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Comment by hollerith | Hacker News Reader

Long time Emacs Lisp coder here. Here is a summary of the vulnerability described in the OP:

Anyone wishing to inspect an untrusted file of Emacs Lisp code is likely to use Emacs to do the inspecting, but if either of the popular packages Flymake and Flycheck is enabled, merely opening the untrusted file gives the author of the file the ability to run arbitrary code (because macros are tricky). Even if an Emacs user avoids Flymake and Flycheck, the standard emacs facility for "completing" the names of functions and variables has the same basic vulnerability. Specifically, if the user uses Emacs to open the file, then types the start of the name of a function or variable, then types M-tab (i.e., presses the escape key, then presses the tab key) which attempts to fill in the rest of the name so that user does not have to manually type out the whole name, the arbitrary code is run.

It is clear to me (who was never tempted to use Flymake or Flycheck) what remediation I want: namely I want this "M-tab" functionality (which I have been using and probably most Emacs users have been using) to refrain completely from expanding any macros even though doing so will prevent it from finding out the names of some of the functions and variables I might be trying to insert with the result that sometimes I will have to type out the full name of the function or variable, without assistance.

>AFAICT the earliest public discussion about the security implications of Emacs Lisp macros started in August 2018, when Wilfred Hughes noted that code completion can lead to arbitrary code execution via macro-expansion.

The fact that the maintainers have yet to fix this is one more sign added to a list of 5 or 6 other signs that make me want to migrate away from Emacs.

View on HN

Giving the maintainers the benefit of the doubt, I think the optimal solution solution would require a lot of thought and work. While I have no doubt that Elisp is an environment especially ripe for these kinds of exploits, it's by no means unique to Emacs. Just look at VSCode's solution to this problem: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/workspace-trust .

I strongly prefer vscode's solution to the current state of affairs in Emacs.

I have no doubt that VSCode has a much less risk of executing code by opening something. Ironically however, it seems that VSCode's extension is the most effective channel to distribute malware in the history of code editors. [1] [2]

Not that MELPA couldn't be used to distribute malware either, I just think, as another poster mentioned, these problems are almost more social than technical.

[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/malicious-vsc... [2] https://arxiv.org/html/2411.07479v1

If anything, Emacs users are probably much more likely to inspect the code of whatever extension they are using, since with every help page there is a link to the source code. It helps that it's much less popular and so not as big of a target.

Emacs is just too old to be architected with security in mind. It's a great editor, but has baggage that IMHO can't be addressed on the spot.

Working on a codebase where you can't (heavily?) break things between any commit imposes such a slow pace that it's not completely unreasonable to start from the ground up and just study what made Emacs great and what didn't work too well.

It's surprising how long Emacs has been around and how good of an editor it is. It really makes rewrite attempts such a long stretch that it exhausts the motivation and time out of spirited folks that give it a go, but I think that given how complexity is being modularised and moved out (LSP, DAP, grammars) and newer languages make packaging easier that Emacs will eventually be replaced, definitely without covering everything it can do, but being strong at the average editing session.

That's my opinion as well. I run Emacs 24/7 but I do so inside Firejail, with no network access. It's not architected with security in mind and exploits are too easy.

The same can be said about the Linux userland. The Unix model of giving plenty of access to resources and any user file to user processes is outdated.

I find it frustrating something like Firejail or bwrap is not standard. I don't want a compromised program to have easy access to e.g. my SSH keys.

>I run Emacs 24/7 but I do so inside Firejail

Can you share your Firejail config?

I just use the "net none" option. For the rest of the programs, Firejail default profiles are spot on.

Alternatively, you can use bwrap --share-net=none emacs.

Do you use firejail for other things too? Say I'm developing a js project and have to do npm install and run-dev-server or something, would/could you use firejail with that (to avoid npm putting your ssh keys on pastebin due to bad third party js)? Would you firejail the whole bash session?

I feel so worried every time I walk into a new ecosystem, and there are new developer tools required. They invariably want me to install things outside their project folder or edit .bashrc or require sudo. It's affecting my sleep. Just running `make` in the wrong folder can start downloading things. It's gotten so bad lately I'm even considering Qubes.

I use Firejail in the terminal as I am also concerned with the things you mentioned. bwrap is also a possibility. For simple usecases, they are not too intrusive. You can easily create a development profile that bans internet access and forbids read access to your important files. Then wrap CLI commands around that, or perhaps even the entire Bash session.

