Bad news for us weirdos who use(d) Audacity for recording and decrackling vinyl records: their new owner Muse considers Google telemetry a good thing.
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835/files
Regardless of how this will end, it is probably a good idea to try alternatives. (Suggestions are welcome, by the way.)
I paid the money for iZotope RX 8 and haven't looked back
Continue using a version without the telemetry. For declicking RX can't be beat. RX2 is still very good. As a multi-track editor, consider Reaper.
Thanks for sharing this.
I feel very disappointed. That's all I have to say...
Looking at the code, it looks like there will be an option to disable Google telemetry. Not good they put "etc" in what information they're collecting though.
static const auto title =
/* i18n-hint: Title of the telemetry permission dialog */
XO ("Help us improve Audacity");
static const auto firstParagraph =
/* i18-hint: The first paragraph of telemetry permission dialog */
XO (
"We would like to collect anonymous usage data to \
help us prioritize improvements and making Audacity \
better in the future. This includes things like \
frequency of use, preferred file formats, crash logs etc."
Oh, God, Google Analytics spies on you. So much drama.
Ocenaudio - https://www.ocenaudio.com/
Why do you really care if the developer knows how you use their app without you explicitly emailing them a breakdown of every feature you use? Is it that the developer should explicitly care about everything the app supports, and never focus on any one thing, in case they want to please literally everyone without being able to ask anyone what they actually use?
I use Little Snitch to block telemetry from many applications; that way, it doesn't matter what the app wants, I still get to choose.
People complaining about this are weird.
Little do they know many video games do telemetry and even analytics of player behaviour.
Oh no! Someone wants to know something about you. Better lock yourself in a shelter and cease all interaction with the world.
Looking at the PR, it seems the default is off and you have to explicitly allow it (as it should be).
So not _that_ big of a deal, it's just disappointing that some people here have the "who cares lol" attidute towards privacy.
And yes, it is known that many other software is tracking you, including games (unity is the worst offender), but we have ways of blocking that as well.
Find a statement by one of the new Audacity developer team members regarding the added telemetry functions:
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/pull/835
An ongoing discussion is taking place right below the statement.
People complaining about this are weird.
Little do they know many video games do telemetry and even analytics of player behaviour.
Operating systems employ telemetry.
Web browsers employ telemetry (and yes Firefox has tons of it).
"Everyone does it" is not the same thing as "you accept it anyway".
Evaluating REAPER, looks good to me - thank you!
Speaking of privacy, uBlock Origin on my Firefox blocks nothing on hydrogenaud.io, even though I have several privacy/annoyance filters enabled, which is very rare.
Speaking of privacy, uBlock Origin on my Firefox blocks nothing on hydrogenaud.io, even though I have several privacy/annoyance filters enabled, which is very rare.
Well, that does not belong here. You should have opened a new thread.
In uBlock Origin check that hydrogenaud.io isn't listed on the 'Trusted Sites' tab. Blocking is disabled for trusted sites entirely, regardless of any filters/rules. If that isn't the case, you might want to disable 'Easy List' from the 'Filter Lists' tab temporarily, as it causes issues with certain rules at times.
What bennetng meaned is that there really is nothing to block on hydrogenaud.io.
If he actually meant that, he did not express it quite easy to comprehend. I can agree with bennetng's opinion, though.
What bennetng meaned is that there really is nothing to block on hydrogenaud.io.
Right and thanks. Anyway, I have no more comment about the site's privacy.
Yes, Reaper is great, but learning curve is steep as well.
Oh no! Someone wants to know something about you. Better lock yourself in a shelter and cease all interaction with the world.
Hey, I tried that and it didn't work :P.
So yeah, agreed. At sooner or later the world will get to know you. Games, apps, and even OSes are just the start.
NextDNS should solve the problem
"Sooner or later everyone will violate your privacy" is a weird reason to just accept it.
NextDNS should solve the problem
Yes, it probably would, but switching to a different software does as well. The more people leave Audacity, the more likely they will change their mind about good and bad ways to track users.
Being a software developer myself, I agree that telemetry can be important. Yet, the GDPR exists for a reason.
[...] is a weird reason to just accept it.
Frau Merkel accepted it and calmed down. Relax. Google is an American corporation of the Good. Obey!
Frau Merkel accepted it and calmed down. Relax. Google is an American corporation of the Good. Obey!
:))
I block most programs with a firewall. Why would a wav editor need a internet connection??
