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VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

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Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#81

Post by ttctciyf »

savanaly wrote: post #21
Bootvis wrote: post #17

I think I'm out of the loop: what exactly is so valuable about this telemetry? I don't believe my coding habits can be used for advertising.

FTA: "Visual Studio Code collects telemetry data, which is used to help understand how to improve the product. For example, this usage data helps to debug issues, such as slow start-up times, and to prioritize new features." I don't work at Microsoft but I work somewhere similar on a product that collects similar types of telemetry and those words are not empty, they are very, very true. We absolutely add, remove, an…

> We absolutely add, remove, and change things about the UI

Please consider stopping with that UI changing thing :)

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#82

Post by npteljes »

5d8767c68926 wrote: post #64
ensignavenger wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just remove it from the source code?

Given the frequency of updates, maintaining a privacy fork with anything but minor changes would be a Sisyphean task.

Which is exactly what I'd expect from a privacy fork.

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#84

Post by rkagerer »

falcolas wrote: post #20

Telemetry is godsend for developers, since it lets them track down actual product usage and issues. Telemetry is a privacy nightmare for users, since it sends data to the developers outside of an average user's control - data which is probably easily associated with an individual and kept for eons (disk space is cheap after all). I think telemetry collection is starting to become a professional ethics issue for devel…

This is not a nuanced argument or compex issue. Include an OFF switch. It's that simple.

Personally I refuse to work with or consult for companies that don't get this. It's a matter of professional pride. If I wouldn't use it myself, I'm not going to foist it on my users.

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#85

Post by robotnikman »

ensignavenger wrote: post #45
phantomathkg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the post mentioned, even the VSCodium team cannot shutdown all telemetry. Seems some do not have switches?

Why not just remove it from the source code?

Maybe there are dependencies on closed source libraries or API's which report telemetry? I'm no expert on this though.

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#86

Post by techsin101 »

phantomathkg wrote: post #27
jacknews wrote: post #25

There's always vscodium which which doesn't have the tracking, similar to Chromium browser vs Chrome: https://vscodium.com/

As the post mentioned, even the VSCodium team cannot shutdown all telemetry. Seems some do not have switches?

wont just blocking from host file would be sufficient? add certain domains and ip addresses to the list

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#87

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

kroltan wrote: post #34
gabrielgio wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a gross oversight from their part. Not only they build a product that, as pointed by the post, sends a excessive amount of data, but also allows anyone to do the same. > Why have licenses like these if they are just concerned with product improvement? That nails it for me. I have no reason whatsoever to use vscode.

What's the alternative? Blocking extensions from accessing the Internet? How are you even supposed to do that given extensions already have (completely justified) access to the filesystem and can invoke executables? There certainly is a valid argument for Internet access, for example for documentation lookup, schema validation, database editing, etc. There would be a strict, and yet fallible, vetting process on the e…

> What's the alternative?

Expose the setting to extensions (if it isn't already), and set a policy in their extension catalog that extension telemetry must honor the global setting. It isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing.

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#88

Post by techsin101 »

nindalf wrote: post #67

It's safe to assume Microsoft is GDPR compliant. There's no sense in risking the fines GDPR could potentially levy for the sake of ... what exactly? There's no upside even if this data was somehow de-anonymized. The sensible thing to do is to delete everything within 90 days. Even if the developers behind VS Code didn't agree with that, legal and privacy at MS would make sure they would. All this talk about how this…

> There is no way to turn this off.

What if you added domains to host list

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#89

Post by npteljes »

gentleman11 wrote: post #14

Why even make vscode if not for telemetry? It’s the whole point of the app, isn’t it? It’s like chrome or edge or that open source png viewer that started selling your info a few months ago Telemetry is a major focus of windows since the current ceo too over. It’s kind of his thing Note there is an open source version called vscodium that iirc has telemetry disabled but I found my extensions didn’t work with it last…

It's good PR for Microsoft.

Re: VS Code – What's the deal with the telemetry?

#90

Post by techsin101 »

ttctciyf wrote: post #2

Found this while looking for a way to fully disable telemetry on vscode. After reading, this seems impossible, short of going down to DNS or network blocks of some kind: the "disable telemetry" setting doesn't; extensions have their own telemetry; MS consider the data sufficiently anonymous to be exempt from GDPR, even the vscodium maintainers say they found it impossible to block vs code's eager telemetrizing. I won…

host files?
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