It's like a poorman's QubesOS. I also recommend setting up a userspace firewall like Little Snitch or OpenSnitch. Most malware requires Internet access to do harm. Those provide a good last line of defense. It's a shame the Unix model of giving coarse-grained access to user processes has not been patched. It's not that hard and it's a big security issue.

>Emacs is just too old to be architected with security in mind.

Bad security is endemic to all GNU projects. gnutls and gnupg come readily to mind, for example. In fact there was an article/blog post making the rounds a few years ago about how the letters "GNU" are an excellent heuristic for broken security models and fatally-flawed crypto.

What about GnuTLS and GnuPG do you think makes them insecure? I think that they offer something unique and that must be factored in; i.e. if you compare them to competitors, you can't compare apples to oranges when making judgments for them. In mind I have projects like Open/Bear/Boring SSL to compare GnuTLS with, and sequoia for gpg. I really like sequoia, but it offers a different product to gnupg.

Emacs is a mosaic of 50 years of computer history, security is not its priority, but I guarantee you that in bug-gnu-emacs any security/network-related patches are most welcome.

I have heard it said that a problem with GPG is that it does encryption AND signing when you'd ideally have separate tools for those tasks, like, for example, age for encryption.

Well, how about the fact that gnutls allowed passive cleartext recovery attacks to go unpatched for about 2 years?

How about the fact that GnuPG is predicated upon the web of trust which has been demonstrated not to work, encourages misuse in the form of long-lived identities which discourages key rotation, has no ratchets nor forward secrecy, has multiple internal key parsers, and a littany of vulnerabilities involving authentication and downgrade attacks?

GNU is just organizationally incapable of producing secure code. These tools are not good tools. GnuPG in particular offers absolutely nothing that another single-purpose tool doesn't do better, but for some reason people get emotional and mount all kinds of irrational defenses of it. GPG is not good. It is broken at a fundamental level.

>Well, how about the fact that gnutls allowed passive cleartext recovery attacks to go unpatched for about 2 years?

They patched it when they became aware of it in <https://gitlab.com/gnutls/gnutls/-/issues/1011>, it was not "allowed" to go unpatched.

>How about the fact that GnuPG is predicated upon the web of trust

No it is not, the web of trust is one mode of operation out of infinitely many that you can come up with, it's not forced upon the user. It was evangelized for a long time until the keyservers got DOSed. In retrospect obvious, but also gnupg is more-or-less an "activist" project -- big corps and govs are against encryption for the masses by and large. Had it had institutional backing from the beginning (which it never got) it'd have a much more robust model for users to work with.

>encourages misuse in the form of long-lived identities which discourages key rotation

You can automate key rotation with gpg. The long-lived identity argument can be seen as a strength too, short-lived isn't always better.

>a littany of vulnerabilities involving authentication and downgrade attacks?

I'm not aware of these; do you mean that GnuPG is not secure by default in its algorithm list? It chooses compatibility over security, but you're free to change the configuration. I think it's too harsh to say that GnuPG is inadequate because of that.

>GNU is just organizationally incapable of producing secure code.

I don't see why that'd be true, anyone can contribute to GNU so there is nothing inherent about GNU that makes its projects insecure.

>GPG is not good. It is broken at a fundamental level.

Works for me! I use it to sign my git commits and tarball releases, and with gpg-agent I get to authenticate to SSH servers.

>Works for me!

Hey, so long as you're cognizant of the fact that everyone credible thinks GPG is at best a security LARP, do what you feel is best.

What better options are there, if you're aware of these weaknesses i'm sure you're aware of better options.

More in keeping with the Unix philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well (GnuPG in particular does a mediocre job of many things), the best move is to replace it with a suite of single purpose tools.

For example, signing commits with minisign or signify.

>For example, signing commits with minisign or signify.

These tools don't work well with git or the git forges, and they do not work at all with fossil. (Obviously signify is a good choice if you're using OpenBSD.) Furthermore they lock you in entirely in their choice of algorithm, Ed25519, which may not be what you want (Why not Ed448?)

As far as adoption goes, and adoption is hard to get going, GnuPG is what is used in Linux the most...

"Github supports GnuPG signatures" does not contradict the statement "GnuPG is trash". I will not engage further, it's obvious you are not interested in honest discussion of the technical merits.

