13 ms·

JetBrains' unremovable AI assistant meets irresistible outcry

317 points by cannibalXxx 3y ago

solardev 3y ago
As a user, this annoys me too because it's so intrusive and obnoxious. I don't care about the privacy angle, but their AI isn't as good as Copilot and is much worse than ChatGpt. Tried it for a day or two and then wanted to turn it off since it wasn't very good, but you can't. And it keeps bugging me on every update. This is the sort of thing that makes me reconsider using Jetbrains at all, even though I prefer it to VScode. Enshittification rarely reverses once it starts...
- Aeolun 3y ago
  To be fair, they do seem to immediately want to reverse it? Not that I really disagree with the premise though. IntelliJ has not gotten any better with every update for a few years, but it does get slower and slower.
  - solardev 3y ago
    This article is referencing an old situation. It's been like this for weeks, maybe months, and they've been dragging their heels at the removal. Jetbrains in general is really poor at dealing with user feedback. My pet issue (showing the path in search results and tabs, so you don't just have a bunch of index.js files that you can't tell apart) has been ignored for years despite consistent votes and comments.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    Intellij did get better over the years and did not get slower IME. Many of their features are not very flashy, but provide significant QoL improvements - automated refactorings, data flow analysis. Their git support keeps improving almost every release.
- moogly 3y ago
  > it's so intrusive and obnoxious Hm. I didn't know there was an installed-per-default assistant. Maybe it's disabled if your workplace uses Copilot? I use Rider, WebStorm, Datagrip, CLion (and occasionally Android Studio) and haven't had this thing thrown in my face yet. The "new UI" can go diaf though.
  - newsoundwave 3y ago
    > Maybe it's disabled if your workplace uses Copilot? It unfortunately doesn’t appear that it is. I downgraded my Jetbrains IDEs because AI Assistant kept trying to clobber over my other tools, even when disabled.
    - jasonlotito 3y ago
      You can just disable it.
      - solardev 3y ago
        It comes back with the next update
happytiger 3y ago
What blows my mind is that you can’t disable it. It’s fine to include features, but perhaps the feature should be optional and you should see if it gets adoption before making it a default? Doesn’t seem at all user centric for a development tools company to operate so anti-common sense. If I had any advice to JB, whose tools I have used for years, please start listening to customer feedback better. You’re coming off as corporate overlords who bestow perfected dev tools on developers and it’s not a good look for the company.
- solardev 3y ago
  It's just a naked money grab. It's another subscription revenue stream and it's clear they were desperate to get their half-baked solution in to compete with Copilot and ChatGPT. Too bad, because it's so bad quality-wise. Worst AI assistant I've tried so far, even compared to first gen Copilot. If they had made it an optional download and focused on quality instead of enshittification, I would've happily paid for such a thing. As it is, it makes me question whether I should even renew my Jetbrains sub (that I've had for more than a decade).
- rob74 3y ago
  Yeah, I mean a plugin is called a plugin because it should also be possible to plug it out easily? But still, I don't really understand what the outcry is about. If JetBrains really wanted to siphon off your code for training (or for some other nefarious) purposes, it could do that independently of the AI assistant plugin? The IDEs are closed source, and they constantly talk to JetBrains servers over encrypted channels, so if they really wanted to do it, it would be hard to detect. If it came out it would be the end of JetBrains however, so I don't think they would do that, but they could theoretically do it even without the AI assistant enabled or installed...
  - nottorp 3y ago
    People are probably more worried about the 'AI' training itself on the code that's sent to it and then showing snippets to everyone else that tries to do something similar. If the IDE without the plugin would send code to JetBrains, someone bored and with a packet sniffer will catch them. If the AI plugin actually sends code to JetBrains, it's part of the plugin functionality.
chinathrow 3y ago
Long time user of one of their IDEs here and I was willing to try it. It's next to unusable at the current state. It messed up existing code, removed code which was not in scope of the task to be completed etc. Worst. Trial. Ever.
nbittich 3y ago
I'm so happy I switched to neovim at the end of 2022, just in time to avoid feeling angry but powerless with hyped-driven decisions from whatever company I depend on for my tools
- someotherperson 3y ago
  I've been paying for Pycharm since about 2015, dealing with the memory issues and slowness. This is approaching the hair that broke the camel's back. Any neovim plugin extension recommendations for python or JS?
  - nickspacek 3y ago
    I started exploring the neovim world. It's a bit of work to get started but I'm getting close to realizing the same, or pretty close to, features that I expect. I haven't gotten to renaming, moving methods, etc. yet though. I started with NvChad (weird name) and have been happy so far. I love to ecosystem of Pycharm Professional, but I have to restart it frequently as it slows down my system. I haven't been able to determine if it's a specific plugin, or just a result of my fairly bland usage patterns.
  - nbittich 3y ago
    I would suggest to be very very very willing to switch, as it took me at least 2-3 months to get comfortable. Also at the time, it was kind of a new year's resolution, so my will was strong. Nonetheless, I don't regret it, once you get used to it, it's fast and does basically the same thing as your IDE (except maybe the debugging part, which is ok if like me, you are println oriented)
  - justech 3y ago
    This may go against the whole ethos of using neovim, but I would suggest giving LazyVim[0] a try. - Dead simple to install - Sane defaults - IDE like out of the box - Still feels like VIM - Configurable - Actions are discoverable (press space and a menu pops up with all the possible shortcuts) - Good enough docs Before I moved to LazyVim I always used VSC with the vim plugin installed before I took the full plunge and went all in on LazyVim (I don't care for vim itself but I like the motions). It was also the sweet spot for me, I don't like configuring my tools for work but I like using well designed tools and discovering things along the way [0] https://www.lazyvim.org https://www.lazyvim.org
microflash 3y ago
You can disable this plugin but its mere existence can spook legal to force a ban pending "evaluation" and "compliance clearance". I should be able to uninstall it completely. Unrelated to this, I've been getting repeatedly irked by JetBrains' insistence that I update disabled plugins alongside IDE updates. Why would I want to update stuff that I don't use?
- chris_st 3y ago
  I'm guessing the idea is that yes, it's disabled now, but if you really didn't want it, you remove it (except for AI, of course, which you can't). If you have it installed, why not keep it up to date, so when you decide you want it you have the latest version?
  - microflash 3y ago
    I was talking more in context of bundled plugins which can't be uninstalled.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Apparently (per other posts), it changes the app signature for some platforms and ‘breaks’ the install.
  - rschiavone 3y ago
    The solution would be not to bundle the plugins then
    - ffsm8 3y ago
      That's would mean homogenizing all jetbrains ides, as theyre all essentially the same program with a different set of bundled plugins, optimized for web, Jvm, c, Python etc
      - drpossum 3y ago
        I wish they would. They have a billion products many of which are just slightly incoherent flavors of one another.
gavinray 3y ago
I pay for Jetbrains Ultimate every year, and I've been considering boycotting it. Not because of this AI thing, but because IntelliJ IDEA seems to break more and more things on their WSL + Gradle support every update. I've filed over 15 issues on YouTrack over the years, and almost half of them are Gradle + WSL related. The latest IDEA update completely broke it for me. I could no longer even load the projects I was working on. I am so fed up with the complete lack of QA and testing for this fundamental workflow.
