Want GeForce Now with more privacy and 'power-user features' like 'Anti-AFK'? OpenNow is an open-source alternative client

If one of the reasons that you're not so keen on the idea of streaming your games via GeForce Now is some of the downsides to NVIDIA's service in terms of privacy, then you might want to check out a new open-source project.

Tom's Hardware spotted OpenNow, which is a project on GitHub that provides a different version of the GeForce Now client - and it is, in fact, entirely different.

As the developer of the app made clear on Reddit: "I built OpenNow, a fully reverse-engineered open-source GeForce Now client. It is not a wrapper around the official client. It directly implements the required protocols and streaming logic."

You still need an official GeForce Now account to log in with OpenNow, of course.

The big selling point - aside from the open-source nature, so anyone can improve the app (or check it over) - is that there's not a jot of telemetry in sight, so you can rest assured your data isn't being piped to NVIDIA.

It also works across Windows, Mac and Linux (or indeed Arm64) and boasts the mentioned power-user features.

That includes an 'Anti-AFK' addition which means that unlike GeForce Now, OpenNow doesn't boot you from the server after eight minutes of inactivity. You also get a mouse sensitivity setting, stats overlay and a clipboard paste facility, among other boons.

It's possible to stream games at 4K resolution and up to 240 FPS.

If you're tempted to take the plunge, do remember that OpenNow is still under development, and as ever with beta software, you may experience subpar performance or encounter annoying bugs.

In case there was any doubt, OpenNow is not affiliated with NVIDIA in any way, and is an independent, totally separate project. And of course, some gamers who like the sound of this alternative are worried that when it comes to Team Green's attention, it may end up getting shut down.

We can't rule out that possibility if NVIDIA feels so inclined, and it may not like some of the ideas here - notably the feature that circumvents the countermeasure to kick out AFK gamers.

That said, it's still paying subscribers who are using the service here, so maybe NVIDIA won't feel any need to take action against the project. If you like the sound of OpenNow, you can give it a whirl - though I'd recommend waiting for the software to mature a little first - and hope that Team Green leaves this one off the radar of its legal team.

It could go either way, really, and some of how that plays out might be down to how popular OpenNow becomes. The alternative client may even prompt NVIDIA to start thinking about adopting at least some of the features on offer itself.