Disable Editor Analytics

[TheYellowArchitect]

I want to give some personal context for this egregious bug, as for me personally, this is the worse of all. I started using Unity in start of 2017, doing tutorials and stuff. I didn't know programming (except if you consider programming the knowledge of if/for) I obviously didn't even know what privacy means (I am Greek, English is not my native language), nor what a closed ecosystem meant. I even used Skype, back then...

So, I picked Unity, started editing, expressing myself and having fun. Little did I know back then, that it uploaded some of my data with each upload. When I learned about privacy, first thing I did was clean my windows 7 from all default spyware (e.g. process logger), and just avoid everything google, everything microsoft, everything social media

And at the start of 2021, I started fiddling with Linux. Do you know why I couldn't move fully onto Linux, that liberating OS? Because what I did full-time was Unity, and Unity is proprietary software, which I cannot even disable from outbound packets. It will not work without internet connection.

"What are you talking about? "Work Offline" exists!" Yes, enabled only after you have logged in with your Unity account, and uploaded your hardware's fingerprint (unique identification of your pc, ofc includes additive stuff like IP) And you cannot even ensure it won't try to send packets, as it is proprietary, you don't even have the encryption keys to the packets it sends.

Anyway, my point is, I was forced to dual-boot because of Unity. At least, my Linux workflow was smoothly integrated, with Windows unable to read Linux drive, but Linux able to read Windows', and freely editing in it. Bless rsync btw. To return, at least Unity doesn't take images every 5 minutes and uploads it to Google or Microsoft But still, its disgusting. There was no consent, no warning either. Europe's GDPR is also a joke, as Unity can just say "use latest version, we don't care that we have harvested 5 years worth of your data and activity", as if latest version won't have this (but legally its dodgeable since it is indeed a different version)

So anyone who tries to update Double Damnation, will have some of his data stolen. Anyone aware of privacy's benefits, will not install Unity, nor update Double Damnation. For a few bugfixes or a feature addition, he would have to sacrifice privacy, hence ruining the open-source development model of Double Damnation. This issue is fixable only by a hex editor, and it is niche (2018.1f1 version exclusive), and I don't know how to do it.

But at least, let it be a warning. Do not write open-source code which relies on proprietary frameworks/engines.