I still just do not understand why people are so angry over it. Some profess that it's a resource hog, uploads all of your personal information to spammers, and that it's nothing more than a buggy piece of spam-ware.
Well I've been using steam for oh 10-11 years now and have never had a single issue. I've never popped open task manager and seen Steam.exe hogging all my resources, never once had it crash or cause me not to be able to play a game, and I don't receive tons of spam in my email or have pop-ups or anything else....and i don't even run any form of anti-virus at all...which brings me to my next point.
If steam has -appeared- to cause you problems in the past it was more than likely something else on your system. Spyware detectors, 99% of antivirus software, and damn near anything that promises to increase system performance are nothing but lies and are infact more harmful than running nothing at all.
Those of you scared of Phishing techniques....don't tell anyone anything, it's that simple. Why would any company's representative ever ask for your information online? I've seen some people say they've seen 'malicious groups' on steam....there is no such thing. Joining a group doesn't provide anyone information they couldn't already get by looking at your profile(which you don't even have to make) There aren't 'scripts' attached to groups, no programs that will be ran, and no webpages that will be opened by joining a group. You're at a much higher risk infecting your computer, or giving someone access by googling for porn.
Now the auto update fiasco....if i run my steam purchased copy of Dragon Age:Origins right now, guess what? It asks me if i wish to update it....i click no, and the game loads in it's current version fully playable with broken quests and infinite xp bugs. Forced updates are only required for games that connect to a centralized server. Take Battlefield Bad Company 2 for instance....if i hadn't patched it months ago and tried to connect a server running the newest patch, i wouldn't be able to connect. Why? Because they've tweaked all the guns, maps, and fixed a lot of glitches and it would not be fair much less compatible, that I still had all the overpowered weapons.
Unless your planning on playing multiplayer you will never have an issue with not being able to run the game, no matter what version you have. Even in multiplayer i'm sure you could find someone who also refused to click the update button and connect and play just fine....as is with all other p2p games.
Does steam collect personal information on you? It sure does...assuming by personal information you mean what game you're playing and for how long you played it. Does it scour your hard drive for child porn, illegal movies, or *gasp* Abba mp3's? No, never has nor never will. Why do i say this?
Steam's Privacy Policy
Steam's Subscriber Agreement
Because it would violate their own policies, which means if it were to happen, you could sue them until people had to run jimmysleetsofware.exe instead of steam.exe and all this hate and rage could be directed to you.
The only part of their policies i can see people flipping out about is under 'User Generated Information' which basically states if you were to lay out a plan in detail on an infinite energy device, they could steal it and make it their own.....but uh every forum including this one, has the exact same clause. If that wasn't the case, and it instead said that they would never ever use your ideas, posts, or artwork than everytime something similar appeared by a game developer you could more than likely talk some GED law guy into filing a case against them quoting post dates and similarities.
I know this won't change anyone's mind, people are stubborn, but with 10 years of steam experience I honestly do not have a single bad thing to say about them....except that they didn't invite me into the CounterStrike:Source 2 beta... :[