Hi everyone,
Today I am writing about VSCodium the opensource version of VSCode without telemetry that for me personally is faster than the VSCode official version.
The good thing about this project is that you already get the installer for your system so you don't need to build from source.
Also as far as I tested all the extension from the marketplace works and your user data will not be recorded. I think this is a good solution for projects that need confidentiality.
The VSCodium project and installers can be downloaded from here https://vscodium.com/
What do you think Dear Reader, would you give VSCodium a spin?
Update(Important)
Tim Bachmann asked in the comment section of the article for an explanation on the following:
How (if at all) does VSCodium prevent plugins from sending their own telemetry data?
I got in touch with the VSCodium Team using their GitHub and they had the following to say through @stripedpajamas :
Hi @wolfiton -- first of all thanks again for writing the article. Second, questions like this one are best sent on in our Gitter chat (gitter.im/VSCodium/lobby) so that the issues don't get too clogged up.
To answer your question: yes! Extensions are 3rd party code and each must be evaluated for telemetry on its own. Many MS-built extensions are programmed to send telemetry and it isn't clear whether or not those extensions honor VSCode/VSCodium's telemetry settings.
Additionally, the marketplace itself should be considered a 3rd party API (owned by Microsoft), so any searches / installations using the marketplace (including from within VSCodium) are most likely being logged and aggregated by the API owner.
For more info there is a small section on our Docs page about it and other parts of VSCodium that "use online services": https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/DOCS.md
Cheers
Thank you again @stripedpajamas for the fast response and permission to post the quote above.
Credits:
Thank you VSCodium Team for the fast response especially,too @stripedpajamas
Top comments (10)
You can always disable telemetry on VSCode settings. Whats the real benefit of using vscodium instead?
Is it really faster?
For me it is faster then the original, also I am 100% sure that telemetry is not included because it is built from source, so nobody is using my data.
Also please read the WHY section from vscodium.com/ website.
As I said above for me it is faster.
Sounds like placebo to me.
Before you posted this comment have you tried VSCodium?
Nope but VSCode is slow because it's an Electron app, not because of telemetry. VSCodium won't fix that, I guarantee it. You're experiencing a fresh install after using VSCode for a while with a bunch of plugins.
After you try it, please come back with your results. I am curious if you are going to have the same opinion.
As I said before, for me it's faster and I have now a lot more plugins then in my previous VSCode setup.
How (if at all) does VSCodium prevent plugins from sending their own telemitry data?
Please create a new issue here github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues with your question directly to VSCodium Team. They can really offer a more informed answer than me because they are the builders.
That said, you might want to look over this link as well github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/...
Offcial answer in the article from VSCodium Team, please read the update.
I find vscodium also faster but the plugins i use can't be found in the vscodium marktplace :(
Maybe this problem will change in the future when more people will embrace the ideas of Vscodium.
Thanks for sharing your opinion @sampl3x .