Relax, you nutsos. The PR was closed without merging. You can go back to using the software as the developer intended, without giving any feedback on what features you actually care about, and expect them to go back to fulfilling the requests of their most vocal users, regardless of how much they represent the total user base.
I bet you wouldn't even fill out a usage survey if they asked you to fill one out voluntarily. That's probably a violation of privacy, too.
It's amazing the passive aggressive answers here... just because some people care about KNOWING which data some external entities get.
You may not care at all about it or think the improvements it may bring are good enough to accept tracking. But that's just your opinion on the subject. I see no point on being so aggressive forcing that opinion on others... or repeating exactly the same mantra multiple times on the thread until what..? Someone magically accepts it?
As developer, how you manage your software, its usage and request is your choice. It's the user choice to send to hell software which uses tracking. Whether you like it or not. And for sure, tracking should be warned in a clear way, optional and it would be much better to not rely on third party entities like google for that.
Videogames doing it wrongly, or some browsers spying you even while reading personal emails, are not an argument to support tracking. 'Hey since everybody already spies you, then it's good. You should be happy because someone takes care of you, and your data, and all the great things they will do with it'.
And for sure, good software has existed well before tracking existed. And surveys. And feedback. And developers who didn't need tracking as a basis to code. There you got steam, and all those video-games with that fantastic tracking... it's ironic we have more problems with compatibility and non-optimized code now than 10 years ago. You also have win10 with bsods being the norm after many updates, even when win 10 is not an SO anymore but a tracking platform. What a surprise ;)
Oh no! Someone wants to know something about you. Better lock yourself in a shelter and cease all interaction with the world.
Hey, I tried that and it didn't work :P.
So yeah, agreed. At sooner or later the world will get to know you. Games, apps, and even OSes are just the start.
And it's not going to change as long as people like you will still find this behaviour is normal and will blindly accept whatever private companies want to get out of us without our consent or even warning us about what is done and why.
It's amazing the passive aggressive answers here... just because some people care about KNOWING which data some external entities get.
You may not care at all about it or think the improvements it may bring are good enough to accept tracking. But that's just your opinion on the subject. I see no point on being so aggressive forcing that opinion on others... or repeating exactly the same mantra multiple times on the thread until what..? Someone magically accepts it?
As developer, how you manage your software, its usage and request is your choice. It's the user choice to send to hell software which uses tracking. Whether you like it or not. And for sure, tracking should be warned in a clear way, optional and it would be much better to not rely on third party entities like google for that.
Videogames doing it wrongly, or some browsers spying you even while reading personal emails, are not an argument to support tracking. 'Hey since everybody already spies you, then it's good.'
Exactly. My info belongs to me, not to private companies. So it's my choice to share it or NOT.
I see no reason why I should be forced to give any info especially if it's going to be used for commercial purposes.
I bet you wouldn't even fill out a usage survey if they asked you to fill one out voluntarily. That's probably a violation of privacy, too.
If it was a Google survey, it would.
Again, nothing's wrong with telemetry, but there is no reason to use Google services for that.
I will not go back to Audacity. Fool me once, shame on me...
Relax, you nutsos.
Respect your users ☝️
I go into things with exactly the worst possible outlook, and just happen to be pleasantly surprised when I get an inch better than that.
So, you expect developers to trust their most vocal users, and you expect them to code their own survey system rather than using the most convenient one.
Oh no! Someone wants to know something about you. Better lock yourself in a shelter and cease all interaction with the world.
Hey, I tried that and it didn't work :P.
So yeah, agreed. At sooner or later the world will get to know you. Games, apps, and even OSes are just the start.
And it's not going to change as long as people like you will still find this behaviour is normal and will blindly accept whatever private companies want to get out of us without our consent or even warning us about what is done and why.
Maybe because I worked out there is much better things to worry about in my life atm than what some online company does?
Sounds like very much a 1st-world problem than dealing with BS in your own neighbourhood. Let alone your own immediate life.
Fine. I don't care what anyone does with my software. I'll continue just making it for literally only myself and a handful of people, and anyone else can just be happy with what they get, and has no room to ask me to make any changes.
Well, yeah. That has been my whole M.O this whole time.
So, you expect developers to trust their most vocal users, and you expect them to code their own survey system rather than using the most convenient one.
Yeah, the most convenient one for the developer, the user doesn't matter he's just a toy to play with.
Maybe because I worked out there is much better things to worry about in my life atm than what some online company does?
