If we have ever looked for a program to record and edit audio, we have surely come across Audacity. This is one of the most complete, well-known, and best editors that we can find on the net. A totally free and open source program thanks to which we will be able to process our sound files on Windows, macOS or Linux. A few weeks ago it was announced that MuseGroup had purchased this program. And the first novelties implemented by the new owners came in the form of telemetry, something that the community did not like.
In recent weeks we have only seen controversies around MuseGroup and Audacity. The new owners of this audio editor decided to start collecting all kinds of information from users through the program, information that could be used for different purposes, and even transferred to the authorities, if they requested it, without any control. Russia has never been a very fond of privacy, which is why many have started to regard this program as dead.
Luckily, Audacity was (and still is) an open source program . And as such, there are already many users who have decided to keep a copy of it without the data collection functions included. There are even several projects that want to continue on their own with the development of this program, away from the control of organizations as gruesome as this one.
The 3 new “Audacity” who want to continue the legacy
Although a large number of clones of the Audacity repository have appeared on GitHub in the last few days, most of them just want to save a copy of the program before introducing privacy features. However, there are 3 of them who want to go a little further and start a new line of independent development.
- Audacium is one of the first projects of this type that we can find. Your goal is to restore Audacity to how it was in its beginnings, before the information releases. Also, you want to encourage users to ask for the features they want to see in this program so that they can add them to the main development. Finally, they aim to improve the code so that any user can understand it better.
- Tenacity is another of the forks that has gained the most popularity on the net. Its creator has not made clear the intentions of the future plans, but what has been reflected are the reasons for this fork, and that is that the new (anti) privacy policies of Audacity violate the terms of the GPL licenses. And the intentions of adding telemetry through Google services, much more. Something unacceptable.
- Sneedacity is the third of the most popular projects. The main objective of this repository is to offer users the latest versions of Audacity with a totally telemetry-free experience. Its developers will be in charge of updating the program with the latest changes included in Audacity, but eliminating everything related to data collection.
Other alternatives
The version of Audacity that started with data collection was 3.0.0. Therefore, any previous version is free from the control of MuseGruop, and does not collect user data. We can search for any version prior to this 3.0.0 directly from Arhcive.org , where we can find up to version 1.0 of this software, a version that is part of the history of the software.
Furthermore, a quick search on GitHub also allows us to find all kinds of old versions that have been saved by users, and even more forks from the original editor that remove everything related to telemetry.
MuseGroup will want to spy on users with its new program. But users have the power to escape from this controversial company.
