[jacobsimon]

Come on. You must realize VS Code and basically every website you use collects telemetry data, which is rarely for anything nefarious except product improvements. If GitHub/Microsoft had released this product, would you be raising the same concerns?

[daenney]

We can set the bar higher than “other people do this too so it’s fine”.

> If GitHub/Microsoft had released this product, would you be raising the same concerns?

Yes. It’s one of the reasons I use the open source build instead.

[fractalf]

Me too. VSCodium FTW https://vscodium.com/

[exdsq]

Maybe not but I'd trust Microsoft has a decent security and privacy team working on this more than a startup. What if they're logging the wrong stuff and my data is leaked?

[robertlagrant]

Good point - Microsoft products practically created the modern security industry. They're experts.

[michaelmrose]

Did you mean that old school Microsoft was so badly insecure that they created a massive opportunity for security professionals.

[robertlagrant]

I did mean that, yes.

[alpaca128]

You mean like when Microsoft started uploading all handwriting & voice recognition inputs including passwords?

History has shown that telemetry is effectively spyware until proven otherwise, no matter who does it.

[chaxor]

I think you could've had a full stop before 'until proven otherwise'.

[exdsq]

Yeah but if Microsoft fuck up badly enough I can sue them, startups are less likely to survive a significant breach (especially if the thing being breached is 100% of their product). There's just far less risk.

[GekkePrutser]

I use VS Codium for this reason and self host git so yeah for me that's definitely a thing. And I have a ton of stuff to block as much telemetry from other software and websites as I can, including on mobile.

It's not for everyone but yes there are still Don Quixotes like me fighting the army of windmills :)

I suspect the proportion of us here at HN is pretty high too.

[michaelmrose]

A remote system by definition has access to the information you give them and you should manage that carefully. Meanwhile your filesystem has access to your entire life, heart, and mind unvarnished, edited, and unsegregated with ephemera alongside the deep facts of your mind.

Microsoft is a criminal enterprise that relatively recently got god to a degree and actually started caring about their image at home while still facilitating crime and corruption abroad. The fact that many are stupid enough to trust them with their data does not imply that this is a reasonable choice.

[Lammy]

> which is rarely for anything nefarious except product improvements

Up until now, you've had to make these design decisions on your own, relying only on perplexing intangibilities like 'taste' and 'intuition'.