Even though we do not pass the telemetry build flags (and go out of our way to cripple the baked-in telemetry), Microsoft will still track usage by default.
We do however set the default `telemetry.enableCrashReporter` and `telemetry.enableTelemetry` values to false. You can see those by viewing your VSCodium settings.json and searching for `telemetry`.
The instructions [here](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-telemetry-reporting) and [here](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-crash-reporting) help with explaining and toggling telemetry.
It is also highly recommended that you review all the settings that "use online services" by following [these instructions](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry#_managing-online-services). The `@tag:usesOnlineServices` filter on the settings page will show that by default:
__Please note that some extensions send telemetry data to Microsoft as well. We have no control over this and can only recommend removing the extension.__ _(For example, the C# extension `ms-vscode.csharp` sends tracking data to Microsoft.)_
When searching the `@tag:usesOnlineServices` filter, note that while the "Update: Mode" setting description still says "The updates are fetched from a Microsoft online service", VSCodium's build script [sets the `updateUrl` field](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/prepare_vscode.sh#L36) in `product.json` to that of VSCodium's own small [update server](https://github.com/VSCodium/update-api), so enabling that setting won't actually result in any calls to Microsoft servers.
Likewise, while the descriptions for "Extensions: Auto Check Updates" and "Extensions: Auto Update" include the same phrase, VSCodium [replaces](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/prepare_vscode.sh#L42) the Visual Studio Marketplace with Open VSX, so these settings won't call Microsoft, either.
Being a vscode based editor, VSCodium gets additional features by installing VS Code extensions.
Unfortunately, as Microsoft [prohibits usages of the Microsoft marketplace by any other products](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/31168) or redistribution of `.vsix` files from it, in order to use VS Code extensions in non-Microsoft products those need to be installed differently.
By default, the `product.json` file is set up to use [open-vsx.org](https://open-vsx.org/) as extension gallery, which has an [adapter](https://github.com/eclipse/openvsx/wiki/Using-Open-VSX-in-VS-Code) to the Marketplace API used by VS Code. Since that is a rather new project, you will likely miss some extensions you know from the VS Code Marketplace. You have the following options to obtain such missing extensions:
* Ask the extension maintainers to publish to [open-vsx.org](https://open-vsx.org/) in addition to the VS Code Marketplace. The publishing process is documented in the [Open VSX Wiki](https://github.com/eclipse/openvsx/wiki/Publishing-Extensions).
* Create a pull request to [this repository](https://github.com/open-vsx/publish-extensions) to have the [@open-vsx](https://github.com/open-vsx) service account publish the extensions for you.
* Download and [install the vsix files](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/extension-gallery#_install-from-a-vsix), for example from the release page in their source repository.
As noted above, the [Open VSX Registry](https://open-vsx.org/) is the pre-set extension gallery in VSCodium. Using the extension view in VSCodium will therefore by default use it.
### <a id="howto-selfhost-marketplace"></a>How to self-host your own extension gallery
Individual developers and enterprise companies in regulated or security-conscious industries can self-host their own extension gallery. In all of these cases you'd enter its endpoint URLs as noted above, replacing `marketplace.visualstudio.com` with `your-self-hosted-marketplace-address.example.com` (or IP address), setting `cacheUrl` / `VSCODE_GALLERY_CACHE_URL` to an empty string.
There are likely other options, but the following were reported to work:
While the public instance which is run by the Eclipse Foundation is the pre-set endpoint in VSCodium, you can host your own instance.
> Open VSX is a [vendor-neutral](https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/ecd.openvsx) open-source alternative to the [Visual Studio Marketplace](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/vscode). It provides a server application that manages [VS Code extensions](https://code.visualstudio.com/api) in a database, a web application similar to the VS Code Marketplace, and a command-line tool for publishing extensions similar to [vsce](https://code.visualstudio.com/api/working-with-extensions/publishing-extension#vsce).
> `code-marketplace` is a self-contained go binary that does not have a frontend or any mechanisms for extension authors to add or update extensions in the marketplace. It simply reads extensions from file storage and provides an API for VSCode compatible editors to consume.
### <a id="howto-vscode-marketplace"></a>How to use the VS Code Marketplace
Also note that this extension gallery hosts multiple extensions that are non-free and have license-agreements that explicitly forbid using them in non-Microsoft products, along with using telemetry.
The debugger provided with Microsoft's [C# extension](https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode) as well as the (Windows) debugger provided with their [C++ extension](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools) are very restrictively licensed to only work with the official Visual Studio Code build. See [this comment in the C# extension repo](https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/2491#issuecomment-418811364) and [this comment in the C++ extension repo](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/21#issuecomment-248349017).
A workaround exists to get debugging working in C# projects, by using Samsung's opensource [netcoredbg](https://github.com/Samsung/netcoredbg) package. See [this comment](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/82#issue-409806641) for instructions on how to set that up.
Like the debuggers mentioned above, some extensions you may find in the marketplace (like the [Remote Development Extensions](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/remote-overview)) only function with the official Visual Studio Code build. You can work around this by adding the extension's internal ID (found on the extension's page) to the `extensionAllowedProposedApi` property of the product.json in your VSCodium installation. For example:
VSCodium (and a freshly cloned copy of vscode built from source) stores its extension files in `~/.vscode-oss`. So if you currently have Visual Studio Code installed, your extensions won't automatically populate. You can reinstall your extensions from the Marketplace in VSCodium, or copy the `extensions` from `~/.vscode/extensions` to `~/.vscode-oss/extensions`.
In VSCodium, `Sign in with GitHub` is using a Personal Access Token.<br/>
Follow the documentation https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/creating-a-personal-access-token to create your token.<br/>
Select the scopes dependending of the extension which need access to GitHub. (GitLens requires the `repo` scope.)
### Linux
If you are getting the error `Writing login information to the keychain failed with error 'The name org.freedesktop.secrets was not provided by any .service files'.`, you need to install the package `gnome-keyring`.
- **Windows** / **Linux** : the instructions can be followed as written.
- **macOS** : portable mode is enabled by the existence of a specially named folder. For Visual Studio Code that folder name is `code-portable-data`. For VSCodium, that folder name is `codium-portable-data`. So to enable portable mode for VSCodium on Mac OS, follow the instructions outlined in the [link above](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/portable), but create a folder named `codium-portable-data` instead of `code-portable-data`.
