parts of Steam are accessible to other users. To get started, log into the Steam account that your child will use, click the Steam menu in the top left corner and choose Settings (Preferences on Mac). Choose the Family tab and click Manage Family View. 

  • Choose what the protected account can access in Family View like Only Games I Choose or All Games, as well as online content and social features. Once you’re satisfied with your choices, click Next.
  • If you selected Only Games I Choose, Steam will generate a list of all your games and you can individually click which games you want PIN-protected. 
  • Click Next, verify your recovery email address and click Next again. 
  • Create, enter and re-enter your PIN and click Next. Steam will send a verification code to your recovery email, enter that code when prompted and click Next to finalize the process. 

To turn off Family View, return to Manage Family View and click Disable Family View.

How to use Remote Play Together

Steam Remote Play set upSteam Remote Play set up

If you set up Remote Play Together, this is what it’ll look like. 

Screenshot by Shelby Brown/CNET

Steam’s Remote Play feature lets you play local multiplayer games with friends and family. One player owns and runs the game, and up to four players can join in. To find a list of compatible Remote Play games, open the Steam app, click Categories and choose Remote Play under Special Sections.

To start a session, launch your game, make sure your friends are logged in to Steam from their devices and open Steam Overlay in-game. Find your friends list and right-click the names of the people you want to play with, then click Remote Play Together. You can start playing after all your invitees have accepted. 

How to make a Library Collection

Creating a new collection in SteamCreating a new collection in Steam

Steam collections can help organize your library. 

Screenshot by Shelby Brown/CNET

Steam keeps your games in alphabetical order on the left-hand side of the screen, but if you’ve got a massive library or want even more organization, you can create a Collection. In the Steam app, click Library and choose Collections. Name your collection and choose Create Collection. From there, just drag and drop any games you want to include. The collection will save automatically. Those games will be organized under the name of your collection in the left-hand side menu instead of the larger alphabetical list. 

You can also choose Dynamic Collection by following the same steps. Dynamic Collections use filters to create collections that continuously update as you add more games to our library.  

Add and play non-Steam games

You can play games that aren’t native to Steam on the platform pretty easily. To add a non-Steam game to your library, open the Steam app and click Add Game in the lower left corner of the screen. From there, click Add a Non-Steam Game

Adding a non-steam gameAdding a non-steam game

Since I added Myst as a non-Steam game, there’s no information on its main page. 

Screenshot by Shelby Brown/CNET

Steam will open a window that lists all the games found on your device. Check the box next to the game you want to add and click Add Selected Programs. If you don’t see the game you want, click Browse and Steam will expand your search results. Find the program you want and click Open. Make sure the program or game is checked in the Add a Game window and click Add Selected Programs. 

You should then be able to see the game or program you added in your alphabetical library list on the left side of the screen. When you click the game, the page will likely have little to no information since it’s not native to steam. 

Customize bandwidth 

Adjust the bandwidth on Steam.Adjust the bandwidth on Steam.

You can adjust the bandwidth to make Steam work faster or slower.

Screenshot by Shelby Brown/CNET

Because Steam uses the internet to download games, getting your gameplay going can take little to no time. But if your internet connection is slow, Steam downloading a game likely won’t leave any download speed for anything else. So, if you want to multitask during a download, you can limit Steam’s download speed.

Click Steam in the top left corner of the app and choose Settings (Preferences on Mac). Click Downloads and then check the box next to Limit Bandwidth To. From there, you can type in your preferred download speed and click OK. You can adjust or remove the limits at any time. 

For more information, check out CNET’s review of the Steam Deck and how to install Steam on a Chromebook

Technologies

Bill Gates Has Published the Original Microsoft Source Code

It’s «the coolest code I’ve ever written,» the Microsoft co-founder says.

If you want to see the original source code that started Microsoft, Bill Gates is now sharing it. On Wednesday, the Microsoft co-founder posted it on his Gates Notes blog, reminiscing about the company’s early days for its 50th anniversary. Gates has written plenty of code in those five decades but he called this «the coolest code I’ve ever written.» 