The issue is mostly with git itself, e.g. take a look at

  git cat-file commit HEAD

to see something like:

  tree <tree-hash>
  parent <parent-hash>
  author <author-name> <author-email> <timestamp>
  committer <committer-name> <committer-email> <timestamp>
  gpgsig -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
   
   <ascii-armored RFC9580 signature>
   -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

  <commit message>

You can view an example of the structure of this ascii-armored signature here <https://cirw.in/gpg-decoder/#-----BEGIN%20PGP%20SIGNATURE---...>.

You can add a patch to git to support more signature types than just OpenPGP. You may then be able to move mountains and get GitHub/others to join in the validation. Finally, if you can find bugs/exploits in GnuPG, you should report them and you will definitely get credit and recognition for them. They are not trivial to find.

Git has supported SSH-based signatures for a while now, including those backed by FIDO hardware keys.

FIDO would be for authentication, not signing. It also supports SSH (and X.509, see <https://git-scm.com/docs/gitformat-signature>) but it does not support minisign or signify. There's a git module for signify, <https://leahneukirchen.org/dotfiles/bin/git-signify> but don't count on it being widely supported.

> I will not engage further, it's obvious you are not interested in honest discussion of the technical merits.

Well you are neither, all you do is throw unobjective flames around ("gnupg is trash") and post various claims about bad security without backing them up, implicitly demanding that other people do the leg work of disproving your accusations against the GNU project.

Are you working for Apple by any chance?

>Are you working for Apple by any chance?

No, my background is in aerospace and I'm currently in grad school planning to pivot into a different field.

https://soatok.blog/2024/11/15/what-to-use-instead-of-pgp/

This is an anonymous blog, and the author conceals their identity, which is already an issue for me. Let's look at the alternatives to PGP that the blog recommends, I will paraphrase:

1) Sign software with sigstore.dev

The issue here is that you delegate trust to places like GitHub or other OIDC providers. You also have to trust Fulcio and their CAs. <https://docs.sigstore.dev/about/security/> for details. Maybe you don't want to do that, in part because you're not guaranteed that the service will remain free, or perhaps you're more serious about security than GitHub.

1-alt) Sign software with minisign.

Maybe I don't want to use Ed25519. Maybe I want to revoke the signatures. There's many issues one may have with minisign.

2) Signing git tags/commits

Advises to use SSH, no explanation why. Advises Ed25519, why not Ed448? The explanation to not use RSA is by linking to <https://blog.trailofbits.com/2019/07/08/fuck-rsa/>. I will only quote one thing from this article:

>RSA was an important milestone in the development of secure communications, but the last two decades of cryptographic research have rendered it obsolete.

You can't say it is obsolete when it is still in use. I'm not sure what the author(s) mean by "obsolete", but it is not true that RSA is obsolete. (If Ed25519 breaks but RSA doesn't, who will be obsolete?)

3) Sending files between computers

Here it recommends Magic Wormhole. That's shocking to me, I don't understand why it is recommended. Why not rsync? If you look at the 2016 presentation for Magic Wormhole <https://www.lothar.com/~warner/MagicWormhole-PyCon2016.pdf>, the pitch is that it is especially useful when the computers are unrelated. How often is that the case? Rsync is a much better solution for anyone who wants to transfer files between servers they have access to.

4) Encrypting Backups

Here they recommend tarsnap as "the usual recommendation", I've got to say, it's definitely not the usual recommendation.

5) Encrypting Application Data

They say to use Tink or libsodium. Tink has many implementations in each language, (how does that help security?) and libsodium doesn't support RSA, two things on top of my head that may be deal breakers.

6) Encrypting Files

They recommend age; wishful thinking as most people do not use age. In fact most people do not bother encrypting files, and it is not something that is done often. The author likes to talk about footguns, well there's certainly many footguns to file encryption. This is where the most analysis is on this blog article too, but this is a niche case.

7) Private Messaging

It recommends Signal. What about e-mail?

>(Unless you’re legally required to use PGP because of a government regulation… in which case, why do you care about my recommendations if you’re chained by the ankle to your government’s bad technology choices?)

It comes off as know-it-all.

Let me close with this: Cryptography is infamous for debates. It never ends, and many people have ended up with egg on their face for their claims. Tread carefully and don't rely on others too much!

What was the CVE for that cleartext downgrade attack ?

For gnutls? I believe it was this one: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-13777

It was not a "downgrade attack", it was passive cleartext recovery.