- Avamander 3y ago
  To be fair WSL is quite cursed. There are a lot of things Microsoft has done that result in less than good workarounds.
  - Culonavirus 3y ago
    So far I managed to get by using wsl just for redis, most software packages these days do actually have decent windows version, including pytorch etc. I considered switching over to wsl more, but I ran to wsl being very slow in terms of filesystem access, I think it had something to do with wsl 1 being (somewhat?) native while wsl 2 runs under hyperv. I think it's still not fixed.
    - hackandthink 3y ago
      Rancher Desktop is very slow. There must be a driver (virtio?) issue in their WSL VM. Podman is much faster.
    - iimblack 3y ago
      Wsl2 has been significantly faster for me as long as I store the files in the wsl drive. I had react projects that would completely fail to get through npm install on windows but finished no problem on wsl. Microsoft docu seems to recommend wsl 2 as well. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions#increased-file-io-performance https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versio...
  - 3y ago
acedTrex 3y ago
I recently switched to neovim for everything that is not csharp programming (rider is still too good)
kosolam 3y ago
Damn I’m too used to use it as my ide. There is no comparable alternative for java
- Culonavirus 3y ago
  We still use PHP for some of our projects and there's a massive gulf between PhpStorm and anything else, especially if you work with modern PHP and Laravel (Laravel Idea). Back in the day I used to like Netbeans PHP, but that got left in the dust as soon as Oracle stopped maintaining it and gave it to Apache. Half of the "features" being worked on at that time (by a handful of people and basically for free) were task needed to remove/replace non-OSS Oracle stuff. Last time I checked literally like 2 (two) people contributed to the PHP improvements and bugfixes in (one of the) latest major Netbeans releases. That's a random, minor release for PhpStorm.
zoky 3y ago
Now more than ever, Little Snitch comes to the rescue. Cloud-based AI is completely neutered if the cloud is inaccessible. Honestly, the biggest reason to use a Mac over anything else may well be Little Snitch. I could probably configure Linux not to phone home on my own, and almost certainly couldn't do so with Windows, but on a Mac with Little Snitch? I know I'm covered.
- qayxc 3y ago
  > and almost certainly couldn't do so with Windows What makes you think that? Even just editing the HOSTS file will get you there.
  - zoky 3y ago
    Even assuming that blocking DNS were sufficient to stop spyware (it's not), how exactly am I going to block DNS for every single application that may or may not phone home without my knowledge, including applications that are hardcoded with DNS server information that doesn't respect the system settings? And yes, I have seen (and blocked) applications that have made requests to 8.8.8.8 when I didn't have my system DNS server set to that. I would have had no idea if not for Little Snitch alerting me.
    - qayxc 3y ago
      If you're insisting on 3rd party software, there's plenty of that for Windows, too. And yes, it do be working just the same.
      - zoky 3y ago
        It's really weird that Hacker News has become so full of Windows apologists in the last few years. It wasn't all that long ago that Slashdot was depicting Bill Gates as the Borg. Where did we go wrong?
        qayxc 3y ago
api 3y ago
This is the kind of decision a company makes when they are panicking about getting left behind by the latest thing. A somewhat similar example would have been Microsoft way back in the 90s and 2000s bundling their own browser and then almost forcing you to use it. “We have to own this!”
- gosub100 3y ago
  I see it more as forcing its use so nobody can say they failed. Suppose you pay millions in AI developers and time training the model, only for it to be ignored by most users. Having no off-switch (like me when I start drinking) allows them to point to how many "active users" they have and what great feats it's enabled developers to accomplish.
- Wytwwww 3y ago
  It's so bizarre to me what they have been doing lately. This and that horrible new UI designed entirely for 13" screens or tablets which just turns their IDE into VS Code. They are trying to compete with a free product by trying to imitate (but still charging $500+ per year..)
  - api 3y ago
    It’s not really possible to compete with huge companies like Microsoft “dumping” free code on the market: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) You can be better, more user focused, have better privacy, but it’s tough to beat good enough and free. Microsoft wants to own the developer ecosystem and is willing to dump billions in free software and services to annihilate any third party shops. They are pretty close to owning the entire stack of core services and tooling other than the languages themselves. The sad thing is that in their push to keep up Jetbrains is dropping a major thing that made them appealing vs VSCode: a lack of spying and telemetry.
mythz 3y ago
Yeah as a long time user and lover of multiple JetBrains IDEs this is the first feature I'd consider was user-hostile, forced upon you and taking up valuable real estate, when all I want is to disable and never be interrupted by it again. I believe I was able finally to disable it in the latest release, hopefully it doesn't become something I have to disable on every update. This feature felt like an intrusive Windows Ad or an unwanted U2 Album that has no place in a commercial tool.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  > forced upon you and taking up valuable real estate, Right click -> Hide. Problem solved faster than it took to write this comment.
  - mariusor 3y ago
    I use multiple products from Jetbrains on multiple computers. > Right click -> Hide Times 4. I hate it.
    - speedgoose 3y ago
      That’s one issue with the Jetbrains world. One IDE to configure per software stack is a bit much. Hopefully Jetbrains Fleet delivers.
      - wilsonnb3 3y ago
        With a few exceptions like Rider for dotnet, you can just use IntelliJ with plugins instead of the separate IDEs.
      - rakenodiax 3y ago
        Settings sync is a thing
  - xtracto 3y ago
    People LOVE to be outraged. I don't use jetbrain products at all, and find these outrage reactions hilarious. There's a whatsapp group where neighbors of my gated community chat, about current issues in the community. Realistically, you mostly see the people that don't work and have nothing to do while their kids return from school . And they basically whine about the most absurd an asinine things. We call it "argüende" in Spanish. People forming a storm in a teacup with these threads look similar to that.
blibble 3y ago
remember product managers: 20 years of company reputation can be destroyed by one boneheaded force-it-down-the-users-throats decision especially when there are plenty of substitutable tools
nprateem 3y ago
I'm more concerned about being forced into a crappy new UI which I don't want. If I wanted minimal I'd use VScode. They'll make it progressively more difficult to keep the actual IDE look with multiple windows, consoles etc since they'll realise the cost of supporting multiple UIs.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  You can disable the new UI though, and I doubt that will change. Hopefully they understand they'd lose a significant chunk of their userbase if they force the new UI onto their users. I think the median developer would rather use Eclipse over IntelliJ's new UI if those were the only options. It looks very pretty, but it's just such a pain in the ass to use. It takes an interface that is already so low-contrast and so hard to parse it's bordering on an accessibility problem, and makes all those regrettable design qualities a hundred times worse. The one good thing that's it does though is convincingly demonstrate the principle that design is primarily about how something functions, and not how it looks.
  - Wytwwww 3y ago
    > You can disable the new UI though, and I doubt that will change They have been pretty vocal that long-term it will be removed and that it probably won't be included in the 2025 version. Of course hopefully they'll come to their senses but the experience will likely get worse and worse longarm even if they keep it... It's bizarre though. I mean I get that some people might prefer their new look due to various reasons but at that point why not just use VS code and save the $500+...
