I’m looking at text-editors/IDEs that give complete privacy to users and don't collect any data. I've heard that Vim collects no data whereas VS Code collects a lot of data.
What data does Vim collect?
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2 Answers
Vim itself doesn't collect any data but some third-party plugins may do. Be particularly wary of AI-related ones.
So, ultimately, it is your responsibility to be mindful about your usage. Same for vi and all the old vi clones like nvi or elvis. I don't know about Neovim. The MacVim GUI may send crash reports but it never crashed on me in 14 years so I can't be 100% sure.
For other editors and IDEs, ask on more appropriate channels like r/programming.
Note that Vim is from an era when no such thing existed. If it is "privacy conscious" it is by accident, not by design. That disturbing trend is pretty new but that's what you get when you let megacorporations and wannabe-megacorporations design the tools you use and, frankly, there is nothing stopping the new maintainers from adding that crap little by little. So don't take that as a definitive "no".
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1No one seems to know what's off-topic around here so… I live too far from the office so going there by bike is a no-no. Instead, I got into the habit of waking up earlier and starting my day with a 1h ride. Recommended.– romainlCommented Nov 27 at 14:13
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3"there is nothing stopping the new maintainers from adding that crap little by little" - FWIW: I'll try not to add such things, but thanks for the trust in me :/ Commented Nov 27 at 19:29
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1Oh you did, and lots of it, don't worry about that. But now you are the boss and you can turn the project into any direction. The risk also existed with Bram so it's not strictly about you. Those things always start very reasonably: running the project is a full time endeavor so you add donations first and then advertising, and then crypto miners, etc., or you want to know how Vim is used in order to prioritize your roadmap so you add a little bit of tracking and then why not a little bit more, etc. It's a slippery slope and the first steps are very easy.– romainlCommented Nov 28 at 11:06
me: "Alexa, should I worry about Vim collecting my data?"
Alexa: "You don't need to worry about Vim. I already uploaded all your sensitive data to do evil things with them. Would you like me to order some anti-depressants?"
Jokes aside, let's put things in perspective. Vim probably isn't your biggest privacy concern if you...
- use any kind of "smart" device (e.g. a phone) that was manufactured within the last ten years.
- have a social media account (this site counts).
- regularly browse the internet.
... and probably many more things.
Even on your own device, you may have background services that index your files for fast search results, backup your files to a cloud storage or train AI models with your documents. So some kind of data collection may already be taking place, even if you never start an editor.
As romainl has already pointed out, Vim is secure mainly through merit of age.
Vim is a text editor—and it's good at that—it's not a privacy safeguard. You can turn off some of the auxiliary files Vim creates with
:set nobackup nowritebackup noswapfile noundofile viminfofile=NONE
If you need to edit super-confidential data, you should not rely on Vim alone (or any text editor, for that matter) to keep it secure. Instead or additionally, take other precautions, like encrypting your data and running Vim in a sandboxed environment.
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1Also: while Vim itself doesn't "collect data", it writes all kinds of backup files to disk, that other programs on your machine can look at.– romainlCommented Dec 10 at 15:17
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@romainl good point. I thought about it but forgot to put it in my answer. Edited. Commented Dec 10 at 21:31