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Suggestion - Public API resources

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:59 am
by Xcea_
Since the apiKeys are limited to developers, it would be a good idea to make commonly used api resources public, ex. images. I have a private fork of a tool that gets images of game box art and adds games to my steam collection with that art.

The main reason I'm suggesting this, is the load on your servers is going to be much higher if I have to script a browser to get the images instead of just making an api request.

Please consider this.

Re: Suggestion - Public API resources

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:55 pm
by Zer0xFF
you misunderstood the statement,

we're not giving users key, since devs should/need embed the public key into their apps, thus there is no need for users to get one...
this also allows us to track rogue apps and disable their keys if needed, before the site/api reboot, the site/api can take up to 5 mins to open, because devs had no regards for any form of caching or even basic limits, or coding standard for matter (we still get requests on the old api with the same query from the same ip up to 10 times within the same second)

plus, given that we clock over 500k api requests a day, thats 15m requests a month, assuming 10% are unique, that would mean that we'd need to manually approving 150k api key requests.

now that said, if you have a fork, that techincally makes you a dev, (we're not looking for devs as a profession here),
the general rule is, each project should share the same key, unless that fork is independent (with potentially it's own user base), or a diveraged fork,
by independent, I mean, it has its own release, and for one reason or another isn't intended to be upstream.

now, in your case, it sounds like, while you wont be releasing, thus you wont really have your own user base, you will be diveraging from upstream, so you can request a key.

with all said done, images are public resources, its just that you need to make an api request to get the link, once you have the link, its accessible indefinitely, unless the image/game was removed.
you can also get weekly dump without a key, but the recommendation here, it not to use it as a weekly update, but a one time dump to populate your app/server, then update regardly through update api, though based on your usage, you might only ever need 1 dump and no keys.