  - smrtinsert 3y ago
    If they force me to use the new UI I'm gone, it's that simple. Either the new UI has window configuration parity or its over. I want every tab exactly where it is today (with the exception of the Structure tab which should be on the right by default)
worble 3y ago
>"The problem with removing a bundled plugin is that it can break application signatures and cause problems with updates," explained Ellis. Their response essentially boils down to "it's called a plugIN not a plugOUT" If it can't be easily removed then why is it even shipped as plugin in the first place? Absolute madness.
- theolivenbaum 3y ago
  It's probably because macOS bundles are nowadays notarized by Apple, and if you change the content of the .app "folder", it breaks their verification chain. Learned painfully about that when trying do implement plugins on our end too
  - Izkata 3y ago
    ...shouldn't adding it have also changed the contents and broken the verification chain?
leephillips 3y ago
I don’t know much about this, but it seems to be some kind of proprietary, closed-source IDE. People here appear satisfied that they’ve managed to “disable” the plugin in question. But as far as you know this thing is exfiltrating all your code anyway, and always has been. This is one reason we recommend that people use open source software.
vr46 3y ago
This is such an irritating feature, the Jetbrains Clippy, let's call it Chuckles the AI Assistant. You can't remove Chuckles after disabling - that was a decision to go against the default setup of plugins - and shows the respect they have for users. It's like The Cat Came Back - this annoyance is going to run and run.
lnxg33k1 3y ago
Have a look at Kate, its not bad and has good support for LSPs https://kate-editor.org https://kate-editor.org
- chupasaurus 3y ago
  It's a good editor, just not an IDE.
  - lionkor 3y ago
    its a build-your-own-IDE, like a Integrated-(by you lol)-Development-Environment
- optimalsolver 3y ago
  It’s all I’ve ever needed.
alpaca128 3y ago
What baffles me most is that JetBrains didn't realise AI integration makes their product unusable in many companies, that it's more than a matter of personal preference. It's one thing to create a plugin, but deeply integrating it to a point it can't be removed when corps like Amazon prohibit the use of Copilot betrays a total lack of foresight.
- gregd 3y ago
  Boggles my mind that they lacked the foresight to seriously consider whether this was a good move or not. I always considered them extremely developer friendly, but with this latest move, I'm not so sure.
  - giancarlostoro 3y ago
    I wouldnt just write them off for one goof. It can happen to anyone. In the grand scheme of things this is a new market that is growing and adapting accordingly.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      Nah they tried a tone deaf cash grab The llm should have been offline
      - giancarlostoro 3y ago
        I have a feeling that's one of their goals, if you watch the launch video you can see they're really trying to make their offering as flexible as possible.
- alkonaut 3y ago
  > What baffles me most is that JetBrains didn't realise AI integration makes their product unusable in many companies At least if they either use the user's code in training OR if it uses any code with unknown provenance. Microsoft's solution seems to be the best: we take responsibility for the code. But that responsibility comes at a cost.
Invictus0 3y ago
I love the AI autocomplete feature. Works great.
- cpburns2009 3y ago
  It's a nice addition to the usual autocomplete. My only complaint is the full line suggestion overrides the selected code completion suggestion when they're both bound to the TAB key. They recommend binding the RIGHT ARROW key for full line suggestions which is a decent compromise.
rPlayer6554 3y ago
I don't get the outcry. I turned off or uninstalled the plugin then never thought about or saw it again.
gregd 3y ago
The only reason I'm using JetBrains at all right now is because Rider is cross platform. With Microsoft announcing the discontinuation of Visual Studio on Mac, I get really tired of the context shifting between Visual Studio at work and Rider at home. Additionally, are the costs of Visual Studio over Rider. My work pays for my Visual Studio Subscription, which does not allow for personal use. The JetBrains Ultimate sub is affordable for me, but this AI integration has me rethinking this.
- Pengtuzi 3y ago
  > this AI integration has me rethinking this Why isn’t disabling the plugin/hiding the icon good enough for you?
blackoil 3y ago
I don't see the issue if it can be disabled. Once disabled it is no different from many other features that it contains but are not used. If you don't trust them no point anyway running a closed source program.
jeremyloy_wt 3y ago
I don’t understand the outrage. The plugin is installed by default and visible in the right tray so it’s basically an advertisement. That’s the only negative part and I understand the frustration with that. You can disable it like any other plugin though? Really easily? And it’s a paid service. Just don’t pay for it. Seems like rage bait that a lot of people are falling for. Of course, if it turns out it’s phoning home with training data by default then I will also change my tune, but it doesn’t seem to be doing that
- gumby 3y ago
  Some companies’ policies forbid them in the first place.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > The plugin is installed by default and visible in the right tray so it’s basically an advertisement (...) a paid service A persistently visible ad for a paid service you don't want, in a paid product you paid for? That alone is a justifiable reason for the outrage. But the more important bit is that, if legal says "no", then "but it's inert" isn't an answer people are willing to risk their employment for. Also: > if it turns out it’s phoning home with training data by default then I will also change my tune, but it doesn’t seem to be doing that We live in the age where open source package managers and build tools come with built-in, opt-out invasive telemetry, and I'm talking bona fide OSS, not something by Microsoft. It's reasonable to assume that the plugin is, or at some point will be, phoning home, until proven otherwise.
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    Yuck. Where can I find a list (even partial) of OSS tools with opt-out telemetry?
    - hunterhod 3y ago
      What's the gripe with telemetry? That data is used to improve your experience with the product. Otherwise, developers are flying blind.
thecowgoes 3y ago
Glad I didn't upgrade. Anyone know what version this starts? 2024.1?
- kumpelblase2 3y ago
  I believe it started shipping bundled in 2023.3.
cuckatoo 3y ago
JetBrains is just leading the pack in what's coming everywhere. What? You don't want to pay for your 4th monthly subscription to another shitty ChatGPT wrapper? Too bad and welcome to 2024.
yarg 3y ago
Deeply integrates? Well that's some obvious PR bullshit; clearly the feature needs deep integration to work, but I don't believe for a second that it's doing so in any way other than hooking into Jetbrains' core API. The notion that a novelty feature from the last couple of years needs to be implemented in such a way as to render it impossible to remove from a 20 year old IDE is patently absurd. Should've been a plugin in the first place.
29athrowaway 3y ago
It is removable because it is a plugin.
- sesm 3y ago
  I don't see the usual 'uninstall' button for this plugin, it has 'uninstall update' instead. After I've pressed 'uninstall update' the plugin is still in installed plugins list (but with an older version). To be fair, it's not possible to uninstall any 'bundled' plugin, like Node.js plugin in Webstorm. But for AI assistant they could make an exception: make it installed by default, but no bundled, so that users could uninstall it completely.
smrtinsert 3y ago
JetBrains has been on their ass lately with their product decisions. AI integration, the horrible new diff viewer, the new UI - which is still awful and has 0 benefit for me.
- mdaniel 3y ago
  Wait until you experience the raging dumpster fire that is the new Terminal in the EAPs - I lack enough language to describe my burning hatred for it, and (of course) there's no way to go back to the previous one
Aurornis 3y ago