Sounds like very much a 1st-world problem than dealing with BS in your own neighbourhood. Let alone your own immediate life.
Our lives are also made of this BS nowadays. And this is growing up and invading our lives day after day.
It starts with the survey excuse and always ends up with abuse. Always. That's the story of Google, Facebook and many more.
These private companies pretend to rule our lives for their sole benefit. They want to tell us what to do, what to say and what to think. For commercial purposes only.
So at the end I see no reason why I should grant internet access to Audacity, I want an audio editor, nothing else. I see no reason why this compass app on my phone should access my contacts, just give me the North direction. I see no reason why my Tesla can be remotly shut down by the manufacturer, since I bought it it's MY car, not Tesla's car anymore. Etc etc etc...
We are making the world we live in. The World is not "like that", we don't have to suffer the diktat of private companies, our choices our decisions are building our lives.
Saying "I don't care, it's not important" is encouraging dictatorship to grow up in any domain. Resistance is never futile, do it before it's too late.
If you don't care about having your privacy invaded, there is no reason to use Open Source anyway.
[...] your privacy [...]
yours:
neighbors, computer OS, browser, messenger, internet provider, phones geolocation, banking/transport cards, outdoors cameras on your way, and many other knows about you more then you want.
Again - relax. Or go living in Samali. Tru freedom, democracy and privacy.
Which is exactly why some people prefer Open Source - to see (and, potentially, modify) what is sent where. It amuses me that, while HA runs on a free forum software, true freedom is seen as dead and buried by its team.
As long as I have the choice between having my data sent to Google and not having my data sent to Google, I'll choose the latter.
Goody, I love having the ability and frequently the necessity to break out a development environment to fix the software before I can actually use it.
I'm assuming that if the dev of audacity goes down this road, there'll be someone who forks the old codebase and provides builds.
(also, what's the last audacity release that had a major new feature? I strongly suspect you could use the last version of Audacity before Muse took over pretty much indefinitely without major issues)
I dunno, I use Ocenaudio, which is closed source software, and may or may not have analytics built in.
Which is exactly why some people prefer Open Source - to see (and, potentially, modify) what is sent where. It amuses me that, while HA runs on a free forum software, true freedom is seen as dead and buried by its team.
As long as I have the choice between having my data sent to Google and not having my data sent to Google, I'll choose the latter.
Okay, while you are at it:
* Detach from the modern world
* Go entirely off grid
* Live off the land
* Do away with society entirely.
Than you can be 100%
Free. Then you will not have to worry about CPU microcode being copyrighted. Or anyone spying at all. Could be fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTIKWURvbQ4
Mister Z. should retire from the world because he doesn't want to apply to himself what he wants his users to do 24/7.
Wake up.
This is leading nowhere. Nice bait.
* Detach from the modern world
* Go entirely off grid
* Live off the land
* Do away with society entirely.
Than you can be 100% Free. Then you will not have to worry about CPU microcode being copyrighted. Or anyone spying at all. Could be fun!
https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
Which is exactly why some people prefer Open Source - to see (and, potentially, modify) what is sent where. It amuses me that, while HA runs on a free forum software, true freedom is seen as dead and buried by its team.
As long as I have the choice between having my data sent to Google and not having my data sent to Google, I'll choose the latter.
Okay, while you are at it:
* Detach from the modern world
* Go entirely off grid
* Live off the land
* Do away with society entirely.
Than you can be 100% Free. Then you will not have to worry about CPU microcode being copyrighted. Or anyone spying at all. Could be fun!
There may be a half way point here mate. Also, this is clearly an informed user telling us that the program he uses is no longer suitable for his requirements. I don't see why we can't respect that.
* Detach from the modern world
* Go entirely off grid
* Live off the land
* Do away with society entirely.
Than you can be 100% Free. Then you will not have to worry about CPU microcode being copyrighted. Or anyone spying at all. Could be fun!
There's black and white and all in between. That it can't be white doesn't mean we have to agree to full blown black.
Thank you, NateHigs.
Which is exactly why some people prefer Open Source - to see (and, potentially, modify) what is sent where. It amuses me that, while HA runs on a free forum software, true freedom is seen as dead and buried by its team.
As long as I have the choice between having my data sent to Google and not having my data sent to Google, I'll choose the latter.
Okay, while you are at it:
* Detach from the modern world
* Go entirely off grid
* Live off the land
* Do away with society entirely.
Than you can be 100% Free. Then you will not have to worry about CPU microcode being copyrighted. Or anyone spying at all. Could be fun!
