Here are the key findings:
1. Extreme Resource Consumption: Out of the box, Trae used 6.3x more RAM (~5.7 GB) and spawned 3.7x more processes (33 total) than a standard VSCode setup with the same project open. The team has since made improvements, but it's still significantly heavier.
2. Telemetry Opt-Out Doesn't Work (It Makes It Worse): I found Trae was constantly sending data to ByteDance servers (byteoversea.com). I went into the settings and disabled all telemetry. To my surprise, this didn't stop the traffic. In fact, it increased the frequency of batch data collection. The telemetry "off" switch appears to be purely cosmetic.
3. What's Being Sent: Even with telemetry "disabled," Trae sends detailed payloads including: Hardware specs (CPU, memory, etc.) Persistent user, device, and machine IDs OS version, app language, user name Granular usage data like time-on-ide, window focus state, and active file types.
4. Community Censorship: When I tried to discuss these findings on their official Discord, my posts were deleted and my account was muted for 7 days. It seems words like "track" trigger an automated gag rule, which prevents any real discussion about privacy.
I believe developers should be aware of this behavior. The combination of resource drain, non-functional privacy settings, and censorship of technical feedback is a major red flag. The full, detailed analysis with all the evidence (process lists, Fiddler captures, JSON payloads, and screenshots of the Discord moderation) is available at the link. Happy to answer any questions.
edit: to be clear I see that they X-out the topmost window of the editor and then re-launch from the bottom bar, but it's not obvious that this is actually restarting the stuff that matters
Either way, it’s useful to see the telemetry payloads.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44706580
https://theia-ide.org/
It was rough a few years ago, but nowadays it's pretty nice. TI rebuilt their Code Composer Studio using Theia so it does have some larger users. It has LSP support and the same Monaco editor backend - which is all I need.
It's VSCode-with-an-Eclipse-feel to it - which might or might not be your cup of tea, but it's an alternative.
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* https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/languages/markdown#_inser...
I belong to the class of people who believe in customising their tools as they please. So I'd have written an Emacs package to do this. But then again, this is Emacs, so someone's probably already done it. Oh, here it is: https://github.com/mooreryan/markdown-dnd-images
Also it used to be kinda heavy, but it became lighter because of Moore's law and good code management practices all over the board.
I'm planning to deploy Theia in its web based form if possible, but still didn't have the time to tinker with that one.
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This is not because it is better and I've seen no inclination that it would somehow be more private or secure, but most enterprises already share their proprietary data with AWS and have an agreement with AWS that their TAMs will gladly usher Kiro usage under.
Interesting to distinguish that privacy/security as it relates to individuals is taken at face value, while when it relates to corporations it is taken at disclosure value.
not saying this is good but everyone do this
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Unique Identifiers: Machine ID, user ID, device fingerprints Workspace Details: Project information, file paths (obfuscated)
Plus os details.
I'd rather none.
I was interested in learning Dart until the installer told me Google would be collecting telemetry. For a programming language. I’ve never looked at it again.
I keep it disabled for both Dart and Flutter.
I suspect they aren't actually doing that, but the GDPR cares not what you're doing with the data, but what is possible with it, hence why any identifier (even "obfuscated") which could lead back to a user is considered PII.
It feels like the goal was more about grabbing attention than raising a real issue. But sure, toss “ByteDance” and “data” into a headline and suddenly it’s breaking news. I'm just tired of this kind of "Big News"- it's boring.
Dang said a similarly small minority of users here do all the commenting.
Your analysis is thorough, and I wonder if their reduction of processes from 33 to 20...(WOW) had anything to do with moving telemetry logic elsewhere (hence increased endpoint activity).
What does Bytedance say regarding all this?
I'm trying ZED too, which I believe as a commercial product comes with telemetry too.. but yeah, learning advanced rules of a personal firewall always helpful!