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Comment by fafner | Hacker News Reader

And it reports data to Google... http://atom.io/packages/metrics

But in fairness, they've fully listed the data being collected. I'm actually very comfortable with them collecting these metrics (though I'm glad there's a way to turn it off just the same).

- A unique identifier that is generated by computing the SHA-1 of the machine's MAC address. - The screen width and height - The version of Atom being used - The name of each item opened in a pane such as EditorView, SettingsView, and MarkdownPreviewView - The amount of time the current window was open for - The amount of time the current window to took to load - The amount of time the app took to launch

I'm almost comfortable with the choice of metrics, except for:

>> The name of each item opened in a pane such as EditorView, SettingsView, and MarkdownPreviewView <<

Why would they need to know my filenames?

I _think_ they're talking about the actual 'atoms' - that is the editor components. So the data that will be sent to google is 'EditorView is open', not 'EditorView contains these files'.

I might be wrong though.

You're absolutely right. We don't track individual filenames or data.

"If you do not want this information reported, disable this package from the Metrics section of the Settings view (cmd-,)."

Why should I have to opt out of metric gathering in a freaking text editor??

Because they made the program. So it's their decision.

If you want a program that turns this off by default, please feel free to create your own program with this feature disabled.

FAIL. A text editor with this default is just wrong.

> please feel free to create your own program with this feature disabled.

I could do that very easily, if Atom were FOSS.

It's their decision to track their own users by default. It's anyone's decision to criticize them for their decision. That's healthy and much more efficient than for everyone to start creating their own text editors, payment systems, airlines or poultry farms.

I for one am more than fed up with hunting down and keeping up-to-date with settings for tracking "features" in every single piece of software I use.

And it's my decision not to use it. Why would I want a non-free (as in beer and speech) editor which reports data to Google, only works on Mac, and lacks any unique features? I don't understand the hype created on HN about it...

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