Ah, my mistake, thats why I couldn't find it. Thanks for the link.

Depending on what you consider Emacs to be, it is either unlikely to be replaced, has already been replaced, or the concept makes no sense.

Emacs is an interactive Lisp environment that just so happens to have everything you need for a programmable text editor. Text editors are a dime a dozen, and Emacs is far from the only programmable one (although I'm not aware of any with the degree of programmability that Emacs offers). You can find alternatives for pretty much all of Emacs' functions, but you'll have a hard time finding it all in one place.

People have been talking about replacing Emacs itself with another interactive Lisp platform for decades (generally based on Scheme or Common Lisp), but it hasn't happened. I doubt it will. As cool an idea as Lem or Climacs or whatever are, they haven't attracted the user and developer base needed to even begin to approach Emacs' level.

And by and large, Emacs users don't care. We're a small enough group these days that no one is likely to target us with serious malware. We blindly trust Elpa and Melpa and the people who commit code there, and so far it hasn't been a problem. Complacent? Certainly, but that's human nature.

> 5 or 6 other signs that make me want to migrate away from Emacs.

Sure, Emacs is not without deficiencies. But what are the alternatives? Name one option that can do things in the way that Emacs allows you to? Don't say 'Vim' - as a die-hard vimmer who uses both daily, I can confidently tell you - it may take decades until Vim becomes sufficiently good to replace Emacs for me. And if you say 'VSCode', I'd simply laugh coughing up org-mode structured headings.

sure, if you're looking for something that can perfectly replicate what Emacs does, then you'll never find an alternative... Every alternative has obvious shortcomings, at least on first glance, that you have to get used to.

I have never used Emacs (other than briefly starting it up in the 90s, waiting 5 minutes for it to load on my old 386, just to be completely overwhelmed and closing it again) but I have used other tools that I replaced (sometimes multiple times) over the years. And it has never been "smooth". The first few days are full of compromises until you get into a mode of working "with" the new software instead of "against" it. Then it usually begins to make sense and after a week or two you've in business

Okay, but you know what? During my career as a software developer, I have wasted over a decade "getting used to" things being shitty, passively accepting mediocrity and suboptimal solutions.

Learning Emacs (and Vim too) finally made me realize that I was doing things wrong - I needed to be in charge. As a computer programmer, I should be commanding software, not being constrained by it.

Emacs has granted me that power by acting like glue. I don't turn away from useful software; I do use it. I just do it through Emacs, not instead. With Emacs, I make my own rules and I dictate what makes sense.

Most recent practical example? I just joined a team that uses Jira. Lots of people hate Jira (and for good reasons), in my case, I have no choice. So, instead of complaining how cumbersome and stupid Jira is, I decided to use it from Emacs. But instead of wasting time building a "native" extension, I just delegated things to go-jira - a command line client. Now, I can basically type 'FOO-31415' and Emacs automatically, contextually recognizes it as the 'jira ticket number', despite it being plain text. From that point I can retrieve its summary, turn it into a markdown link, browse the ticket, change its fields and status, etc. While anyone else have to waste their time opening Jira in the browser, I can perfectly do things without losing my focus, directly from my editor. That's working "with" software instead of letting software to fight "against" you.

Hyping vaporware is not software development.

Judging by your profile comments, it looks like you have little clue what any of these words mean, especially the last one, which could be due to your emotionally underdeveloped brain. Before you start spitting your snacks at the screen in rage, let me explain - comments like yours often suggest someone experiencing difficulties with emotional regulation, empathy, and interpersonal relationships. I don't know the source of your irrational anger, but you may want to find someone to talk about it. Modern therapy can drastically change people's lives for the better.

Been using Emacs for 15 years, and I think you've perfectly captured the spirit of what makes Emacs so compelling in spite of the crazy time investment needed to make it your own. I have never used another piece of software that not only allows you to customize it so deeply but makes you feel like you're the one in control.

I agree (but at times have spent too much time customizing Emacs because of the emotional appeal of exercising this control over my personal software environment).

> spent too much time

Time has to be spent, no matter what: you can either adapt your workflow to match the design of specialized apps, or you can choose to go against the norm and manage it on your own terms.

I vividly remember my own misery when trying to find the most optimal, ideal note-taking solution. I went through Evernote, Workflowy, Google Todos, Google Keep, Todoist, Notion, Trelo, Remember the Milk, Obsidian, and some other options.