Sharing a photo of himself holding a huge pile of paper showing the code, Gates wrote that he was inspired by the January 1975 copy of Popular Electronics magazine. The magazine had featured a cover photo of an Altair 8800, a groundbreaking personal computer created by a small company called MITS.

The 19-year-old Gates and his Harvard pal Paul Allen reached out to Altair’s creators and told them they had a version of the programming language BASIC for the chip that the Altair 8800 ran on. Such software would let people program the Altair.

«There was just one problem,» Gates wrote. «We didn’t.»

Micro-Soft is born

Gates said he and friends «coded day and night for two months to create the software we said already existed.» Gates and Allen then presented the code to the president of MITS, who agreed to license the software. «Altair BASIC became the first product of our new company, which we decided to call Micro-Soft,» Gates wrote. «We later dropped the hyphen.»

And the rest, as they say, is software history. You can download that 50-year-old code from Gates’s post. «Computer programming has come a long way over the last 50 years, but I’m still super proud of how it turned out,» he wrote.

Read more: Best 16 Xbox Games Right Now

Melinda Gates: new book

Also making headlines this week was Gates’s former wife, Melinda French Gates, whose new book, The Next Day, comes out April 15. As that date approaches, she’s opening up about the end of her marriage to Gates.

The couple divorced in 2021 after 27 years and three children. According to People magazine, Melinda French Gates wrote in the book that in 2019 she was «having nightmares about a beautiful house collapsing all around her — and then waking up in a panic night after night.»

She acknowledged what Bill Gates has publicly stated — that he wasn’t always faithful in the marriage — and said she was also disturbed by Gates’s meetings with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Gates has since said he regrets meeting Epstein.

Melinda French Gates said her bad dreams would eventually change into images of her family on the edge of a cliff where she «plummeted» into a void. «I knew, in that moment, that I was going to have to make a decision — and that I was going to have to make it by myself,» she wrote, according to the People article.

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Technologies

The Zelle App Has Shut Down. Here’s How You Can Still Send Money Digitally

The digital payment service has killed its free app, but many banks still support sending money with Zelle.

There are tons of digital payment apps for sending money to friends, family or for paying for services, but if you’ve been using the Zelle mobile app, you’ll need to find something new. The service decided to shutter its free app on April 1.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use Zelle altogether. Zelle has only discontinued its standalone app, so you can still send money using Zelle if your bank belongs to the Zelle network. You’ll just need to do it through your bank’s app or website. You also have other services to choose from. Here’s what you need to know about this change and your options moving forward.

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Why the Zelle app is shutting down

When Zelle launched in 2017, only about 60 US financial institutions offered the service by the end of that year. Today, that number exceeds 2,200. As a result, less than 2% of Zelle transactions occur through the standalone app. Zelle has been phasing out the ability to make transactions on its mobile app since October 2024.

«Today, the vast majority of people using Zelle to send money use it through their financial institution’s mobile app or online banking experience, and we believe this is the best place for Zelle transactions to occur,» Zelle said in an October 2024 press release

In December, Zelle was in the spotlight when the Consumer Financial Protected Bureau sued the company and three of the largest US banks for failing to protect consumers from widespread fraud on the peer-to-peer payment network. The lawsuit has since been dropped.

Other ways to send money digitally

You can still use Zelle through your bank’s app or website if it belongs to the Zelle network, which includes Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, TD Bank, PNC Bank and Citi.

You can also switch to another digital payment app, such as:

  • Apple Wallet
  • Cash App
  • PayPal
  • Venmo

Take some basic precautions when using Zelle or any other digital payment service. These apps are a frequent target for scammers, and Chase Bank has started blocking some Zelle payments it believes could be fraudulent. Only send money to people you know and trust, and watch for red flags like an urgent message claiming to be from your bank or an online ad for concert tickets that seem impossibly cheap.


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Nintendo Switch 2, Doom Previews and the Game Developers Conference | Obvious Skill Issue Ep. 1

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