Audacity Is Spying On You Now

[Biodegradable]

I have some disappointing news for all audiophiles and other similar long-time users: The long time and much respected open-source audio editing program, Audacity, has more or less turned itself into spyware. To elaborate, a while back the development team were bought out by some company called MuseGroup. When I originally heard that news, I was very worried that the program wouldn't be the same. Thanks to this news, my concerns were validated: the plucky little 20 year old program that has been a long-time stalwart of open-source software that I myself have been using for over a decade has become what I had originally feared: A corporate product that wants to treat you as the product by sucking up your user data. In the latest version of Audacity, they've switched up their Privacy Policy to include spying on your hardware for the purposes of "Law Enforcement" and don't tell you anything much more specific than that. It also allows MuseGroup and its associates to take note of your computer build, your OS, your IP address, your country location and sell your data to the highest bidder much like what Facebook and similar apps and sites do. Oh and the best part: They're sending your data to their headquarters in fucking Russia of all places. The most secure and definitely not-at-all sketchy epicentre of shonky Internet practices in any way!

 

"All your personal data is stored on our servers in the European Economic Area (EEA). However, we are occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external counsel in the USA."
-Audacity's new Privacy Policy, Section 7

 

Here's a peek at who's going to have access to your data:

 

 

Another interesting aside is because of this new change, the software now has to restrict itself from being used by people under the age of 13, which naturally violates its own GPL licence agreement it uses, so there's a well-earned can of worms the bastards will have to wrestle with now.

 

Fortunately because Audacity's software has been open-source for two decades, you can bet your arse there are some cunning programmers out there coding up some forks right now and there's already some chatter about it going on across GitHub and Reddit. There is some slight good news too: This is all regarding the NEW version of the software. If you're currently using an older version, keep it! Anything older than v3.0.3 is free of the Telementry thing, which means it doesn't "talk" back to the developers and feed them your info. I personally haven't updated my version of Audacity in the last 4 years because I haven't needed to. Now I guess I never will. I'm probably going to start looking for an alternative at some point, but there's a little bit of solace for you regarding this development.

 

I can't help but feel really disappointed, personally. This stupid little program has been a constant and reliable piece of kit in my life for years. It's funny what you can get attached to, huh? Real shame.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Biodegradable

[Doom_Dude]

Ugh this sucks. I'll be keeping my olde 2.4.2 version. Not sure when I last updated but it's been ages (2018 I think).

[leejacksonaudio]

For those looking for a basic (if non-free) editor alternative, I would suggest Wavepad. It's not perfect - it doesn't support 64-bit VSTs, and what VST support it does have sucks, but it is a good basic editor with enough bells and whistles that I've installed it on my laptop as a backup to the Wavelab Pro 10 on my Music Production Machine (can't hold a candle to it, but I can't afford 2 copies of Wavelab Pro 10). Give it a try: a free trial version is available.

[URROVA]

what?????????

man that sucks >:(

i will not actualize the program and keep using the 2.3.0. 

[Wavy]

What the hell Audacity team? Lemme just make my Doom Eternal mixes!

 

Well, as Audacity is FOSS, people can fork it and create a "sanitised" version and if that does happen, let us know!

 

...or not. Forks have been linked below

Edited July 5, 2021 by Wavy

[Doominator2]

Does Audacity automatically update or would I have to manually download the latest version for it to start spying on me?

[Wavy]

4 minutes ago, Doominator2 said:

Does Audacity automatically update or would I have to manually download the latest version for it to start spying on me?

It doesn't auto update. If you want to install an update (which you really shouldn't do now hehe) you'll need to run the latest installer over the old version

[Sergeant_Mark_IV]

Seems like there is already a fork with the spyware and the crash report tool removed.
Haven't tried yet because I haven't seen a reason to update from 2.8.3, but it's good to know that people won't let this tool die like this.

https://github.com/cookiengineer/audacity

[Biodegradable]

Thanks for the link, Mark!

[Wavy]

4 minutes ago, Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

Seems like there is already a fork with the spyware and the crash report tool removed.
Haven't tried yet because I haven't seen a reason to update from 2.8.3, but it's good to know that people won't let this tool die like this.

https://github.com/cookiengineer/audacity

Sick. Thanks for the info Sgt_Mark!

[Maes]

That sucks. Is it something ingrained into the actual software itself, or simply implemented by some third-party thing that you're tricked into also installing, in the best spyware/adware "tradition"?

[Wavy]

Also I found another fork of Audacity similar to the one Sgt_Mark linked called Audacium: https://github.com/SartoxOnlyGNU/audacium

It removes the telemetry and adds some of its own features as well.

Edited July 5, 2021 by Wavy

[snapshot]

The Audacity... ^{ba dum tss}

 

Good thing it's open-source

[Maes]

Well, that's one thing I fail to grasp. If you hope to make a quick buck/gain "business intelligence" or whatever from spyware/telemetry, what's the point of doing it with an open source software that anyone can modify? You place an "obstacle", everybody simply walks around it, and calls you stupid.

