Signing in with Steam can be a discomforting barrier. It requires a level of trust with high stakes for gamers. There are scammers out there and ProtonDB doesn't want to be associated with them. It has no need your private information or any privileged access to your account. Please use Steam Guard to protect your gaming library.

ProtonDB began as a community for game compatibility reports. It leveraged Steam authentication as a means to verify contributors. It's expanded since then to include an Explore page and more recently the Dashboard. In principal there was never any need to gate the use of those tools behind Steam verification, but some spring cleaning was necessary to allow it.

I'm happy to announce that you may now use any public library or wishlist on ProtonDB even in browser sessions where you don't want to log in or don't want to fuss with Steam Guard confirmations. To do so, visit the Profile page and provide either a SteamID or your Steam profile URL. You'll get the same personalized experience as users logged in via Steam on the Explore page. You can use your own library. Or help review a friend's library for Linux compatibility.

As before, you'll need the account's 'Game Details' to be public in Steam Privacy Settings in order for ProtonDB to have any data to work with. Steam verification will, as you'd expect, still be required for authoring reports.

In addition, we're now able to provide our own hosting for game data thanks to our Patreon supporters. The library loading mechanism has been rewritten. Whether you get your library via Steam login or not, you'll find it faster and more reliable.

Full Changelog:

• Profile: Library: A new section, separated from Steam Account.
• Profile: Library: You may now load a library without signing in with Steam.
• Profile: Library: Now loads faster and more reliably using internal data sources.
• Profile: Library: Regression fix: Now automatically loads following a login.
• Profile: More thorough descriptions generally.
• Sign In: 'Unlink Account' -> 'Sign Out'. More conventionally describes what happens here.
• Nav: Shows a profile icon instead of Steam sign in image, unless you have signed in via Steam.
• Explore: Deck Verified filter: Subsequent pages no longer show the previous page's results. Thanks @Magistone for raising.
• Translations: Russian updated thanks to @Homaykin.
• RSS feeds of these news posts: RSS and Atom

Enjoy!

--migelius (@buck)