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Comment by burnt-resistor | Hacker News Reader

- Windows' NTFS Alternate Data Streams (ADS) allows hiding an unlimited number of files in already existing files

- macOS data forks, xattrs, and Spotlight (md) indexing every single removable volume by default adds tons of hidden files and junk to files on said removable volumes. Solution: mdutil -X /Volumes/path/to/vol

- Everything with opt-out telemetry: go, yarn, meilisearch, homebrew, vcpkg, dotnet, Windows, VS Code, Claude Code, macOS, Docker, Splunk, OpenShift, Firefox, Chrome, flutter, and zillions of other corporate abominations

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>opt-out telemetry: go

By default, telemetry data is kept only on the local computer, but users may opt in to uploading an approved subset of telemetry data to https://telemetry.go.dev.

To opt in to uploading telemetry data to the Go team, run:

    go telemetry on

To completely disable telemetry, including local collection, run:

    go telemetry off

https://go.dev/doc/telemetry

Yep, but you're techsplaining to someone who already know this. But still, it's not opt-in. It's always on by default and litters stuff without asking. All that does is create a file but that doesn't remove the traces of all the tracking it leaves behind without asking. This fixes it in a oneliner:

    # mac, bsd, linux, and wsl only
    (d="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/go/telemetry";rm -rf "$d";mkdir -p "$d"&&echo off>"$d/mode")

Like television and telephone, the "tele" (remote) part is the crucial and defining one. Without it, it's just metry.

Opt-out telemetry is the only useful kind of telemetry

Not useful to me or most users. See, other people besides you have different values like privacy and consent.

The usefulness is completely irrelevant. We do not want any data exfiltration to take place under any circumstances and for any purpose whatsoever.

We couldn't care less how much money it costs them.

Forces me to fork your shit and remove privacy invasive parts. Consider my computer my home, and your telemetry a camera or microphone you're adding to my place.

If you don't ask me for permission first I have no reason to trust you will maintain any semblance of integrity in the long run.

Yes, it's the approach and principle of the interaction. If {{software}} asked to opt-in to collect anonymized/generic information, for what purpose(s), and how it was being stored/anonymized to "vote" for feature use/maintenance and how it was definitely not going being used, like not being sold to data-brokers, then I might say "yes".

Opt-out shows disrespect and that {{user}} is the product.

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