VSCode Marketplace Web Pages No Longer Allow Direct VSIX Downloads | Hacker News Reader

VSCode Marketplace Web Pages No Longer Allow Direct VSIX Downloads

github.com

69 pointselashri18 comments

They just changed a web UI to no longer have a download button but you can still download all extension versions:

https://www.gallery.vsassets.io/_apis/public/gallery/publish...

The download button is still available inside vscode and Cursor never used the marketplace anyway. So many commenters are getting worked up over nothing. No malicious intent here, just classic HN jumping to the wrong conclusion.

Nice find. Now we wait a week or two for VSCode/Microsoft to add some new popup asking people to login to MS Live (or whatever their auth system is called today) in order to download extensions, and that endpoint will be put under auth too.

How would a default VS Code installation download the extension then? You don't need to log in with your MS account in VS Code.

You don't need to log in with your MS account in VS Code yet.

They clearly don't want others to be able to download the VSIX unless you use VS Code, otherwise they wouldn't have hid the button in the UI. Either they already know, or they'll soon discover, that others can still download the VSIX so that's why I'm saying that we'll soon see VS Code requiring login in order to download extensions. Basically to finish what they just now started.

This is just the next step in Embrace Extend Extinguish.

VSCode is "open source". Except it's not. The open source version cannot access the VSCode Marketplace which contains a lot of the high quality extensions. This is just slowly boiling the OSS frog.

Get ~100% of developers hooked on "open source" VSCode, then at some point when they decide they don't want to deal with some crap Microsoft added to the proprietary version (like, perhaps, locking many feature behind a premium subscription) and try to switch to the OSS version they discover they can't work at all because they can't use any of the language+other extensions they have come to rely on.

I noticed this maybe a week or so ago. I used that functionality extensively for computers without network access and was very confused. Saw some SO answer about it being a Windows vs Linux thing, which is stupid for a browser but whatever. That wasn't the case. I did find a way to do it, I forget off the top of my head. At the end of the day I just used vscodeoffline and ran the python server directly (getting docker up and running for basically just a venv was a large hassle).

Use this instead - it's OSS and not microsoft controlled.

https://open-vsx.org/

Is that a straight up mirror of marketplace.visualstudio.com or do authors need to upload their extensions to both places?

Unfortunately its not a mirror. Some extensions have licensing issues that prevent them from being on open-vsx. For example PlatformIO. I ran into this issue earlier this week when trying to set up Windsurf which uses open-vsx.

I’m actually kind of surprised it took Microsoft this long to push back against the VSCode clones. While I don’t agree with the step they took, it does seem like one of the more mild things they could’ve done.

You always begin mild. Ratchet up slowly. Then when someone complains roll back a little or plead ignorance. Keep repeating until complainers leave to go elsewhere. Keep the majority of users. Repeat until "done".

> I’m actually kind of surprised it took Microsoft this long to push back against the VSCode clones

Why would Microsoft push back against VS Code forks? I thought "Microsoft <3 Open Source", is that no longer true now when people forgot about the old Microsoft?

It's funny how our standards for MS are like "their latest user-hostile move was malicious to a very reasonable degree, so it's all good."

Microsoft: We love open source!

Microsoft: No wait, not like that!

The clones never used Microsoft's marketplace, most comments here are misinformed or falsely assuming malicious intent. Classic HN

They don't use the marketplace directly but people do download and manually put them into place in the clones. This seems like a clear swipe at that behavior.

Embrace-Extend-Extinguish at its finest. You can rely on Microsoft to screw you every time.

the good old microsoft, never change...

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