from Hacker News

VSCode still sends search keystrokes to Microsoft with telemetry disabled

by siddhant on 5/4/18, 11:44 AM with 10 comments

  • by Analemma_ on 5/4/18, 10:44 PM

    Sigh, this again.

    Microsoft is very upfront about this. Right on the download page for the nightly build is this link: https://code.visualstudio.com/license/insiders and it says

    > DATA. The software may collect information about you and your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft. Microsoft may use this information to provide services and improve our products and services. For this pre-release version, users cannot opt out of data collection.

    (emphasis mine)

  • by Guillaume86 on 5/4/18, 11:24 PM

    Meh, it's just the search in the settings page (see https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2018/04/25/bing-settings...), and there's a setting to disable it: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/49161

  • by Maarten88 on 5/4/18, 8:56 PM

    I think that with the preview versions of most Microsoft software you get telemetry that can't be disabled. I guess Microsoft thinks that is a fair exchange: you get free software to test early, they get test data.

    The released versions have less telemetry and opt-in or out that should work.

  • by bni on 5/7/18, 6:39 AM

    As a consumer (not businesses) You pay for Microsoft software with personal data, that has been clear for a while. See also Windows 10.

  • by djsumdog on 5/4/18, 3:59 PM

    I use Atom quite a bit and I'm now curious if it phones home as well. Guess it's time to get out Wireshark.

  • by opencl on 5/5/18, 12:52 AM

    Semi-related but the new Windows update also made it impossible to disable Bing searches in the Start menu.