When I installed this it asked for my consent to collect some information, naturally I chose "NO". Call me cynical but does "no" mean %100 deactivation of usage collection? It is kind of weird that the author wanted to sneak on people random usage. Either he is naive or has no idea about something called privacy? I am wondering what he wants to do with so called random usage. Lets say I press a million times, typed python 100 times a day. Is this useful information to you?
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Yep, if you say "No", then I don't collect any information. I have 2 reasons for collecting usage information.
1. Curiosity. I get no information from SourceForge other than how many downloads have occurred. I would like to know what operating system, user language, user location, jdk version, eclipse version, file types operated on, etc. As well as how many users are actually using the plugin (as opposed to downloaded and never installed).
2. Presumably some of this information will tell me about who is using it and figure out where they are likely to run into problems. Also, it might let me figure out if anyone is actually using certain features.
I do believe in privacy, which is why I popped up the dialog. After all, if I didn't pop up the dialog, you'd probably never know. This seems to be in line with Eclipse itself and other software packages (zonealarm, FireFox, etc.).
More info about how it works:
1. If you don't have a direct connection to the internet, then you must have an internet proxy configured for the data collection to be sent anywhere. So if you don't have the proxy set up, then the data is collected and thrown away.
2. I collect information on the major commands (record macro, play saved, etc.). However, I don't really care about every operation. So I basically collect up to 2 operation records per hour. After that hour, I send them to my collection site. This is useful because it will allow me to see people who have used it within the past week (for example), rather than a count of how many people have ever used it.
Let me know if you have any further concerns.
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The reason why this kind of behaviour should not be encouraged because it can get messy on the user. Can you imagine what happens everytime you install an application or plugin, it asks for your consent to collect information about you or your system? This is very very sticky issue and should be thought out very carefully by the developers.
I understand that you want to know more about your user base and understand how the users are using it. But collecting user information through the desktop usage is not the right way to do it in my opinion. You can always create a page where you ask for user input during the install or uninstall. If you are more curious about statistics you can always develop an application that is server based.
I personally will uninstall this plugin even though I did like it. The problem is that a macro recorder is not any different than a keyboard logger. If I do not know the developer personally, I should not have it on my system, especially when the developer wants to know more about my system and my activities (not that I have anything to hide)
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All right, you convinced me. I wanted to create something useful and I do not want to cripple that by freaking out people about keyboard logging. I will remove the logging code in the next release.
I hope you will reconsider your use. However, I will note that *any* plugin could capture your Eclipse keystrokes and piggyback on the Eclipse proxy mechanism, regardless of the plugin's stated purpose, and without asking you.
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Hi
When I installed this it asked for my consent to collect some information, naturally I chose "NO". Call me cynical but does "no" mean %100 deactivation of usage collection? It is kind of weird that the author wanted to sneak on people random usage. Either he is naive or has no idea about something called privacy? I am wondering what he wants to do with so called random usage. Lets say I press a million times, typed python 100 times a day. Is this useful information to you?
Yep, if you say "No", then I don't collect any information. I have 2 reasons for collecting usage information.
1. Curiosity. I get no information from SourceForge other than how many downloads have occurred. I would like to know what operating system, user language, user location, jdk version, eclipse version, file types operated on, etc. As well as how many users are actually using the plugin (as opposed to downloaded and never installed).
2. Presumably some of this information will tell me about who is using it and figure out where they are likely to run into problems. Also, it might let me figure out if anyone is actually using certain features.
I do believe in privacy, which is why I popped up the dialog. After all, if I didn't pop up the dialog, you'd probably never know. This seems to be in line with Eclipse itself and other software packages (zonealarm, FireFox, etc.).
More info about how it works:
1. If you don't have a direct connection to the internet, then you must have an internet proxy configured for the data collection to be sent anywhere. So if you don't have the proxy set up, then the data is collected and thrown away.
2. I collect information on the major commands (record macro, play saved, etc.). However, I don't really care about every operation. So I basically collect up to 2 operation records per hour. After that hour, I send them to my collection site. This is useful because it will allow me to see people who have used it within the past week (for example), rather than a count of how many people have ever used it.
Let me know if you have any further concerns.
Hi
Thanks for the follow up.
The reason why this kind of behaviour should not be encouraged because it can get messy on the user. Can you imagine what happens everytime you install an application or plugin, it asks for your consent to collect information about you or your system? This is very very sticky issue and should be thought out very carefully by the developers.
I understand that you want to know more about your user base and understand how the users are using it. But collecting user information through the desktop usage is not the right way to do it in my opinion. You can always create a page where you ask for user input during the install or uninstall. If you are more curious about statistics you can always develop an application that is server based.
I personally will uninstall this plugin even though I did like it. The problem is that a macro recorder is not any different than a keyboard logger. If I do not know the developer personally, I should not have it on my system, especially when the developer wants to know more about my system and my activities (not that I have anything to hide)
All right, you convinced me. I wanted to create something useful and I do not want to cripple that by freaking out people about keyboard logging. I will remove the logging code in the next release.
I hope you will reconsider your use. However, I will note that *any* plugin could capture your Eclipse keystrokes and piggyback on the Eclipse proxy mechanism, regardless of the plugin's stated purpose, and without asking you.