On the other hand, I have spent a long time studying and customizing Org-mode. I can say with absolute certainty that the net positive ROI from this effort is far greater than it could ever be with any other option.

"Ignorance is bliss", right? Less tech-savvy people genuinely live in blissful ignorance of the endless possibilities, the ways and the methods available. Programmers are different - they can spot your bullshit right away, "you're holding it wrong" vibes don't sit well with them, you don't tell them "users don't know what they want", they'd get annoyed and will try to find a better way - writing scripts, hacking your app, setting up unconventional keybindings, etc.

Emacs is for programmers, for tinkerers who prefer to deal with computing on their own terms. I know the feeling - some new, shiny app comes out that makes ripples in HN threads, and you'd feel old, cranky, and left out with your not-so-shiny, brutally simple yet efficient Emacs UI, thinking that maybe this is the time when you finally have to move away from it. Then you try that shiny new feature everyone so enthusiastically talks about and think, "Meh, that's it? Is that what they're so excited about? I can't believe now I have to use this shit because everyone else does..." And then a few weeks later, someone builds an Emacs package for it.

I never regret time spent on customizing Emacs because I've gotten to the point where I know exactly how to get the most use out of that exercise. It's nothing but pure, unadulterated pragmatics. The notion that Emacs users waste their time configuring it instead of doing real work is a myth. It's like saying that the cook spends too much time sharpening the blade instead of actual cooking. A great chef knows a great deal about his knives and always keeps them very sharp, but he's not in a knife-sharpening business.

> you feel like you're the one in control.

I know right? Sometimes it so ridiculous, it's not even funny. Here's one, totally idiotic example. I use Google Translate directly in Emacs, okay? So, when you enter something like "He was born in 1978", it doesn't translate the date, and that's sensible. But I'm learning a language, I really need to see it e.g. in Spanish like this: "Nació en mil novecientos setenta y ocho", and I didn't want to write every time "He was born in nineteen seventy-eight", so I wrote a tiny function (took me ten minutes) advising google-translate that installs 'number-to-words' npm package and uses it to turn the numbers into words before sending the whole thing to Google Translate API. Totally imbecilic, right? I guess shit ain't no so stupid if thy shit works, yes?

Now, Neovim, VSCode, Jetbrains, and Sublime, they all have similar plugins for translation. I wonder if any experienced user would ever bother with something like that? I bet they just wouldn't. It wouldn't occur to them to even consider that as a minor annoyance. Emacs on the other hand, changes the way you think about efficiency and being in control.

The advice system that you mentioned is such a good example of this! I recently realized that I had come to rely deeply on xref navigation for going to a definition and then xref-go-back/forward to hop between different jumps. I was bummed that it wasn't a more general backward/forward capability, but then I remembered the advice system. In like 10 minutes I whipped up some quick elisp to add some :before advice around various navigation functions to call xref-push-marker-stack. Not only did it work perfectly to turn the xref marker system into a general navigation capability, I also had complete control over which navigation functions push a marker and which do not.

I think this is the difference with Emacs. Not only is it primarily a lisp environment and then secondarily a text editor, but it goes above and beyond to add general capabilities for modifying its own behavior. With most any other piece of software I can think of, you are relying upon the developers to provide you with the exact APIs to control the software. With Emacs, you control the entire lisp environment, and therefore control the editor running within it.

edit: Siri typo

I'm a lot less worried about this than I am about MELPA packages being targeted. But any other editor that incorporates a package manager exposes the same threat surface, and just about all of them are a lot more popular (thus more worth targeting) than Emacs.

Yes, it boils down to "be careful with untrusted code" no matter where it comes from. This is certainly not unique to emacs.

I'm starting to get "return to notepad++" vibes from HN today.

Well I use mostly stock emacs. If that's already owned, then I guess I'm screwed. I'm very selective about adding additional packages or using other "uninspected" elisp code.

It looks like adding a defcustom that would disable macro expansion, and basically any attempts to eval the code being edited, should not be a lot of work, or at least doable. Disable it in your config, get a nerfed-down but shields-up elisp editing mode.

Am I missing anything here? E.g. should I expect pieces of C code that handle completion in elisp mode?

Would you mind explaining how you could do this?

I expect that the entire mode is implemented in elisp-mode.el. It's based on lisp-data-mode, but I don't expect that to handle macros (should check though).

