Almost exactly the same story here. I've also had little to no refusals from DeepSeek, with it's Chinese values meaning substantially less friction when it comes to things like reverse engineering, finding copyrighted files, working with dubiously-sourced source code, et cetera. I don't think I'd go back to Copilot even if they dropped prices by 90%.
> Any concerns as far as privacy or data protection?
We moved to OpenCode Go ($10/mo), so we could switch between DeepSeek v4, GLM 5.1, and Qwen 3.7 models run by providers in EU, US, & Singapore that OpenCode FAQ claims don't use retained data for training.
What about data and privacy?
The [OpenCode Go] plan is designed primarily for international users, with models hosted in the US, EU, and Singapore for stable global access. Our providers follow a zero-retention policy and do not use your data for model training.
> Qwen 3.7 models run by providers in EU, US, & Singapore that OpenCode FAQ claims don't use retained data for training.
Note: Alibaba Cloud is the only company that currently offers Qwen 3.7 models (they haven't released any open weight versions yet), and according to OpenRouter, they retain prompts for an unknown period. So they might not explicitly use your data for training, but they do store it indefinitely on their servers and can potentially[0] use it for all sorts of other purposes.
[0]: Disclaimer: I haven't read their privacy policy. Just pointing out that it's not so simple.
Using OpenRouter, going to migrate to DeepSeek's official API soon. I'm not using it for anything commercial or for private data so I have no privacy qualms.
Makes sense. Privacy is my only real hang up with DeepSeek. Both of the big SOTA providers have become extremely filtered. Things that I could do one version ago are now getting refusals. Anthropic is almost unusable. ChatGPT is slightly better. Even with a "cyber exception" in place and a vetted account. They are going to force me to take my business elsewhere.
GitHub Copilot refuses to do any security testing or proof-of-concepts for exploits. While I understand why, we pay for Enterprise and I’m working on our proprietary code base. It’s incredibly annoying.
I’ve actually had luck taking the analysis from GHCP and pasting it into our M365 Copilot and getting a useful poc to stick into my bug reports.
You can always run deepseek yourself, v4-pro and flash are open weights. It's a little tricky to get the hang of self deploying open weight models but you do fully own your deployment substrate and privacy narrative at that point.
What's with the lack of Microsoft design language on the website? It's painfully obvious they're trying to emulate Anthropic's style here and it looks tacky.
That's neither Microsoft nor Anthropic design. It's from their acquisition of Inflection AI. Even Copilot mobile app design is basically what was Inflection's design
I've always wondered where Consumer CoPilot's design language was from.
If you watch the Build keynote with Satya, you'll notice that the design of the slides changed to Serif typography and warmer colors when Mustafa/Microsoft AI segment came on which was completely different from the rest of the keynote. Now it makes sense!
Brand guidelines and web design pretty much don't exist any more as far as I can tell. Gotta get it out yesteday, and the only way to do that is vibe coding, styling be damned.
With GitHub Copilot switching to usage-based billing, they offered this tool to calculate how much it will cost you if you continue to use the service as you previously have. It said my current billing was $177.99, while under the new usage-based billing, it would cost me $2,899.35.
I can't help but think this is a roundabout way for them to discontinue their public-facing Github Copilot subscriptions altogether.
I miss the days of Flash. Not because I want to actually use it, but because it being an extension forced most websites to offer a basic HTML4 version as well as a fancy, more opaque Flash one. After the advent of HTML5 almost all websites feel like Flash on steroids. Ditto for the IE6 holdovers.
While I admire his commitment to his ideals, I find some of this veers into an uncomfortable fanaticism, especially the remarks praising the savage acts of violence committed by the Sentinelese (which I find particularly odd considering the author's professed religion). I doubt the Amish (who apply technology selectively and intelligently) would appreciate being compared to them either; the Sentinelese are not preserving a valuable way of life, they're primitive hunter-gathering barbarians, and anybody can "return" to that way of life any time they want by taking a one-way plane ticket and camping out somewhere where they cannot be found.
Additionally, the fact that this announcement is a scan of a typewritten letter, despite the fact that he has communicated in text-form on BlueSky since the letter's authoring, feels a tad performative to me.
>praising the savage acts of violence committed by the Sentinelese (which I find particularly odd considering the author's professed religion). I doubt the Amish (who apply technology selectively and intelligently) would appreciate being compared to them either
This feels like a purposeful misreading. The author is using hyperbole to vent about their feelings on where we are right now in tech. The idea being there will still be some vestiges of humanity left who can live without any of the advancements from the Industrial Revolution onward because it may all disappear in a calamity.
>taking a one-way plane ticket and camping out somewhere where they cannot be found.
Camping isn't building a sustainable human community. Trust me. We go camping in the White Mountains every summer and I can tell you based on the campground bathrooms alone that is not a society.
> Camping isn't building a sustainable human community. Trust me.
My point is that if the Sentinelese were gone, the primitive lifestyle would not forever be lost to time. If somebody finds enough people willing to join them, it would be possible to found an off-grid commune somewhere.
> We go camping in the White Mountains every summer and I can tell you based on the campground bathrooms alone that is not a society.
I doubt anybody going camping in the White Mountains intends to found a society.
Regardless whether or not it was rhetorical, I found it off-putting, especially when the Amish (a far superior example of the point he is trying to convey) are mentioned in the same article.
If I were more -- or even at all -- versed in the geopolitics of the Andaman Islands, I may have found it more off-putting than I did. That's a fair enough point. If you're offended by this, that's understandable and I don't blame you.
What I was speaking about was more the claim that the author had veered into fanaticism. That doesn't seem true. He's working at Home Depot not becoming a hunter-gatherer let alone murdering anybody.
What word would you use for parents who sell their own children? Or people who engage in cannibalism? Or people who practice infanticide? "Barbaric", perhaps? I'm not talking about the Sentinelese, I'm talking about other, well, barbarians.
despite the fact that he has communicated in text-form on BlueSky since the letter's authoring
Lol thanks, that answers my question. Whenever these "I'm leaving tech" posts come up I'm amused that the website is still online, they're still tweeting, and there's no indication that they've left anything at all. Our society rewards speaking out too much. It's especially difficult to stop if a big part of your existence is networking, and this guy seems to be all about networking.
There might be a so-called "Year of the Linux Desktop", but it'd require Microsoft either doing something so disastrous that people cannot use Windows, or pivoting away from NT.
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