Goodbye Audacity

Audacity is adding analytics from Google and Yandex, and the FOSS community is NOT happy. Here we look at the release information and let you all know what they are doing so we can decide if we will stick with Audacity, fork it, or just look for something else.
#Audacity #Google #Analytics

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[SwitchedtoLinux]

Audacity has backtracked as many have pointed out in the comments. They are now doing the following:
Give a dialog box if an error is detected
Do a check for "updates" on startup that sends the IP address, OS version, and application version, which they say can be "turned off" (Is it on by default now?)
They are also self-hosting stats now instead of using Google and Yandex.

Thanks to all for the updates...this was not "poorly researched" as some have suggested. The news of the reversal is breaking today; no, we can't always wait when major changes are happening in our beloved packages...it was videos like these that caused them to reverse their decision.

[josh-rxly]

I thought they had backtracked on the use of Google Analytics., and will now be self hosted crash reporting.

[josephdegarmo]

Looks like Debian will permanently freeze updates on Audacity immediately, Fedora will be removing it from its official repositories, and Arch will be transitioning it to the AUR.

[overclucker]

Users manually supply bug reports, core dumps, logs and feature requests and it's already more information than any serious project can keep up with. Metrics are only good for selling out your use base.

[russellbrooks]

My Audacity comes from the Debian Bullseye repo, and so far is still version 2.4.2, which doesn't have this feature. We'll see.

[Lua]

5:50 was a "go off, king" moment for sure.

[pianokeyjoe]

ummm.. is there another wav file recorder/editor for LINUX out there that is like audacity or better(soundforge)? Cause this issue of limited apps for musicians was the main reason I stayed on Windows until Windows 10 came out and Win7 stopped being supported. I could just use Soundforge 4.5 in Wine or a VM but really??

[tostoday]

It's getting to the point that if nobody accepts my data, I feel insulted :)

[BrucesWorldofStuff]

I have Audacity installed on all of my box's and I do use it once in a while. With that said I can remove it and never miss it...
I don't need any used car sales talk to know that three is a snake in the grass! The Wink is a dead give-a-way, Run!
Thanks for the video!
LLAP

[russellbrooks]

It's actually problematic for them to implement this on Linux. Package maintainers aren't likely to put version 3 of Audacity on their repos in the first place. It wouldn't surprise me to see Ubuntu do it, but I don't think Debian will. Anybody that installs from a snap or flatpak is likely to get version 3 with this dumb crap. And there are plenty of windows users that will download it and say "Sure! Stick a tracker up my ass..." That was how Google got where they are now. By sneaking in the back door on everything anybody installed on windows.

[nordlago]

but you can block the internet for Audacity or any software . no problem ...

[iamstartower]

There goes another little bit of freedom.

[alotheone]

So that means i should use older versions of audacity?

[DasBrennendeHerz]

I don't think that disabled by default tememetry is bad. It's just an option for me - to simply share my experiens with developers, when it's too time consuming elseware. I use Audacity and want it to become better, so I will even consider to shere my user habbits with developers.

[HuntSmacker]

Is there a list somewhere of Linux apps that send usage statistics? I use Notepadqq, and it too has them! You can turn them off but I really dislike these features being present at all.

[rayzer]

reaper is pretty decent if you want a change. started using cakewalk too on the windows side.

[wingster]

Unfortunately, it's nice to see someone who cares enough to stand up and say no. It's just a pity it has to about dirty fingers in dirty pies again!! Uninstalling first thing tomorrow. I got away from Microsoft by moving to Linux and trying my best to back out of Googol, they can't even spell their name right. And now they have their dirty fingers in open source. Ocen audio it is then.

[jeffkelly]

Please tell us what you really think this time do not hold anything back. Remember Audacity Google Facebook Microsoft only do these things to better serve us right ?

[NinjutsuK]

I am against telemetry in open source software too, but in the case of Audacity, it's not the kind of software you need to update every month, even telemetry will be enabled by default, you can stick with version 3.02 for years, and will work just fine, it this is the worst-case scenario, it's not that bad. In my case at least if the company at any time changes the mind and discontinue or terminate the Audacity project, still I can use it for many years. until one-day windows do not support, but it's very little chance windows does not support because windows 10 it's the last version of windows because it's a service now, and Microsoft said won't be windows 11 when launched windows 10, at the end of the day only who need cutting edge technology and features will be affected, and this kind of people can afford an expensive paid app for this. Probably 90% of the users can stick with the last version in the worst-case scenario.

[anarita-]

Tom try Ocenaudio as a an alternative to Audacity I don't use it myself but I heard many people mentioning it so I don't if it good enough for you to replace audacity but give it a try as you have nothing to lose in doing so why not :)