7 Things You Probably Didn't Know You Could Do in Steam

howtogeek.com:

Steam is by far the most popular digital game storefront on the PC. Despite its popularity, there are some features hidden in its depths that you might not know about. Here are seven of the most useful.

Buy DRM-Free Games

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is the bane of many a law-abiding gamer's existence. While video game pirates can usually defeat this type of copy protection within days of a game's release and never worry about it again, those who legally purchase games have to deal with issues caused by the implementation of DRM technologies like Denuvo. From online check-ins to crashes and performance problems, DRM can really sour the PC gaming experience.

That doesn't mean you can't play games without DRM without breaking the law. For example, GOG (Good Old Games) only sells games without DRM. But what you might not know is that Steam also sells games without DRM. This means that you can make your own copies and back them up, without needing Steam or the internet to play them.

There are a few simple ways to tell if a game has DRM, like checking a game's store page and trying to run a game without Steam running in the background. For all the ways you can tell which games on Steam are DRM-free, have a look at our guide to DRM-free Steam games.

Launch Non-Steam Games

One common complaint people have against using launcher apps other than Steam is that they hate having to deal with lots of different apps. As a long time PC gamer I can tell you having three or four launchers is way better than each game having its own individual installer, but if having a handful of launchers is still too much for you there's a solution.

Steam lets you add practically any non-Steam game to your library allowing you to launch it from there. To do this, launch Steam and select the "Games" tab. Now click "Add a Non-Steam game to my Steam Library" and find the executable file. Follow the rest of the prompts to add your game. You can even give it a custom icon so that it doesn't look