You don't have to be a nationalist to oppose treason, dude. Yes world governments are too eager to work with China, I've complained about that before. That's not the same thing as not caring about a program secretly sending the contents of people's computers to China. Only seeing a 1 and a 10 on the scale is extremist thinking.

I played around with EGS a bit around a year ago, it's okay if a little half baked. I do respect the "you have one job--downloading games" approach versus Steam, and while the paid exclusivity thing is shady I understand where it came from and can't really fault them for it.

Early in EGS's existence there were a couple of scandals related to bad code and questionable use of Steam files, but there's no real evidence that it's doing any more snooping than other game clients and certainly less than anything from Microsoft, Google, or Amazon. Bear in mind that Steam's APIs (and especially VAC) go a *lot* deeper into your PC than anything Epic does, though that may change as they build out both EGS and whatever anticheat system Fortnite is using. Epic itself has been around for eons and are quite stable, though the Tencent connection raises some valid questions about who calls the shots.

So I trust Epic and its store about the same as I trust the others, i.e. they're not out to steal my megahurtz but I wouldn't want to be doing a bunch of Bitcoin transactions or posting sensitive stuff on Wikileaks on a machine that's got a bunch of binary blobs on it.

And be sure to keep offline backups of your collection of Winnie the Pooh fan art, just sayin' :)

Here's what I bought:

GOG: Christmas Sale
===================

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Game of the Year
Detective Gallo
Freedom Force
Freedom Force vs. the 3rd Reich
Red Faction: Armageddon
Aragami
Batman: Arkham Knight
Batman: Arkham Origins

GOG: Thanksgiving Sale
======================

The Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary
Batman: Arkham Asylum - Game of the Year
Batman: Arkham City - Game of the Year
Hector: Badge of Carnage - Full Series
Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper
Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge
Tropico 3 - Gold Edition


Epic: Christmas Sale
====================

Mafia: Definitive Edition
Mafia III: Definitive Edition (I already own Mafia II on GOG)
Assassins Creed Syndicate DLCs (Acquired the main game free)
Red Dead Redemption 2
Watch Dogs 2 - Season Pass (Acquired the main game free)
Far Cry 4 - Gold Edition
Far Cry New Dawn - Ultimate Edition (which also includes Far Cry 5 + all DLCs)
Assassin's Creed Origins - Gold Edition
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Ultimate Edition (which also Assassins' Creed 3/Liberation Remasters)
Detroit: Become Human
Detroy All Humans!
Tropico 5 DLCs (Acquired the main game free)
Journey to the Savage Planet
Control Ultimate Edition
Subnautica
Metro Exodus - Gold Edition


Steam: Thanksgiving Sale
========================

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (+ all the extras and DLCs)

Steam: Christmas Sale
=====================

Fallout 4 - Game of the Year Edition
Age of Mythology - Gold Edition
Quantum Break
Sunset Overdrive
Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure
Ahnk - Heart of Osiris
Anhk - Battle of the Gods
Niffelheim - Odin's Blessing DLC (Acquired Niffelheim free from Fanatic)
Strange Brigade Deluxe Edition

Also bought some DLCs for games I got free from Ubisoft that I like.


It was a great shopping spree! A lot of games I wanted were on sale! I must mention though, that I won't be shopping like this for a LONG while - several years - until I play through a good number of them.

yeah , you packed up nicely for at least a year :P
I got AC Origins too , looks great

It's not just Win10.

This machine has Win7 and it regularly compiles data that it sends home. I find these files because I disconnect the computer, and Disk Cleanup identifies them (see attachment). They seem to be small, but accumulate to about 10MB a day.

The weakness with a linux distribution is that the extensive security features need to be set. A user must know what they are and how to set them.

As for hardware backdoors, that's a whole other rabbit hole.

Not sure what you're talking about since you don't explain, but from what I do understand of Linux (and I do know a little bit) That's complete bunk. Most distros (versions of Linux) come with all the basic securities set. From what I understand it is very hard to crack a end user Linux system unless the user installs malware themselves, and even then from what I understand the malware would be limited in what it can do.

wish win would have an easy to set up and maintain security system
as i know linux isnt any better than win just fewer users meaning fewer exploiters want to crack it nonstop

You're "knowledge" is false.

no it is not

Ask almost anyone knowledgeable about Linux, there is more security involved in it than just "obscurity" (which would not be nearly enough on it's own) Linux has systems that seek user password before various things can be installed or changed. Windows stuff can go wild without needing permissions.

Also Linux is open source, meaning others can look at it and check for security issues, Windows demands backdoor access where it does all sorts of stuff without consulting the "owner".

Well I don't need to or care to convince you. Feel free to pay money for something less secure. I'm speaking to those who might be mislead by your words.

It doesn't mean people are checking or doing it correctly.