Microsoft is shoving their software down people's throats with impunity. Just yesterday I had to install VS Code for a Homebridge integration, and out of nowhere they slapped a Bing search bar bang in the middle of the desktop.
Previously, they also added a Bing AI button to the keyboard, but they did actually make a setting to disable that.
Edit: Upon mentioning this to a coworker and digging into this a bit more, it may have been that I accidentally clicked the microphone to bring up that screen, and that it didn't target an ad. I'm not quite sure what happened though, so I'm leaving my comment as is :)
Still unjustifiable, along with the mess they made of changing default apps/browsers in Win 11.
Are you sure it is the case?
Upon uninstalling, those dependencies, the bar never appeared again.
There are so many people out there, who should know better, or even do know better. Yet, for whatever reason install VS Code instead of VS Codium. Even when you inform people about the existence of VS Codium, they still don't move and keep using VS Code. It is like they do not even care at all.
That this is even allowed to happen in organizations is already an oversight. It should not even be allowed to install VS Code on organization machines or use it to ever view or work on the code of an organization.
To me it looks very unprofessional. It is like a shiny toy has been dangled in front of their eyes and they reach for it, never willing to let go of it, even when they are being told that there is telemetry and non-reproducible builds and whatever other mistreatment of them as useds. Like children they stick to their shiny toy, even if they could have the same features, same UI, just without built in telemetry. (And they can still install any extensions they want later, if they trust that extension or marketplace of extensions.) It is very similar to people installing Chrome instead of Ungoogled Chromium. I have personally experienced how uninformed people at a university went wide-eyed, thinking I was talking crazy stuff, when I told them that it should not be installed on university computers, since it is spyware.
I wish I could get people to get off their behinds and improve the situation. But it is of course very difficult to always create awareness and people are so damn ignorant. Often I am not even suggesting, that they should switch to free software tools yet. They could literally have the same experience, but no, most of the time you cannot tell them anything and they continue to take us with them into dystopia of our own making as a society with collective uninformedness and ignorance.
VSCode telemetry can be fully disabled.
> and non-reproducible builds
Who cares? Most users don’t need a reproducible build of software they want to use, they need working software.
> and whatever other mistreatment of them as useds.
Calling people “useds” isn’t going to help your case.
Well, how do you know that? How do you verify, that all telemetry is really turned off, without being able to reproduce the build? How many people truly turn it off after install? How do you know whether there are any other unwanted parts in the software you just installed? What about the next update? Do you want to run a package sniffer after each update, over the course of a month or so, checking all traffic in detail, to be sure that it only ever communicates to the outside world, when there was a justified purpose?
You are giving away sovereignty of your own device/machine.
> Who cares? Most users don’t need a reproducible build of software they want to use, they need working software.
It it this kind of mentality that is the problem. Your "who cares" is not going to fly, because it leads right into the abyss of surveillance and spyware. "who cares" is the basis for not being informed about ones tech choices. The basis for not being aware of issues regarding privacy. At a properly managed software making company it would also result in you being told, that it is part of your job to care. To answer the question, if there was any question: I care. Informed people care. People with ideals care.
The issue with not caring is also, that organizations will draw the wrong conclusions. They might impose rules, which force me to use some tool I do not want to use, simply because "everyone is OK with it", while those people all don't even care. If they don't care, they should not get a say in the matter and should not be a decision basis or a point of reasoning for making a decision. This is how the collective uninformedness and carelessness results in bad decisions. Basically the majority drags down the minority, for the worse of all of us.
> Calling people “useds” isn’t going to help your case.
Well, that is what we are, when we allow ourselves to be spied on. They use us and our data to drive data mining, profiling and ultimately profits. Besides, I wouldn't throw it into faces in 1-on-1 conversations, for the sake of a constructive conversation, even if it is the truth, because it runs the risk of the other person (a) not even understanding what it means, (b) thinking they misheard and replace with "users", and (c) risking them to be offended and turning deaf.
If you build it yourself, how do you verify that there is no spyware and no new spyware is added on every update? Do you have the energy to read every single new commit?
A having a reproducible build means, that the hidden telemetry would need to be hidden in the publicly available code. Whereas telemetry in VS Code can be bundled in and no one would ever see that code, except for MS. If I was using it, I might actually, in a motivated night, look at the code and try to grasp the general picture of where goes what. Or perhaps see the diff between VS Code code and VS Codium code, to see, whether they added anything and from where they removed things.
> Found running server...
>
> *
> * Visual Studio Code Server
> *
> * By using the software, you agree to
> * the Visual Studio Code Server License Terms (https://aka.ms/vscode-server-license) and
> * the Microsoft Privacy Statement (https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/privacystatement).
> *
>
Many of the interesting extensions (Microsoft's language plugins, the remote extension pack, the .NET debugger) are licensed only for use with Visual Studio Code. Even if you hook into the VSCode marketplace, they could sue. They probably won't unless you're rehosting VSCode externally or something, but the risk is something most companies probably don't want to take when the software is free as in beer anyway for the "real" builds. (And if you're telemetry sensitive... just block the domains? I know, easier said than done, but you can do it.)
https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/DOCS.md#how...