There may be a half way point here mate. Also, this is clearly an informed user telling us that the program he uses is no longer suitable for his requirements. I don't see why we can't respect that.
And I think its pretty hyperbolic of him to say that if I don't mind telemetry, I should avoid FOSS.
Which is a BS statement. There are many other reasons to release code under FOSS than just to satiate people's concerns about privacy. I know I have my own reasons for opening my source code to things I do, none of which are related to privacy or even FOSS evangelism.
Audacity may collect "Data necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authorities’ requests (if any)" according to new privacy notice. (https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1411435843412189187)
The funniest consequence of this:
(https://i.imgur.com/j7fIH0E.png)
most free apps you are the product.... learn that ... move on
True.
You gotta be kidding me...
I thought they decided not to add telemetry after backlash?
I will not go back to Audacity. Fool me once, shame on me...
Point proven, I guess.
most free apps you are the product.... learn that ... move on
First of all - not true, and second - why "move on"?
If you're fine with it, that's ok. Doesn't mean anyone else needs to be. 🤷
Either way, looking forward to a non-broken fork of Audacity.
I always liked GoldWave. ;D
https://fosspost.org/audacity-is-now-a-spyware/
How do you change files from aup3 back to the old standard that had the data files at the side? Going back to an older version renders it impossible to open them at all. Or do I have no choice but to use 3.0.0 just to be able to access them?
The company that bought Audacity is based in Russia? Better install something else then if that's the case.
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1213
Interesting point:
(https://i.imgur.com/Gu8y0Z6.png)
Seems like this (https://github.com/temporary-audacity/audacity) is the main alt fork at the moment.
Telemetry isn't evil. Crash logs aren't evil.
Windows XP actually allowed you to reject sending crash logs. They found this resulted in less than 1% of all crashes being reported.
This whole thing is overblown. The privacy notice is pretty much boilerplate for anyone collecting telemetry of any sort. And law enforcement are free to ask for any data you host on your servers or have within your company, without question. Even if that data is unlikely to ever be requested, and is not personally identifying, and cannot possibly contain anything incriminating.
For the data to be used by their Russian offices and employees, it must be accessible to law enforcement regardless. And the same for the US, since they have US servers and probably either offices or remote workers accessing the data.
Basically, thanks to COPPA, nobody under the age of 13 should even be legally allowed to use a computer that's attached to a network. The law specifically requires that all parties they connect to must receive a signed letter from the parents, BY PAPER FAX. No checkbox or electronic consent form applies, whatsoever. Children cannot use online computers. Or tablets with Internet software that lets them interact with others in any way. Or any software that sends telemetry on the user's actions.
Windows XP actually allowed you to reject sending crash logs. They found this resulted in less than 1% of all crashes being reported.
Unfortunate, but depriving people of that choice is not the solution. Also, I highly doubt that statistic would be the same for a FOSS program as it was for a closed-source corporate operating system. I mean, look at how many FOSS projects are doing just fine without telemetry and automated crash reporting.
If you think telemetry isn't evil, good for you. It is indeed the case that it isn't
necessarily evil, but it's such a meaningless buzzword that a wide-sweeping proclamation that "telemetry isn't evil" is downright nonsensical.
I see absolutely no reason for anyone who doesn't have an issue with telemetry and/or other data collection to complain about anything here - Audacity is a FOSS project and people who don't want that functionality will create a fork and remove it (in fact it's already been done). But the original Audacity is still available for people who
do want that. So where's the problem?
Audacium (https://audacium.seb1g.live/)
Telemetry isn't evil. Crash logs aren't evil.
It starts like that. It's just crash logs. And then it goes bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper. Silently.
A good example is Google. They started as the 'cool' company, that's how they wanted to look alike. So they could read over your shoulder like a good mate. But they stood there and now they are everywhere: always over your shoulder, in almost all web pages, in your phone, in your glasses, in your living room. "Hey Google" as "Hey mate". BS.
And if you want to change your Google default settings you have to go through dozens of different pages on their web site to find out all of the available privacy settings. They don't want you to do that, they are not going to make it easy. Same goes on your phone: many settings are kind of hidden under sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-menus.
Ask yourself why. That's not cool anymore, that's not about crash logs, that's about tracking you 24/7. Silently.