Looking at elisp-completion-at-point and likely deeper into elisp--completion-local-symbols, I'd try to find where macroxpansion occurs, and make it conditional. Same for the explicit emacs-lisp-macroexpand.

I would also search for `(eval ` in general and maybe put it under a buffer-local flag, too, so that you won't press C-x C-e or C-M-x and execute malicious code by mistake, when you know you're working on a piece of malicious code.

Maybe instead of a defcustom, it should rather be a minor elisp-paranoid-mode which would do all kinds of things to prevent execution of the code in the buffer, or the code the buffer refers to, etc.

> It looks like adding a defcustom that would disable macro expansion, and basically any attempts to eval the code being edited

Probably, yes. „org-babel“ can execute shell code inside an org document but always asks the user before it does. You can disable this if you want to. No big deal. Should totally work like this in elisp-mode, too.

You could also macroexpand in a sandbox, e.g. via LSP.

That would involve a rewrite because the way it is now, the relevant code does not use LSP.

Okay, but software is infinitely malleable

Doesn’t vim also have some ability, easily abused, to put a script at the top of a file, and it’ll just run when you open the thing?

This seems like a really useful functionality to have in the context where you actually do trust the files, but it is wildly insecure and an unexpected trapdoor, to have simple files executing things when you open them with a simple text editor…

Emacs has that, too. There are protections in that case, though. See: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Sa...

Probably going to add similar protections here? Basically, I'd assume if it is your first time visiting a file, macros won't be expanded during autocompletion.

I dunno. I can see why this functionality might be useful, but I kinda think distros should disable it by default/make it whitelist-only.

I think the implications are really unexpected for “new” users (where “new” could be pretty generously defined, I mean, I know a couple people who use vim IRL, I think they would not expect this… it is the sort of thing you know about if you are somebody who goes online to talk about text editors I think). And these are also the sort of users who are used to seeing shebangs and other line noise at the top of files, not understanding it, and ignoring it.

I think we’re only being protected by the fact that spreading a virus though command-line text editors is… going to result in not a ton of hits.

I'm confused. Per the doc, it is disabled by default? Specifically, the first time it is encountered on a file, it will ask the user if they want to allow it. And they flat out don't ever do things like "eval" during these values.

A common pitfall of IDE integration for dynamic languages is that it tends to execute the code under test to provide contextual completion or may decide to run doctests, etc. This has been/is a problem with editing Ruby code, and perhaps Python code and more too too. I'm unsure if this is a problem editing vimscript or lua with NeoVim with the only non-evidence is that I haven't heard of it.

That's a different potential vulnerability. I knew about that one (and had disabled the running of such scripts). I didn't know about this one till today.

Helping me finish typing the name of a function or variable ("completion") is not the sort of thing I expected (till today) the maintainers of Emacs to be so eager to do that they'd start running code that I never asked to be run.

It's that Lisp data is code, code is data thing.

No, it is not.

What are the other 5, out of curiosity?

Good call to prevent macro expansion. Does also no big harm nowadays as there are several other ways to get good auto completion, e.g. copilot. Other than that no need to restrict functionality for power users.

The Church of Vim is always accepting new disciples.

Jokes aside, if you're considering Vi-like editors (and assuming you haven't already done your research -- which by the sounds of it, you may well have):

- I recommend going for Neovim over classic Vim at this point. The first-class Lua support for building out your configs and working with extensions is a big quality-of-life improvement over just VimL, and it's a more portable skill with fewer surprises. As a bonus, this gives you access to a world of shockingly high-quality extensions that require Lua to run.

- If you want a decent starting point before you start tweaking a ton of settings, Spacevim is it. I haven't used it extensively but I've only heard good things.

- I recommend against trying to use Emacs bindings in Vim if you can help it. I used these when I initially moved over (at this point about a decade ago) and they were clunkier than both Emacs's bindings and Vim's native bindings. Learning how to work with Vim's modes is an investment that pays off as quickly as a few days with intense use, or a few weeks with more casual use.

- `vim-arpeggio` (or the native chording support in newer versions of Neovim) is your friend for avoiding `<Esc>`-induced repetitive-strain injury.

As a schismatic from the Church of Vim, I’m compelled to recommend kakoune here. Unless you’re running in a peculiar legacy platform like Windows or Amiga, the selection oriented editing and smooth Unix integration are a delight.

