Thank you all for the amazing reception of the “Yaak 2.0” launch! If you missed it, be sure to check out the Changelog to see all the goodies.
There was a ton of great feedback and bug reports, so this release addresses much of the low-hanging fruit that resulted.
Additionally, it also contains two notable removals: telemetry and the personal-use badge.
I’m happy to report that all telemetry-related code has been removed! This means that Yaak no longer collects or sends any usage data—no analytics, no crash reports, nothing. Your data stays completely on your machine, where it belongs.
The only remaining requests are periodic checks for in-app notifications and updates.
This removal aligns with my goal of building a privacy-respecting app that users love. If telemetry isn’t needed then they shouldn’t be there. While analytics can be useful for answering very specific questions at large scale, I’ve found it’s faster and better to simply talk to users. So keep the feedback coming!
Following the same reasoning as the telemetry removal, the persistent “Personal Use” badge can now be dismissed. Thanks for the honest feedback about this!
I originally added the badge to remind legitimate customers to purchase a license, since it’s easy to put it off and then forget.
There were also problems with the badge:
The new implementation is smarter:
Active Trial badge appears. Clicking it opens the license dialog,
explains the trial, and dismisses the badge until the trial ends.Personal Use unless a license was activated.Personal Use opens the license dialog and gives an option to confirm
non-commercial use. Once confirmed, the badge disappears.This should improve conversions while keeping the experience clean for personal users. It’s a win-win!