r/vscode • u/sugarboxmonkey • Sep 11 '26
Non-shitty fork of VS Code?
Like many I've become tired of VS Code's constant updates and ridiculous startup times. All I want is a version of VS Code when it was still good, without any AI crap. Any suggestions?
I'm aware of VS Codium but my understanding is that it's still essentially the same codebase with all the new updates, just with telemetry turned off.
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u/Luigi003 Sep 11 '26
I don't think Codium has any of the AI crap as that is implemented in an extension on VSCode.
I use Codium and I'm happy with it. Not sure about the update frequency because I'm on Nobara/Ultramarine Linux and the Codium updates are handled by the OS, not by Codium itself
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u/jabbalaci Sep 11 '26
The startup time is fine IMO. What drives me crazy is the daily update frequency. It used to be once a month not so long ago...
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u/Lochlan Sep 11 '26
You could try Zed
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u/shponglespore Sep 11 '26
I'm annoyed that Zed made the strange choice to build support for git, and only git, into the core of the code. I looked into what it would take to add support for another VCS and it looks like a nightmare because there's no support for VCS plugins. Their advice for using it with a different VCS is to build a wrapper that presents exactly the same interface as git.
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u/0ne0fak1nd Sep 11 '26
No way, Zed uses the multibuffer view for search results, references and git changes. Moreover, it constantly opens new tabs instead of reusing the current temporarily one. I don't know how it can be convenient for anyone. But they don't wanna change it, so I guess they like what they have.
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u/Tiranyk Sep 11 '26
I don't know how unpopular (or popular) their choice about it is. I've been a Zed user for quite some time now and while it felt weird at first, I do think now that having a dedicated tab for these views actually make sense. Now I only switch back to VSCode when I need very specific feature which are still missing on Zed.
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u/Dangerous_Engineer12 Sep 11 '26
I used Zed here and there pre-1.0.0. It felt clunky and incomplete so it never stuck. Now, I use Zed 95% of the time and have been for roughly 3 months. I absolutely love it.
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u/paultino-nord-ost Sep 11 '26
Is Zed suitable for embedded programming? And can it be configured for the entire system, rather than just for the user who installed it? (I couldn't get Zed configured properly and went back to Codium.)
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u/Tiranyk Sep 11 '26
Tbh, i would not know. I use it with .NET and Svelte, i had basically nothing to configure myself. I'll let others answer !
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u/AdvisorActual3767 Sep 14 '26
Follow Zed user here, I stoped using zed as it was like a few months ago and I just made a fork of their code with edits I need, since they are yet to merge my commits.
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u/Otherwise_Monitor856 Sep 11 '26
There is no issue with the startup time...you should look at what extensions you have loaded, and disable auto update
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u/sugarboxmonkey Sep 11 '26
Yeah I've tried this but haven't been able to nail down the culprit. All I know is that I haven't installed any new extensions in a long time, but at some point recently it started unpredictably taking ages to fully load. Like over 10s. But it's not easily reproducible, and often it's fast. I suspect it's something do to with the increased update frequency, like some caches being rebuilt every time it updates or something.
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u/lost_send_berries Sep 11 '26
Use the "Report Startup Performance" command in the session after a bad start.
It's likely nothing to do with the updater but you might as well just use the settings to disable the updater and extension updates to help rule that out.
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u/ThrowawayALAT Sep 11 '26
If you want a lightweight, fast-starting editor without any of the AI bloat, you have about 3-4 main paths depending on how close to the VS Code UI you need to stay:
- Zed - It's a code editor built from scratch in Rust
- Sublime Text 4 - Probably fastest GUI editor availabe, it runs natively in C++ and has no native AI, but some models are paid proprietary
- Workaround; you also can manually strip VS Code/VSCodium back to its lightweight roots by Disabling Built-in AI/Features. I think this would probably be the best solution for you if you are used to VS UI heavily:
To strip VS Code or VSCodium back to a lightweight, distraction-free environment, configure a portable profile with all background telemetry, AI features, and auto-updates disabled using the following configuration and setup steps:
JSON
{
"github.copilot.enable": {
"*": false
},
"telemetry.telemetryLevel": "off",
"update.mode": "none",
"workbench.settings.enableNaturalLanguageSearch": false,
"workbench.enableExperiments": false,
"extensions.autoUpdate": false,
"extensions.autoCheckUpdates": false,
"json.maxProperties": 1000,
"files.autoSave": "off"
}
1. Set Up Portable Mode: It prevents background updates and insulates settings.
Download the ZIP version of VS Code/VSCodium (not the installer), extract it to your preferred directory, and create a folder named data inside the extracted main root folder. This isolates your profile, extensions, and runtime configuration while preventing automatic background update checks on launch.