I've considered it from time to time. The conclusion I keep drawing is that, if I were going to benefit from a selection-oriented editing paradigm, I would use Visual mode more than I do.

The multi-cursors, those I want. But I'm willing to wait for Neovim to get them.

That’s entirely reasonable; I switched in part because I was using visual mode so much. That being said, if you want a more vi-like experience in kakoune, you can always pipe your whole buffer through sed :)

As another fan of Kakoune's model of editing (or model of modal editing), I would recommend Helix. It's a low-config tool that lets you start working without turning many knobs. Supports tree-sitter grammars and language server protocol.

I haven't heard of either Kakoune or Helix, but I'm buried pretty deep in my own opinionated config.

As far as I'm concerned, the more readymade options, the better. Thanks to you and sevensor for adding recommendations!

> I recommend against trying to use Emacs bindings in Vim if you can help it

This is fine, I think. Using C-w is more convenient than <Esc>diw. I also find C-a and C-e quite convenient, although you need plugins for these (tpope's vim-rsi is good).

I might be worth starting without them, though, so they learn not to rely on them too much.

That being said, I use home-row mods, which makes Control a lot easier to use than regular keyboards.

Are you saying there can’t be security vulnerabilities in Neovim? [rhetorical question]

As I understand it, the vulnerability is that viewing untrusted elisp code may lead to arbitrary code execution. Personally, I don’t remember a case where I would view elisp code without the intent of running it.

Spacevim? Emacs bindings in vim? Heresy!

Spacemacs defaults to vim bindings and it's easily my favorite editor, while saving you from (some of) the endless config tweaking.

Oh, you think people choose Emacs instead of Vim because of keybindings?

Then tell me please, how often do you do your research in Vim, using LaTeX embeddings while taking annotations to a pdf that's rendered in the adjacent window?

How often do you take notes, while watching a YouTube video while controlling the playback, speed and volume from your editor? I can watch the video, while following the transcript karaoke-style, pause, speed-up, mute the video whenever I want (so I can start typing), I can grab the pieces of transcript and ask an LLM to give me explanations, etc.

Do you read RSS in Vim? Are any RSS readers as well-integrated and feature-rich as elfeed.el in Emacs? I honestly doubt it. And it's not a matter of skepticism over the quality of Vim extensions. Emacs has far fewer active users and even fewer of those who build things in Elisp, yet it remains the most integratable thing ever. The thing is - unlike VSCode, Vim, Sublime, and IntelliJ - Emacs allows you to change any given behavior of any function - built-in or third-party - with such great granularity that is simply not possible anywhere else.

What about email? Is there anything close to the level of notmuch, mu4e or gnus? I seriously doubt any vim plugins provide the same level of integration.

Do you manage your Jira (or whatever project management) you do from Vim?

Do you control your browser from Vim? I do it from Emacs and it's very cool.

Can you perform a dynamic search on YouTube, Google, DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia, your browser history and other places while typing the query only once? I do that all the time in Emacs.

So, Emacs is not about keybindings. Because you can change them in a way that no other editor lets you do. In Emacs you can use whatever modal or non-modal editing flavor you want, but that's beyond the point.

> How often do you take notes, while watching a YouTube video while controlling the playback, speed and volume from your editor? I can watch the video, while following the transcript karaoke-style, pause, speed-up, mute the video whenever I want (so I can start typing), I can grab the pieces of transcript and ask an LLM to give me explanations, etc.

Hey, any chance you can expand on how you do this, or just share configs?

Thanks!

Of course. I use elfeed-tube and elfeed-tube-mpv, which uses mpv.el. That allows you to control mpv directly from Emacs. I have a simple transient that I use https://github.com/agzam/.doom.d/blob/main/modules/custom/we...

Thanks a bunch - I'll give it a go!

Considering the steady stream of CVE's against Vim's C code, security is the last reason to choose Vim. I've often wondered why there were so many Vim CVE's, and meanwhile never really any Emacs CVE's. My thinking has been that it's because so much of Emacs is implemented in Elisp, a memory-safe language, and much more of Vim is implemented in C.

So now there is an Emacs CVE, and it's a big one. But if you're going to jump ship for something more secure, it would be woefully misguided to go for Vim.

Any editor that goes for expressive power and flexibility is going to have security issues sooner or later. If you want safe, you'll need to cut features, pick something simple.

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