 

It's not like you have some exclusive closed-source software that's a near-obligate choice for most users or something...

[MFG38]

I barely use Audacity anyway, but this still sucks.

[NoXion]

Which version of Audacity has this unnecessary crap in it? I got it recently and have 3.0.2

[NoXion]

Also, would it not be possible to use a firewall to block Audacity's ability to phone home?

[Biodegradable]

1 minute ago, NoXion said:

Which version of Audacity has this unnecessary crap in it? I got it recently and have 3.0.2

 

The one you have installed right now, mate. Stay away from Version 3.

[inkoalawetrust]

I remember when one of Muse's programmers first made a pull request that added spyware to the program, which then caused the comments on the PR to become a massive shitshow where Audacity was dogpiled by everyone for adding telemetry, and from Google of all companies no less. At that time I had also posted the link to the PR along with an explanation of what is happening with Audacity on the ZDoom Discord, then they backed down from adding the spyware. But obviously I and most other people knew that this would only be temporary before they did it again.

And what do you know.

I also like how they changed it so anyone under 13 cannot legally use an audio editor. Or how they will send your usage info from said audio editor to law enforcement in Russia and beyond.

Apparently Putin is sitting in his office wanting to know how many fart.wav sound effects I export every month.


















By the way here is a video that the guy who owns Muse made about his acquisition of Audacity. I found out about the spyware PR by watching his video and deciding to check Audacity's GitHub out of curiosity. I'd suggest that everyone dislikes the video now that we know that he definitely wants to turn the program into spyware.
 

Edit: Apparently he is deleting all the comments criticizing the direction he took Audacity too. How shocking.

Edited July 5, 2021 by inkoalawetrust : Added more information.

[Lippeth]

I imagine it's safe to assume that Musecore is also spyware at this point, as well as everything else MuseGroup owns.

 

It's a shame that even though the majority of users won't fall for this, enough will that it'll still be worth their time.

 

I'm still running 2.3.2, but it's a vital part of my workflow. Sort of wish I had downloaded the latest release up until this point.

[inkoalawetrust]

7 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

I imagine it's safe to assume that Musecore is also spyware at this point, as well as everything else MuseGroup owns.

 

It's a shame that even though the majority of users won't fall for this, enough will that it'll still be worth their time.

 

I'm still running 2.3.2, but it's a vital part of my workflow. Sort of wish I had downloaded the latest release up until this point.

You can still download the latest version, as it was released before Audacity's acquisition AFAIK.

[printz]

I thought that free software was maintained by nebulous communities and associations, not by singular business companies...

[Mr. Freeze]

brb saving 1000 sounds of penguins to fuck with my Google ads 

[deus-ex]

2 hours ago, leejacksonaudio said:

For those looking for a basic (if non-free) editor alternative, I would suggest Wavepad.

Give it a try: a free trial version is available.

 

Actually, don't give it a try. Only very basic features are available in the free version, which has been crippled down over the years. Also, when you uninstall it, it leaves several hundred (might be even a thousand) Windows registry entries behind, including then defunct associations, which are quite a PITA to remove. I'm speaking from experience.

 

Alternatives:

Ocenaudio Freeware

 

Wavosaur Freeware

 

Reaper Trialware, doesn't force you to register (by Justin Frankel, author of Winamp)

[roadworx]

thank god they're dumb enough to do this with free software that others can very easily fork

[deus-ex]

11 minutes ago, inkoalawetrust said:

You can still download the latest version, as it was released before Audacity's acquisition AFAIK.

 

That is correct for v3.0.2. Audacity v3.0.3, which is currently available as a release candidate, has telemetry functionality included, as one can notice by the additional files added to the distribution.

 

According to my Firewall, my user application report, and checking through Audacity's saved settings it has not yet tried to open a network connection and no trails can be found of any gathered data. That might change though once v3.0.3 gets released. Nothing a Firewall rule can't handle.

[yakfak]

just checked which version of audacity I use to render tunes and it is prehistoric. before christ

i cant imagine what updating it would improve lol

[Dark Pulse]

Checked mine and I'm still on 2.3.3 from 2019, so apparently I should be more than fine.

 

So now it's a good question as to which fork will win out, because otherwise I'd say the best version to download would be the one before the acquisition.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

I'd rather boycott MuseGroup for inclusioning spyware & adware in my favorite audio editor, because none of them are compatible with HTML5's exclusive features, and that they lack CPU & GPU acceleration support.

 

We need to fork the last pre-adware version of Audacity, by also adding quality of life improvements & adding support for more audio codecs.

 

We should also demand the Free Software Foundation to create the GPL version 4 that would prohibit the bundling of all adware, spyware & Potentially Unwanted Programs from all open-source software, because said bundling of proprietary adware & spyware is frowned upon to the FSF.

[Biodegradable]

Thanks to MuseGroup buggering up Audacity's old GPL Licence by restricting minors from using it now because they want to harvest people's data without getting whacked by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, heaps of schools that were using Audacity as a learning tool are going to have to dump it. This is truly one of the most bone-headed decisions and stupendous examples of self-sabotage I've ever seen a company make.