Same goes for every company which doesn't want you to be aware of is going to happen: now when you install an OS, a simple software or even if you want to sign in to a social network you have to read 30-40 pages of legal pages with often some things hidden in the middle that they don't want you to see. When you install Windows 10, have you noticed that you have granted Microsoft the right to access ANY file on YOUR computer, even in private folders, even on ANY device connected to the computer and to do what they want with it ? No, you haven't noticed that because 99% of people haven't read those legal pages. You just tapped on OK I agree. Easier, faster. But this is not Microsoft's computer, this is yours.
They want you to just accept things without thinking anymore and to stop fighting. This is somehow fascism. Don't give up and fight before it's too late. You are the decider because at the end you are the consumer. You have been warned.
The funniest consequence of this:
(https://i.imgur.com/j7fIH0E.png)
And that's a GPL violation. So they can't use GPL anymore.
Let's hope it will go like the OpenOffice-LibreOffice way: the fork will take over the original one.
https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/
4. Who does Audacity share your Personal Data with?
We may disclose the Personal Data listed above (your hashed IP address) to the following categories of recipients:
...
4. to a potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your Personal Data only for the purposes disclosed in this Notice;
Crash logs, yeah sure.
9. Linking to other websites
1. The App may contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties. These websites have their own privacy policies and we urge you to review them. They will govern the use of Personal Data you submit whilst visiting these websites.
2. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.
Clear enough, isn't it.
Archived version of the page, just in case:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210706062852/https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/
Discussion:
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1225/
Fine, use something else. How about the closed source Ocenaudio? You have no idea what that's doing under the hood, but it's gotta be better than this, right?
Fine, use something else. How about the closed source Ocenaudio? You have no idea what that's doing under the hood, but it's gotta be better than this, right?
This is possibly the most transparent example of a false dilemma I've ever seen. Impressive.
Don't mind me, I don't know shit. I just blindly use whatever the hell is convenient without a care in the world what it's doing under the hood. The first and last time I read an end user license agreement was the one for Windows 95.
Can't tell if I should care that the 4chan Brigade is running full tilt to promote every fork of Audacity being renamed to "Sneedacity", cuz you know, you have to have special needs to be concerned about privacy in this day and age, right? /s Everybody listen to the people who hide behind the cloak of anonymity every chance they get, except when they go be idiots in person.
Though I do think they're off tilt for harassing the leading fork's developer at all hours of the day and night, both his phone and visiting his house and knocking on the doors and windows. And posting transphobic and/or racist crap issues to the bug tracker, and concocting fake screen shots to implicate him for nasty behavior of his own, which they then share with his known contacts to harass them as well.
"This is somehow fascism" Talk about overblown.
Ars also published a more measured article about this: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/no-open-source-audacity-audio-editor-is-not-spyware/
* Detach from the modern world
* Go entirely off grid
* Live off the land
* Do away with society entirely.
Than you can be 100% Free. Then you will not have to worry about CPU microcode being copyrighted. Or anyone spying at all. Could be fun!
There's black and white and all in between. That it can't be white doesn't mean we have to agree to full blown black.
Is what Audacity doing "full blown black" as some users are behaving like it is, though? Seems to me like a very very pale shade of light gray.
"This is somehow fascism" Talk about overblown.
The last sentence of kode54 right above your post demonstrates it's not overblown.
Or you can call it mafia if you want, after all both systems are using the same methods.
Fine, use something else. How about the closed source Ocenaudio? You have no idea what that's doing under the hood, but it's gotta be better than this, right?
What about using the last open source version of Audacity ? And keeping an eye on upcoming forks.
IMO its a mistake to leave them, Fork or use old versions. That just feeds the status quo.
Instead let them deal with their userbase because if there isn't one - whats the point
of a non-commercial project ?
What about using the last open source version of Audacity ? And keeping an eye on upcoming forks.
It's
still open source. And what little telemetry there is can be disabled during compilation.
Anybody with a tinfoil hat doesn't need to fork the source code; they can provide builds with a CMake flag toggled and
presto chango, no telemetry.
What about using the last open source version of Audacity ? And keeping an eye on upcoming forks.
It's still open source. And what little telemetry there is can be disabled during compilation.
Anybody with a tinfoil hat doesn't need to fork the source code; they can provide builds with a CMake flag toggled and presto chango, no telemetry.
Well that's good news. I guess linux distros will do that. Others can provide different builds like chromium etc.
Usually doing waveedit things in Reaper is good enough for me. Otherwise I use Ocenaudio, because I need something easy to use when it comes to wave editing. But it's not Open Source, Tinfoil hatted Sourcecode readers.