I had to scroll halfway through the article to get to the real details: > "Although the AI Assistant plugin is bundled, and the plugin itself is enabled, there is no AI functionality enabled by default, and no data is sent off-machine without your consent," said Ellis, echoing similar replies posted to some of the discussion threads. "You have to log in, accept the data policies and either purchase a subscription or start a trial." > There is no AI functionality enabled by default, and no data is sent off-machine without your consent > "Any data sent to the AI service is not used for training. So many (maybe most) of the comments on HN don’t reflect the actual situation: - AI is not enabled by default - Code is not ingested for training purposes - You have to either sign up for a trial or purchase a subscription - You would have to explicitly accept the data policy to even begin using it So the real complaint of these people is that the plugin simply exists by default, which apparently is enough to get the product banned from certain companies. All of the comments speculating about it collecting your code for their training purposes or doing 3rd party AI things without your consent, or being enabled without any warning are easily disproven by a quick read of the article. It’s getting hard to read HN comments about anything AI related with all of these comments substituting their own assumptions and assuming the worst case scenario without any effort to read the article.
- ta988 3y ago
  Agreed that's false outcry. It is annoying because of its updates and the fact that it shows prominently in the UI at first start. But that pretty much all unless you activate it which I tested when it was in beta and require indeed that you agree to those agreements and log in.
- tomca32 3y ago
  You’re right but also keep in mind that company policies are often made without much thought. I can totally see a BigCorp making a policy that no AI clients are to be installed on their machines, regardless if the functionality is turned off
  - drpossum 3y ago
    You're right but also keep in mind that companies do make decisions like that with thought or are contractually bound by the work they do for this, e.g. defense work, proprietary secrets that if they got out would far exceed the cost of the requirements
kietay 3y ago
Am I the only one who uses and likes the integration
konfusinomicon 3y ago
what has annoyed me most is that it took the first spot in the right click menu and pushed down show context actions in rider.
marstall 3y ago
Yeah on RubyMine at least, it's off by default and you have to turn it on. In fact, the account administrator has to turn it on if you have a site license, as we do. And when I requested for it to be turned on, it was declined because of the risk that closed-license code would thereby wend its way into our (open source) product ...
jszymborski 3y ago
I for one really like it. It really feels to me like the right way to do this sort of thing. By default, it's offline, so no privacy worries. Secondly, it works really well for me. It really does suggest what I'm about to write more often than not.
dzikimarian 3y ago
Jetbrains took bit unsettling turn in recent years. * Push for new "modern" UI which hides half of the functionality * Spaces went away from their usual pricing model - even if you self host you have to pay reccuring fee or it doesn't work. * In Youtrack you pay for maintenance/updates as before, but service desk addon is again hard subscription for no good reason. * AI is yet another subscription - in this case it's understandable, but further normalises paying each month. Seems like their old, reasonable management had their bodies stolen by ghosts of VC bros.
mailund 3y ago
Actually tried paying for the service, not very impressed. Suggestions are most mly lacking the necessary context to be applicable. Doesn't seem like it is considering anything other than the exact highlighted code
tslocum 3y ago
After using JB tools for years, I switched to VSCodium last year. My advice to anyone considering switching, stick with it for a few weeks. There is a lot of muscle memory to rebuild and it won't be a smooth experience at first. Stick it out, and you will be rewarded with a libre IDE that you control. https://vscodium.com https://vscodium.com
- iimblack 3y ago
  Seems like you still lose the Python plugin and remote extensions? Missing the wsl one is pretty rough. If you’re comfortable with vim (or want to be) I can’t recommend neovim enough. https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/wiki/Extensions-Compatibility https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/wiki/Extensions-Compati...
charlie0 3y ago
I found the latest version to be considerably less snappy than the previous version without AI. I deleted it and reinstalled the older one.
systems_glitch 3y ago
Always liked NetBeans better anyway :P
mint2 3y ago
“Irresistible outcry”? what does this phrase mean? Those word don’t belong together
- ptx 3y ago
  Probably meant as a reference to the "irresistible force meets an immovable object" [0] phrase/idea? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox
s3p 3y ago
Wait.. so 12 people complained? This is the 'irresistible outcry'? I feel like it's not that big an issue, and it seems like n=12 complaints when the userbase is in the millions isn't that bad.
Madmallard 3y ago
Meanwhile if this were a Microsoft product everything you'd do would be sent to them and it would just be expected.
cpburns2009 3y ago
I count ~125 bundled plugins for my install of Intellij IDEA 2023.3.3. JetBrains's problem is they bundle too many plugins. It's not a bundled AI plugin that requires a separate subscription to work and to be whitelisted for corporate accounts.
Copenjin 3y ago
I've just seen this post, can't we just delete a jar somewhere? I mean...
robomartin 3y ago
As a paid customer I have to say this has to go. IMMEDIATELY. I was surprised when it showed-up out of nowhere during the latest update. The problem is very simple: AI and cloud solutions can be VERY problematic in certain domains. Read: A deeply undesirable liability. We had the same problem when Altium decided to take their Altium Designer electronics CAD products and pretty much force everyone into having this cloud-based layer in the tool. No. Thanks. We cannot do that. At all. After decades with Altium, we switched to KiCad. Works fine for the vast majority of designs, even fairly sophisticated work. More importantly, the cloud-based liability is gone. For anything else --which has been very rare-- we have older non-cloud releases of AD we can use. Don't shove AI or cloud onto your customers. Let them choose. Some can't risk it at all. AI-generated code might sound fantastic to some. While, in other circles, it opens the door to untold liability. I don't want that shit to even show-up without a very explicit installation of a feature, plug-in, extension or whatever. It needs to be conclusively and demonstrably separable. Also, always remember customers have options. Be careful. We are actually considering moving away from JetBrains tools for this very reason. For now, we'll wait and see. More specifically, we'll wait and see if all semblance of AI is removed from the tools by default and only available as an explicitly installed extension. I have to be able to have tools audited (in a legal context) and show that AI was not a part of the process. For us, this does not add value. It adds liability.
RecycledEle 3y ago
There needs to be a switch in every computer. Up allows the computer to suggest things. Down makes it only follow orders.
mark_l_watson 3y ago
If they wanted to maintain user privacy, they should allow easy configuration with Ollama and a local hosted LLM coding model.
Drac707 3y ago
not getting any jetbrain products anymore, i would understand if we get popup saying try over new plugin or something but not this.
fabiancook 3y ago
I paid for the service. When it works for a specific bit of boilerplate code or section of obvious code, its handy. It definitely doesn't know the whole context of my project, or that it should use xyz imports to achieve a specific task from the same project. It will get better with time I am sure. I read through the privacy policy and other policies ahead of time too, nothing concerning for what I am doing. Is backed by OpenAI. * https://www.jetbrains.com/help/ai/data-collection-and-use-policy.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/ai/data-collection-and-use-po... * https://www.jetbrains.com/legal/docs/terms/jetbrains-ai/service-providers/ https://www.jetbrains.com/legal/docs/terms/jetbrains-ai/serv...

