In this tutorial we'll go over why you should make the switch, and how you can retain all of your extensions when you do make the switch. It won't take more than a couple of minutes to do the actual change!
The problem with Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio code is without a doubt the most used Code editor (for front end developers at least). It definitely provides a lot of helpful extensions of which there have been umpteen posts about.
So why would I suggest you uninstall it for something else?
Whilst Microsoft’s vscode source code is open source (MIT-licensed), the product available for download (Visual Studio Code) is licensed under this not-FLOSS license and contains telemetry/tracking.
...may collect information about you and your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft... You may opt-out of many of these scenarios, but not all...
Microsoft insist this is for bug tracking and so on, which may well be true. But you never know what else the data could end up being used for in the hands of someone unscrupulous.
You can turn off telemetry reporting in Visual Studio Code, but there are plenty of opportunities for Microsoft to add other features in, which may slip past your attention.
Run this command in your terminal and check your output
code --telemetry
Not great, lets change it.
VSCodium
VSCodium ... is not a fork. This is a repository of scripts to automatically build Microsoft's vscode repository into freely-licensed binaries with a community-driven default configuration.
This means we don't have to go through the hassle of building each version ourselves, everything is done for us and the best part is we get these binaries under the MIT license. Telemetry is completely disabled.
Moreover, the editor itself looks and functions exactly the same, you won't miss a thing!
That's a pretty simple and compelling argument.
How to install VSCodium and keep all your extensions and settings
This is the easy part. I will focus upon macOS, but these instructions are pretty simple to amend to other platforms.
updated to include settings
Make sure you have Homebrew installed:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
1. Export all your installed extensions
First export all of your installed extensions into a text file (amend the output path as you see fit)
code --list-extensions | tee ~/vscode-extensions.txt
This will output all of your extensions to ~/vscode-extensions.txt and list them out in your terminal for you to see.
2. Export your settings
Export any custom keybindings and user settings you have as default.
cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Code/User/settings.json ~/vscode-settings.json
cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Code/User/keybindings.json ~/vscode-keybindings.json
3. Uninstall Visual Studio Code
We use the force argument so that nothing gets left behind that would clash or interrupt VSCodium's install.
brew cask uninstall --force visual-studio-code
4. Install VSCodium
brew cask install vscodium
5. Reinstall your extensions for VSCodium
Because VSCodium has the same command line tools, we invoke them the same was as before
xargs -n1 code --install-extension < ~/vscode-extensions.txt
This went through the file and executed code --install-extension on each line individually.
You should have seen the output in your terminal.
If you get a DeprecationWarning: Buffer()... warning, you don't need to worry, it's related to Yarn and can be resolved with yarn global add yarn
6. Import your settings
mv ~/vscode-settings.json ~/Library/Application\ Support/VSCodium/User/settings.json
mv ~/vscode-keybindings.json ~/Library/Application\ Support/VSCodium/User/keybindings.json
Now you should be set and ready to go, the only thing you should notice is the logo is different. Everything else will work, feel and function the same as before.
Happy coding devs!
Latest comments (91)
How's it going anonymising the rest of your life? Lots off effort yeah?
I found the migration von VSCode to VSCodium to be the easiest (again on Mac) by symlinking
~/vscodeto~/vscode-oss~/Library/Application Support/Codeto~/Library/Application Support/VSCodiumand be done with it: VSCode and VSCodium look and feel exactly identically, I didn't yet try to launch them concurrently at the same time.
… Oh, and I aliased
codeto becodium, so I won't accidentally fire up VSCode while VSCodium might be already running. — At the time of writing this, VSCode is still installed, but it might be gone rather sooner than later.Nice. It's been a while since I wrote this article. I may update it soon
Does it have OTA / automatic updates?
yes, just like vscode
Sounds like a good idea to me. The only problem is the settings sync that comes with the normal VS Code :(
There are differences between vscode and vscode-oss: github.com/microsoft/vscode/wiki/D... . The main reason I haven't switched to vscode-oss is because I use the remote ssh development features of vscode often enough that it would be annoying to lose them.
Since writing this article a lot of extensions and plugins I used have been blocked due to licencing.
I've gone back to VSCode (reluctantly), but I've disabled all the telemetry features.
Idk why but codium runs faster than the actual vscode on my machine...strange or what?
Even though a lot of extensions work for both, they are not available within the marketplace. In my case looking for a simple TimeStamp is going to make me go back to VSCode. Because, yes, I could set up VSCode, export the settings, go back to Codium, import those settings. But good gods … not compelling enough.
If you're on Linux, a better way to keep your extensions without having to reinstall them:
When removing vscode, use:
apt remove code
instead of purge.
Then, after installing codium, go to your terminal and do:
mv ~/.vscode/extensions/ ~/vscode-oss/extensions.
That worked for me.
instead of purge. Then, after installing codium, go to your terminal and enter this:
ln -s ~/.vscode/extensions ~/vscode-oss/extensions
or do:
What I don't get here (in the comments and on some other pages) is that apparently VSCode isn't Open Source? VSCode has a GitHub with the entire full source - VSCodium even DEPENDS on that GitHub. Do your (not directed at the author but at the reader) research before you spout such nonsense like "VSCode isn't FOSS" even though it very much is
(Quote from the VSCodium GitHub)
It is mentioned in the article :
maybe you should learn to read first ?
I installed codium three weeks ago and I had to disable telemetry. I was irritated about that.
anyhow, I am still using it.
And for those who claim to not care about giving your data away...
youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw
Cheers and stay safe and healthy
Damn, thats a scary video. I've been thinking of dropping Google and other services that track my data. But I wasn't in such a pressure to do it as they do pretty well. But this video made me want to change it today. Its a pretty scary tech world right now.
Wasn't aware of the licensing part. Normally I would just turn off Telemetry. Painless enough to switch on Fedora so I did so. Literally no difference. Thanks for the write-up!
The main reason for doing that switch is ethical.
But there could be some other reasons. We have monitored the traffic of VSCode and it's literally sending traffic over the internet every minutes, back and forth, lots of data. That alone leads to some CPU usage, internet traffic and battery usage.
So if you want to have a more efficient setup, go green mind, and you don't want that Microsoft monitors all your keystrokes and work, go for VSCodium.
We are many that did the jump. Thanks to @0xdonut for the great work which make the jump even easier :)
Sorry but this is nonsense to me.
The "telemetry" is useful for Microsoft to make VSCode better.
Don't you want VSCode to be better?
It tells Microsoft how much and in which ways people are using VSCode, but it does not spy on the code you're writing.
Think of it what you will, I did say they use it for the reasons you've stated.
But if you subscribe to FOSS philosophy then VSCodium is an option available.
Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.