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Interesting read here for Audacity users. Luckily my iPad doesn’t suffer these problems, yet!

Audio editor Audacity denies spyware accusation www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57721967

Does anyone know if the latest update to 3X mean that things are getting a bit naughty?

See the following link which explains what is going on and suggests there will be a fork to another open source variation. It also suggest an option if you really need to run the latest version. What I cannot find out is what was the version before the software was sold and corrunpted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaX9LuOWRHE

Audacity was purchased in April 2021. So any download / version before April should be ok I suppose.

In the comments on the YouTube explanation it seems there may already be what is called a forked version called Tenacity.
This may be for Linux only at this time.

I have Ver2.1.1 - from 2015 which is running no problems on my laptop and 2.3.2 on my desktop.
The latest version is 3.0.2 which I assume is spyware.

Maybe we should share the early versions with our members if requested?

I'm running Audacity 2.4.2 and have an exe file in my Downloads

Version 3.0.2 is the last one not to have telemetry. Any future releases will probably include it. It seems that Muse Software (Russian) who purchased the software (I do not understand how GPL software can be sold!) wish to eventually introduce a Pro version hence the changes in the licensing system that they are proposing. That will mean "nagging" to "encourage" users to upgrade to a paid version.

3.0.2 is the version that Ninite.com currently installs. Ninite.com is a kind of package manager for free Windows software. They have a list of freeware that covers most things and fully check out any upgrades before including them and when you opt to update your computer they strip out any addon stuff like extra toolbars before downloading. You can update everything you choose in one go with just a couple of clicks. I have been using it for quite some time. I retired in 2014 and had been using it to upgrade work computers for quite some time before that. They do have a Pro version which is useful for companies that have a lot of computing gear but they do not nag the private user at all.