317 points by cannibalXxx 3y ago

As a user, this annoys me too because it's so intrusive and obnoxious. I don't care about the privacy angle, but their AI isn't as good as Copilot and is much worse than ChatGpt. Tried it for a day or two and then wanted to turn it off since it wasn't very good, but you can't. And it keeps bugging me on every update. This is the sort of thing that makes me reconsider using Jetbrains at all, even though I prefer it to VScode. Enshittification rarely reverses once it starts...

Aeolun 3y ago
To be fair, they do seem to immediately want to reverse it? Not that I really disagree with the premise though. IntelliJ has not gotten any better with every update for a few years, but it does get slower and slower.
- solardev 3y ago
  This article is referencing an old situation. It's been like this for weeks, maybe months, and they've been dragging their heels at the removal. Jetbrains in general is really poor at dealing with user feedback. My pet issue (showing the path in search results and tabs, so you don't just have a bunch of index.js files that you can't tell apart) has been ignored for years despite consistent votes and comments.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  Intellij did get better over the years and did not get slower IME. Many of their features are not very flashy, but provide significant QoL improvements - automated refactorings, data flow analysis. Their git support keeps improving almost every release.
moogly 3y ago
> it's so intrusive and obnoxious Hm. I didn't know there was an installed-per-default assistant. Maybe it's disabled if your workplace uses Copilot? I use Rider, WebStorm, Datagrip, CLion (and occasionally Android Studio) and haven't had this thing thrown in my face yet. The "new UI" can go diaf though.
- newsoundwave 3y ago
  > Maybe it's disabled if your workplace uses Copilot? It unfortunately doesn’t appear that it is. I downgraded my Jetbrains IDEs because AI Assistant kept trying to clobber over my other tools, even when disabled.
  - jasonlotito 3y ago
    You can just disable it.
    - solardev 3y ago
      It comes back with the next update

happytiger 3y ago

What blows my mind is that you can’t disable it. It’s fine to include features, but perhaps the feature should be optional and you should see if it gets adoption before making it a default? Doesn’t seem at all user centric for a development tools company to operate so anti-common sense. If I had any advice to JB, whose tools I have used for years, please start listening to customer feedback better. You’re coming off as corporate overlords who bestow perfected dev tools on developers and it’s not a good look for the company.

solardev 3y ago
It's just a naked money grab. It's another subscription revenue stream and it's clear they were desperate to get their half-baked solution in to compete with Copilot and ChatGPT. Too bad, because it's so bad quality-wise. Worst AI assistant I've tried so far, even compared to first gen Copilot. If they had made it an optional download and focused on quality instead of enshittification, I would've happily paid for such a thing. As it is, it makes me question whether I should even renew my Jetbrains sub (that I've had for more than a decade).
rob74 3y ago
Yeah, I mean a plugin is called a plugin because it should also be possible to plug it out easily? But still, I don't really understand what the outcry is about. If JetBrains really wanted to siphon off your code for training (or for some other nefarious) purposes, it could do that independently of the AI assistant plugin? The IDEs are closed source, and they constantly talk to JetBrains servers over encrypted channels, so if they really wanted to do it, it would be hard to detect. If it came out it would be the end of JetBrains however, so I don't think they would do that, but they could theoretically do it even without the AI assistant enabled or installed...
- nottorp 3y ago
  People are probably more worried about the 'AI' training itself on the code that's sent to it and then showing snippets to everyone else that tries to do something similar. If the IDE without the plugin would send code to JetBrains, someone bored and with a packet sniffer will catch them. If the AI plugin actually sends code to JetBrains, it's part of the plugin functionality.

chinathrow 3y ago

Long time user of one of their IDEs here and I was willing to try it. It's next to unusable at the current state. It messed up existing code, removed code which was not in scope of the task to be completed etc. Worst. Trial. Ever.

nbittich 3y ago

I'm so happy I switched to neovim at the end of 2022, just in time to avoid feeling angry but powerless with hyped-driven decisions from whatever company I depend on for my tools

someotherperson 3y ago
I've been paying for Pycharm since about 2015, dealing with the memory issues and slowness. This is approaching the hair that broke the camel's back. Any neovim plugin extension recommendations for python or JS?
- nickspacek 3y ago
  I started exploring the neovim world. It's a bit of work to get started but I'm getting close to realizing the same, or pretty close to, features that I expect. I haven't gotten to renaming, moving methods, etc. yet though. I started with NvChad (weird name) and have been happy so far. I love to ecosystem of Pycharm Professional, but I have to restart it frequently as it slows down my system. I haven't been able to determine if it's a specific plugin, or just a result of my fairly bland usage patterns.
- nbittich 3y ago
  I would suggest to be very very very willing to switch, as it took me at least 2-3 months to get comfortable. Also at the time, it was kind of a new year's resolution, so my will was strong. Nonetheless, I don't regret it, once you get used to it, it's fast and does basically the same thing as your IDE (except maybe the debugging part, which is ok if like me, you are println oriented)
- justech 3y ago
  This may go against the whole ethos of using neovim, but I would suggest giving LazyVim[0] a try. - Dead simple to install - Sane defaults - IDE like out of the box - Still feels like VIM - Configurable - Actions are discoverable (press space and a menu pops up with all the possible shortcuts) - Good enough docs Before I moved to LazyVim I always used VSC with the vim plugin installed before I took the full plunge and went all in on LazyVim (I don't care for vim itself but I like the motions). It was also the sweet spot for me, I don't like configuring my tools for work but I like using well designed tools and discovering things along the way [0] https://www.lazyvim.org https://www.lazyvim.org

microflash 3y ago

You can disable this plugin but its mere existence can spook legal to force a ban pending "evaluation" and "compliance clearance". I should be able to uninstall it completely. Unrelated to this, I've been getting repeatedly irked by JetBrains' insistence that I update disabled plugins alongside IDE updates. Why would I want to update stuff that I don't use?

chris_st 3y ago
I'm guessing the idea is that yes, it's disabled now, but if you really didn't want it, you remove it (except for AI, of course, which you can't). If you have it installed, why not keep it up to date, so when you decide you want it you have the latest version?
- microflash 3y ago
  I was talking more in context of bundled plugins which can't be uninstalled.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Apparently (per other posts), it changes the app signature for some platforms and ‘breaks’ the install.
- rschiavone 3y ago
  The solution would be not to bundle the plugins then
  - ffsm8 3y ago
    That's would mean homogenizing all jetbrains ides, as theyre all essentially the same program with a different set of bundled plugins, optimized for web, Jvm, c, Python etc
    - drpossum 3y ago
      I wish they would. They have a billion products many of which are just slightly incoherent flavors of one another.

gavinray 3y ago

I pay for Jetbrains Ultimate every year, and I've been considering boycotting it. Not because of this AI thing, but because IntelliJ IDEA seems to break more and more things on their WSL + Gradle support every update. I've filed over 15 issues on YouTrack over the years, and almost half of them are Gradle + WSL related. The latest IDEA update completely broke it for me. I could no longer even load the projects I was working on. I am so fed up with the complete lack of QA and testing for this fundamental workflow.