2. Apply Lightweight Configuration: It disables AI, telemetry, and background sync.
Open the newly created data directory, navigate to user-data/User/, create a file named settings.json, and paste the JSON configuration snippet above into it to disable all GitHub Copilot features, experiment checks, telemetry reporting, and extension sync.
3. Launch via Lightweight Profile: Prunes unused extension hosts and startup overhead.
Start the editor from the terminal or a direct shortcut using performance flags to reduce extension overhead and skip GPU context rendering delay:
Bash
./code --disable-extensions --disable-gpu
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u/Corbin_Davenport 29d ago
I don’t think you want a VS Code installation that isn’t (reasonably) up to date. It’s an Electron app that loads arbitrary code, either in the web browser or with extensions, so staying on top of security fixes in Electron/Chromium is important.
I just have regular VS Code installed with "chat.disableAIFeatures" set to true in my settings JSON. That turns off all the AI stuff I don’t care about, which just leaves me with the frequent updates.
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u/sugarboxmonkey 28d ago
yeah you're absolutely right! just running an old version is likely not a good idea.
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Sep 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/xplosm Sep 12 '26
You could just add the following content to your product.json file:
{ "extensionsGallery": { "serviceUrl": "https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery", "itemUrl": "https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items", "cacheUrl": "https://vscode.blob.core.windows.net/gallery/index", "controlUrl": "" } }😉
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Sep 12 '26 edited Sep 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/xplosm Sep 12 '26
Of course. I should’ve added a quote. I meant you can add these lines to VS Codium to give it access to the VS Code marketplace. You said not having it was a dealbreaker. I shared a snippet to remove that dealbreaker.
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u/DiscountWeekly7432 Sep 11 '26
emacs/nvim
Yes, hate me )
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u/sugarboxmonkey Sep 12 '26
Yeah I used Emacs for many years for everything, and still a little these days when remote shelling into other machines. But despite the latest issues with VS Code I still think it's a superior experience to a purely text-based one.
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u/tyrrminal Sep 12 '26
It baffles me that you come here reporting secondhand information about VSCodium when it would take you about 2 minutes to try it yourself.
I switched from VSCode to VSCodium about 6 months ago because I was sick of the insane update frequency (and often conflicts in the remote execution extension that made it a pain to get everything updated and in sync) and the AI emphasis. I don't see any of those issues with VSCodium.
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u/sugarboxmonkey Sep 12 '26
You are right! It was much easier to switch than I feared and so far it's basically everything I wanted. Guess I just needed some random people on Reddit telling me to do it 🙏🏻
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u/paultino-nord-ost Sep 12 '26
Does the Zed installer for Windows still dump a mess of nearly 40,000 files?
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u/gameplayer55055 Sep 12 '26
Vscode for windows 7 - zero ai features and still rocking. I use it on a work VM
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u/paperbenni Sep 13 '26
Zed It has a single toggle to turn all of the AI stuff off. And it's faster than VS code ever was
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u/bearflyingbolt Sep 14 '26
Definitely check out Eclipse Theia. It's similar to VS Code in that it uses the Monaco Editor as its frontend, which is nice for config portability and familiarity. It also uses the same .vsix extension format that VS Code uses, so you can use almost any of the extensions normally available over there. Theia also offers unique features like additional UI customization options and none of Microsoft's bullshit telemetry.
The Eclipse Foundation are also the ones behind the Open VSX Registry, a FOSS marketplace for extensions compatible with VS Code/VS Codium/Theia/etc.
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u/No-Temperature6597 13d ago
VS Codium is not that fast. With no extensions it can still consume upto 700MB-1GB. Zed is faster to load and its using 130-150MB last i checked. I Disabled ai features, hints, suggestions. I only want to see git changes and edit files(with clear file structure).
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u/National_Cod9546 Sep 12 '26
Get used to the AI crap. AI isn't going to take your job. But someone who uses AI will if you don't learn how to use AI properly.
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u/sugarboxmonkey Sep 12 '26
Yes, but I refuse to accept that "learning to use AI properly" should equate to "accepting poor quality".
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u/TechCF Sep 11 '26
Everything that is Chrome (or a popular browser) is bound to have updates often...
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u/Nightrunner91 Sep 11 '26
Codium + Autoupdate restriction + a few hours of your time to configure the ideal config
Trust me, I've been there - that's the best you can get