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Getting all the Telemetry Out

This page explains how VSCodium handles telemetry and how to ensure your privacy.

Telemetry in VSCodium

Even though we do not pass the telemetry build flags (and go out of our way to cripple the baked-in telemetry), Microsoft will still track usage by default.

We do however set the default telemetry.enableTelemetry and telemetry.enableCrashReporter values to false. You can see those by viewing your VSCodium settings.json and searching for telemetry.

It is also highly recommended that you review all the settings that "use online services" by following these instructions. The @tag:usesOnlineServices filter on the settings page will show that by default:

  • Extensions auto check for updates and auto install updates
  • Searches within the app are sent to an online service for "natural language processing"
  • Updates to the app are fetched in the background

These can all be disabled.

Please note that some extensions send telemetry data to Microsoft as well. We have no control over this and can only recommend removing the extension. (For example, the C# extension ms-vscode.csharp sends tracking data to Microsoft.)

Replacements to Microsoft Online Services

When searching the @tag:usesOnlineServices filter, note that while the "Update: Mode" setting description still says "The updates are fetched from a Microsoft online service", VSCodium's build script sets the updateUrl field in product.json directly to the GitHub page, so enabling that setting won't actually result in any calls to Microsoft online service.

Likewise, while the descriptions for "Extensions: Auto Check Updates" and "Extensions: Auto Update" include the same phrase, VSCodium replaces the Visual Studio Marketplace with Open VSX, so these settings won't call Microsoft, either.

Checking for Telemetry

If you want to verify that no telemetry is being sent, you can use network monitoring tools like:

  • Wireshark
  • Little Snitch (macOS)
  • GlassWire (Windows)

Look for connections to Microsoft domains and telemetry endpoints.

Additional Privacy Settings

For maximum privacy, you can add these settings to your settings.json:

{
  "telemetry.enableTelemetry": false,
  "telemetry.enableCrashReporter": false,
  "telemetry.feedback.enabled": false,
  "update.enableWindowsBackgroundUpdates": false,
  "update.mode": "manual",
  "workbench.enableExperiments": false,
  "workbench.settings.enableNaturalLanguageSearch": false
}

These settings will disable various telemetry and tracking features.

VSCodium Announcements

The Welcome page in VSCodium displays announcements that are fetched from the project's GitHub repository.

If you prefer to disable this feature, you can set the workbench.welcomePage.extraAnnouncements setting to false in your settings.json.

Malicious & Deprecated Extensions

The definitions for malicious and deprecated extensions are dynamically loaded from the following URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EclipseFdn/publish-extensions/refs/heads/master/extension-control/extensions.json.

If you prefer to avoid any external connections, you can set theextensions.excludeUnsafes setting to false in your settings.json. However, this is not recommended as it may reduce the safety of your environment.