Avamander 3y ago
To be fair WSL is quite cursed. There are a lot of things Microsoft has done that result in less than good workarounds.
- Culonavirus 3y ago
  So far I managed to get by using wsl just for redis, most software packages these days do actually have decent windows version, including pytorch etc. I considered switching over to wsl more, but I ran to wsl being very slow in terms of filesystem access, I think it had something to do with wsl 1 being (somewhat?) native while wsl 2 runs under hyperv. I think it's still not fixed.
  - hackandthink 3y ago
    Rancher Desktop is very slow. There must be a driver (virtio?) issue in their WSL VM. Podman is much faster.
  - iimblack 3y ago
    Wsl2 has been significantly faster for me as long as I store the files in the wsl drive. I had react projects that would completely fail to get through npm install on windows but finished no problem on wsl. Microsoft docu seems to recommend wsl 2 as well. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions#increased-file-io-performance https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versio...
- 3y ago

acedTrex 3y ago

I recently switched to neovim for everything that is not csharp programming (rider is still too good)

kosolam 3y ago

Damn I’m too used to use it as my ide. There is no comparable alternative for java

Culonavirus 3y ago
We still use PHP for some of our projects and there's a massive gulf between PhpStorm and anything else, especially if you work with modern PHP and Laravel (Laravel Idea). Back in the day I used to like Netbeans PHP, but that got left in the dust as soon as Oracle stopped maintaining it and gave it to Apache. Half of the "features" being worked on at that time (by a handful of people and basically for free) were task needed to remove/replace non-OSS Oracle stuff. Last time I checked literally like 2 (two) people contributed to the PHP improvements and bugfixes in (one of the) latest major Netbeans releases. That's a random, minor release for PhpStorm.

zoky 3y ago

Now more than ever, Little Snitch comes to the rescue. Cloud-based AI is completely neutered if the cloud is inaccessible. Honestly, the biggest reason to use a Mac over anything else may well be Little Snitch. I could probably configure Linux not to phone home on my own, and almost certainly couldn't do so with Windows, but on a Mac with Little Snitch? I know I'm covered.

qayxc 3y ago
> and almost certainly couldn't do so with Windows What makes you think that? Even just editing the HOSTS file will get you there.
- zoky 3y ago
  Even assuming that blocking DNS were sufficient to stop spyware (it's not), how exactly am I going to block DNS for every single application that may or may not phone home without my knowledge, including applications that are hardcoded with DNS server information that doesn't respect the system settings? And yes, I have seen (and blocked) applications that have made requests to 8.8.8.8 when I didn't have my system DNS server set to that. I would have had no idea if not for Little Snitch alerting me.
  - qayxc 3y ago
    If you're insisting on 3rd party software, there's plenty of that for Windows, too. And yes, it do be working just the same.
    - zoky 3y ago
      It's really weird that Hacker News has become so full of Windows apologists in the last few years. It wasn't all that long ago that Slashdot was depicting Bill Gates as the Borg. Where did we go wrong?
      - qayxc 3y ago

api 3y ago

This is the kind of decision a company makes when they are panicking about getting left behind by the latest thing. A somewhat similar example would have been Microsoft way back in the 90s and 2000s bundling their own browser and then almost forcing you to use it. “We have to own this!”

gosub100 3y ago
I see it more as forcing its use so nobody can say they failed. Suppose you pay millions in AI developers and time training the model, only for it to be ignored by most users. Having no off-switch (like me when I start drinking) allows them to point to how many "active users" they have and what great feats it's enabled developers to accomplish.
Wytwwww 3y ago
It's so bizarre to me what they have been doing lately. This and that horrible new UI designed entirely for 13" screens or tablets which just turns their IDE into VS Code. They are trying to compete with a free product by trying to imitate (but still charging $500+ per year..)
- api 3y ago
  It’s not really possible to compete with huge companies like Microsoft “dumping” free code on the market: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) You can be better, more user focused, have better privacy, but it’s tough to beat good enough and free. Microsoft wants to own the developer ecosystem and is willing to dump billions in free software and services to annihilate any third party shops. They are pretty close to owning the entire stack of core services and tooling other than the languages themselves. The sad thing is that in their push to keep up Jetbrains is dropping a major thing that made them appealing vs VSCode: a lack of spying and telemetry.

mythz 3y ago

Yeah as a long time user and lover of multiple JetBrains IDEs this is the first feature I'd consider was user-hostile, forced upon you and taking up valuable real estate, when all I want is to disable and never be interrupted by it again. I believe I was able finally to disable it in the latest release, hopefully it doesn't become something I have to disable on every update. This feature felt like an intrusive Windows Ad or an unwanted U2 Album that has no place in a commercial tool.

Aurornis 3y ago
> forced upon you and taking up valuable real estate, Right click -> Hide. Problem solved faster than it took to write this comment.
- mariusor 3y ago
  I use multiple products from Jetbrains on multiple computers. > Right click -> Hide Times 4. I hate it.
  - speedgoose 3y ago
    That’s one issue with the Jetbrains world. One IDE to configure per software stack is a bit much. Hopefully Jetbrains Fleet delivers.
    - wilsonnb3 3y ago
      With a few exceptions like Rider for dotnet, you can just use IntelliJ with plugins instead of the separate IDEs.
    - rakenodiax 3y ago
      Settings sync is a thing
- xtracto 3y ago
  People LOVE to be outraged. I don't use jetbrain products at all, and find these outrage reactions hilarious. There's a whatsapp group where neighbors of my gated community chat, about current issues in the community. Realistically, you mostly see the people that don't work and have nothing to do while their kids return from school . And they basically whine about the most absurd an asinine things. We call it "argüende" in Spanish. People forming a storm in a teacup with these threads look similar to that.

blibble 3y ago

remember product managers: 20 years of company reputation can be destroyed by one boneheaded force-it-down-the-users-throats decision especially when there are plenty of substitutable tools

nprateem 3y ago

I'm more concerned about being forced into a crappy new UI which I don't want. If I wanted minimal I'd use VScode. They'll make it progressively more difficult to keep the actual IDE look with multiple windows, consoles etc since they'll realise the cost of supporting multiple UIs.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
You can disable the new UI though, and I doubt that will change. Hopefully they understand they'd lose a significant chunk of their userbase if they force the new UI onto their users. I think the median developer would rather use Eclipse over IntelliJ's new UI if those were the only options. It looks very pretty, but it's just such a pain in the ass to use. It takes an interface that is already so low-contrast and so hard to parse it's bordering on an accessibility problem, and makes all those regrettable design qualities a hundred times worse. The one good thing that's it does though is convincingly demonstrate the principle that design is primarily about how something functions, and not how it looks.
- Wytwwww 3y ago
  > You can disable the new UI though, and I doubt that will change They have been pretty vocal that long-term it will be removed and that it probably won't be included in the 2025 version. Of course hopefully they'll come to their senses but the experience will likely get worse and worse longarm even if they keep it... It's bizarre though. I mean I get that some people might prefer their new look due to various reasons but at that point why not just use VS code and save the $500+...
- smrtinsert 3y ago
  If they force me to use the new UI I'm gone, it's that simple. Either the new UI has window configuration parity or its over. I want every tab exactly where it is today (with the exception of the Structure tab which should be on the right by default)

worble 3y ago

>"The problem with removing a bundled plugin is that it can break application signatures and cause problems with updates," explained Ellis. Their response essentially boils down to "it's called a plugIN not a plugOUT" If it can't be easily removed then why is it even shipped as plugin in the first place? Absolute madness.

theolivenbaum 3y ago
It's probably because macOS bundles are nowadays notarized by Apple, and if you change the content of the .app "folder", it breaks their verification chain. Learned painfully about that when trying do implement plugins on our end too
- Izkata 3y ago
  ...shouldn't adding it have also changed the contents and broken the verification chain?

leephillips 3y ago

I don’t know much about this, but it seems to be some kind of proprietary, closed-source IDE. People here appear satisfied that they’ve managed to “disable” the plugin in question. But as far as you know this thing is exfiltrating all your code anyway, and always has been. This is one reason we recommend that people use open source software.

vr46 3y ago

This is such an irritating feature, the Jetbrains Clippy, let's call it Chuckles the AI Assistant. You can't remove Chuckles after disabling - that was a decision to go against the default setup of plugins - and shows the respect they have for users. It's like The Cat Came Back - this annoyance is going to run and run.

lnxg33k1 3y ago

Have a look at Kate, its not bad and has good support for LSPs https://kate-editor.org https://kate-editor.org

chupasaurus 3y ago
It's a good editor, just not an IDE.
- lionkor 3y ago
  its a build-your-own-IDE, like a Integrated-(by you lol)-Development-Environment
optimalsolver 3y ago
It’s all I’ve ever needed.

alpaca128 3y ago

What baffles me most is that JetBrains didn't realise AI integration makes their product unusable in many companies, that it's more than a matter of personal preference. It's one thing to create a plugin, but deeply integrating it to a point it can't be removed when corps like Amazon prohibit the use of Copilot betrays a total lack of foresight.

gregd 3y ago
Boggles my mind that they lacked the foresight to seriously consider whether this was a good move or not. I always considered them extremely developer friendly, but with this latest move, I'm not so sure.
- giancarlostoro 3y ago
  I wouldnt just write them off for one goof. It can happen to anyone. In the grand scheme of things this is a new market that is growing and adapting accordingly.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    Nah they tried a tone deaf cash grab The llm should have been offline
    - giancarlostoro 3y ago
      I have a feeling that's one of their goals, if you watch the launch video you can see they're really trying to make their offering as flexible as possible.
alkonaut 3y ago
> What baffles me most is that JetBrains didn't realise AI integration makes their product unusable in many companies At least if they either use the user's code in training OR if it uses any code with unknown provenance. Microsoft's solution seems to be the best: we take responsibility for the code. But that responsibility comes at a cost.

Invictus0 3y ago

I love the AI autocomplete feature. Works great.

cpburns2009 3y ago
It's a nice addition to the usual autocomplete. My only complaint is the full line suggestion overrides the selected code completion suggestion when they're both bound to the TAB key. They recommend binding the RIGHT ARROW key for full line suggestions which is a decent compromise.

rPlayer6554 3y ago

I don't get the outcry. I turned off or uninstalled the plugin then never thought about or saw it again.

gregd 3y ago

The only reason I'm using JetBrains at all right now is because Rider is cross platform. With Microsoft announcing the discontinuation of Visual Studio on Mac, I get really tired of the context shifting between Visual Studio at work and Rider at home. Additionally, are the costs of Visual Studio over Rider. My work pays for my Visual Studio Subscription, which does not allow for personal use. The JetBrains Ultimate sub is affordable for me, but this AI integration has me rethinking this.

Pengtuzi 3y ago
> this AI integration has me rethinking this Why isn’t disabling the plugin/hiding the icon good enough for you?

blackoil 3y ago

I don't see the issue if it can be disabled. Once disabled it is no different from many other features that it contains but are not used. If you don't trust them no point anyway running a closed source program.

jeremyloy_wt 3y ago

I don’t understand the outrage. The plugin is installed by default and visible in the right tray so it’s basically an advertisement. That’s the only negative part and I understand the frustration with that. You can disable it like any other plugin though? Really easily? And it’s a paid service. Just don’t pay for it. Seems like rage bait that a lot of people are falling for. Of course, if it turns out it’s phoning home with training data by default then I will also change my tune, but it doesn’t seem to be doing that

gumby 3y ago
Some companies’ policies forbid them in the first place.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
> The plugin is installed by default and visible in the right tray so it’s basically an advertisement (...) a paid service A persistently visible ad for a paid service you don't want, in a paid product you paid for? That alone is a justifiable reason for the outrage. But the more important bit is that, if legal says "no", then "but it's inert" isn't an answer people are willing to risk their employment for. Also: > if it turns out it’s phoning home with training data by default then I will also change my tune, but it doesn’t seem to be doing that We live in the age where open source package managers and build tools come with built-in, opt-out invasive telemetry, and I'm talking bona fide OSS, not something by Microsoft. It's reasonable to assume that the plugin is, or at some point will be, phoning home, until proven otherwise.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Yuck. Where can I find a list (even partial) of OSS tools with opt-out telemetry?
  - hunterhod 3y ago
    What's the gripe with telemetry? That data is used to improve your experience with the product. Otherwise, developers are flying blind.

thecowgoes 3y ago

Glad I didn't upgrade. Anyone know what version this starts? 2024.1?

kumpelblase2 3y ago
I believe it started shipping bundled in 2023.3.

cuckatoo 3y ago

JetBrains is just leading the pack in what's coming everywhere. What? You don't want to pay for your 4th monthly subscription to another shitty ChatGPT wrapper? Too bad and welcome to 2024.

yarg 3y ago

Deeply integrates? Well that's some obvious PR bullshit; clearly the feature needs deep integration to work, but I don't believe for a second that it's doing so in any way other than hooking into Jetbrains' core API. The notion that a novelty feature from the last couple of years needs to be implemented in such a way as to render it impossible to remove from a 20 year old IDE is patently absurd. Should've been a plugin in the first place.

29athrowaway 3y ago

It is removable because it is a plugin.

sesm 3y ago
I don't see the usual 'uninstall' button for this plugin, it has 'uninstall update' instead. After I've pressed 'uninstall update' the plugin is still in installed plugins list (but with an older version). To be fair, it's not possible to uninstall any 'bundled' plugin, like Node.js plugin in Webstorm. But for AI assistant they could make an exception: make it installed by default, but no bundled, so that users could uninstall it completely.

smrtinsert 3y ago

JetBrains has been on their ass lately with their product decisions. AI integration, the horrible new diff viewer, the new UI - which is still awful and has 0 benefit for me.

mdaniel 3y ago
Wait until you experience the raging dumpster fire that is the new Terminal in the EAPs - I lack enough language to describe my burning hatred for it, and (of course) there's no way to go back to the previous one

Aurornis 3y ago

I had to scroll halfway through the article to get to the real details: > "Although the AI Assistant plugin is bundled, and the plugin itself is enabled, there is no AI functionality enabled by default, and no data is sent off-machine without your consent," said Ellis, echoing similar replies posted to some of the discussion threads. "You have to log in, accept the data policies and either purchase a subscription or start a trial." > There is no AI functionality enabled by default, and no data is sent off-machine without your consent > "Any data sent to the AI service is not used for training. So many (maybe most) of the comments on HN don’t reflect the actual situation: - AI is not enabled by default - Code is not ingested for training purposes - You have to either sign up for a trial or purchase a subscription - You would have to explicitly accept the data policy to even begin using it So the real complaint of these people is that the plugin simply exists by default, which apparently is enough to get the product banned from certain companies. All of the comments speculating about it collecting your code for their training purposes or doing 3rd party AI things without your consent, or being enabled without any warning are easily disproven by a quick read of the article. It’s getting hard to read HN comments about anything AI related with all of these comments substituting their own assumptions and assuming the worst case scenario without any effort to read the article.

ta988 3y ago
Agreed that's false outcry. It is annoying because of its updates and the fact that it shows prominently in the UI at first start. But that pretty much all unless you activate it which I tested when it was in beta and require indeed that you agree to those agreements and log in.
tomca32 3y ago
You’re right but also keep in mind that company policies are often made without much thought. I can totally see a BigCorp making a policy that no AI clients are to be installed on their machines, regardless if the functionality is turned off
- drpossum 3y ago
  You're right but also keep in mind that companies do make decisions like that with thought or are contractually bound by the work they do for this, e.g. defense work, proprietary secrets that if they got out would far exceed the cost of the requirements

kietay 3y ago

Am I the only one who uses and likes the integration

konfusinomicon 3y ago

what has annoyed me most is that it took the first spot in the right click menu and pushed down show context actions in rider.

marstall 3y ago

Yeah on RubyMine at least, it's off by default and you have to turn it on. In fact, the account administrator has to turn it on if you have a site license, as we do. And when I requested for it to be turned on, it was declined because of the risk that closed-license code would thereby wend its way into our (open source) product ...

jszymborski 3y ago

I for one really like it. It really feels to me like the right way to do this sort of thing. By default, it's offline, so no privacy worries. Secondly, it works really well for me. It really does suggest what I'm about to write more often than not.

dzikimarian 3y ago

Jetbrains took bit unsettling turn in recent years. * Push for new "modern" UI which hides half of the functionality * Spaces went away from their usual pricing model - even if you self host you have to pay reccuring fee or it doesn't work. * In Youtrack you pay for maintenance/updates as before, but service desk addon is again hard subscription for no good reason. * AI is yet another subscription - in this case it's understandable, but further normalises paying each month. Seems like their old, reasonable management had their bodies stolen by ghosts of VC bros.

mailund 3y ago

Actually tried paying for the service, not very impressed. Suggestions are most mly lacking the necessary context to be applicable. Doesn't seem like it is considering anything other than the exact highlighted code

tslocum 3y ago

After using JB tools for years, I switched to VSCodium last year. My advice to anyone considering switching, stick with it for a few weeks. There is a lot of muscle memory to rebuild and it won't be a smooth experience at first. Stick it out, and you will be rewarded with a libre IDE that you control. https://vscodium.com https://vscodium.com

iimblack 3y ago
Seems like you still lose the Python plugin and remote extensions? Missing the wsl one is pretty rough. If you’re comfortable with vim (or want to be) I can’t recommend neovim enough. https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/wiki/Extensions-Compatibility https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/wiki/Extensions-Compati...

charlie0 3y ago

I found the latest version to be considerably less snappy than the previous version without AI. I deleted it and reinstalled the older one.

systems_glitch 3y ago

Always liked NetBeans better anyway :P

mint2 3y ago

“Irresistible outcry”? what does this phrase mean? Those word don’t belong together

ptx 3y ago
Probably meant as a reference to the "irresistible force meets an immovable object" [0] phrase/idea? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox

s3p 3y ago

Wait.. so 12 people complained? This is the 'irresistible outcry'? I feel like it's not that big an issue, and it seems like n=12 complaints when the userbase is in the millions isn't that bad.

Madmallard 3y ago

Meanwhile if this were a Microsoft product everything you'd do would be sent to them and it would just be expected.

cpburns2009 3y ago

I count ~125 bundled plugins for my install of Intellij IDEA 2023.3.3. JetBrains's problem is they bundle too many plugins. It's not a bundled AI plugin that requires a separate subscription to work and to be whitelisted for corporate accounts.

Copenjin 3y ago

I've just seen this post, can't we just delete a jar somewhere? I mean...

robomartin 3y ago

As a paid customer I have to say this has to go. IMMEDIATELY. I was surprised when it showed-up out of nowhere during the latest update. The problem is very simple: AI and cloud solutions can be VERY problematic in certain domains. Read: A deeply undesirable liability. We had the same problem when Altium decided to take their Altium Designer electronics CAD products and pretty much force everyone into having this cloud-based layer in the tool. No. Thanks. We cannot do that. At all. After decades with Altium, we switched to KiCad. Works fine for the vast majority of designs, even fairly sophisticated work. More importantly, the cloud-based liability is gone. For anything else --which has been very rare-- we have older non-cloud releases of AD we can use. Don't shove AI or cloud onto your customers. Let them choose. Some can't risk it at all. AI-generated code might sound fantastic to some. While, in other circles, it opens the door to untold liability. I don't want that shit to even show-up without a very explicit installation of a feature, plug-in, extension or whatever. It needs to be conclusively and demonstrably separable. Also, always remember customers have options. Be careful. We are actually considering moving away from JetBrains tools for this very reason. For now, we'll wait and see. More specifically, we'll wait and see if all semblance of AI is removed from the tools by default and only available as an explicitly installed extension. I have to be able to have tools audited (in a legal context) and show that AI was not a part of the process. For us, this does not add value. It adds liability.

RecycledEle 3y ago

There needs to be a switch in every computer. Up allows the computer to suggest things. Down makes it only follow orders.

mark_l_watson 3y ago

If they wanted to maintain user privacy, they should allow easy configuration with Ollama and a local hosted LLM coding model.

Drac707 3y ago

not getting any jetbrain products anymore, i would understand if we get popup saying try over new plugin or something but not this.

fabiancook 3y ago

I paid for the service. When it works for a specific bit of boilerplate code or section of obvious code, its handy. It definitely doesn't know the whole context of my project, or that it should use xyz imports to achieve a specific task from the same project. It will get better with time I am sure. I read through the privacy policy and other policies ahead of time too, nothing concerning for what I am doing. Is backed by OpenAI. * https://www.jetbrains.com/help/ai/data-collection-and-use-policy.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/ai/data-collection-and-use-po... * https://www.jetbrains.com/legal/docs/terms/jetbrains-ai/service-providers/ https://www.jetbrains.com/legal/docs/terms/jetbrains-ai/serv...