Audacity has been a great Open Source audio recording software for many years. Podcasters swear by Audacity as being a swiss army knife for audio editing such as recording, mixing, trimming and exporting to many formats such as mp3. We have even recommended it on several occasions over paid alternatives because of simplicity and dependability for Podcasting. It was an example of a software just enough to get things done without much learning curve. Few things have changed over the years. Audacity project development has slowed down.
Even though it was mainly community supported the program remained clutter free and remained rich enough for non power users.
The project was acquired by Muse Group a few months ago for an undisclosed amount. Which also owns Ultimate Guitar, MuseScore, MuseClass, Tonebridge. Audacity is still free and open source,but new owner Muse Group has made significant changes to its privacy policy adding telemetry features, described as "overarching and vague." to allow collection of identifiable information, telemetry and Google Analytics including:
- Session start and end
- Errors, including errors from the sqlite3 engine, as we need to debug corruption issues reported on the Audacity forum
- Usage of effects, sound generators, analysis tools, so we can prioritize future improvements
- Usage of file formats for import and export
- OS and Audacity versions
The biggest problem with this original telemetry statement is that it implies opt-out rather than opt-in data collection and vague language in the privacy policy that includes —"data necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authorities' requests (if any)." It was considered spyware by many media publications.
It’s GPL licensing is also questionable due to following changes:
1. The App we provide is not intended for individuals below the age of 13. If you are under 13 years old, please do not use the App.
2. The act of running the Program is not restricted.
If you are employed at an enterprise and your organization policy does not allow using GPL licensed software and may seek for commercial support.
So regardless of whether you are burnt by the change, believe in Audacity’s new owner’s goals or not, here are some alternatives if you would like to replace the audacity with something similar or better.
Remember most of these tools are designed for advanced level usage (DAW - Digital Audio Workstation), come with many powerful plug-in systems and need powerful computers to run. So not apple - apple comparison with audacity.
Following is a complete breakdown of the service data;
| Name | PC | Mac | Linux | OSS | Commercial? Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ocean Audio | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
| WAVEFORM | |||||
| Adobe Audition | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Apple Logic Pro X | Yes | Yes | |||
| Reaper | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Sound forge | |||||
| Ableton Live | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| FL Studio | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Studio One | |||||
| Bigwig | |||||
| Cubase | |||||
| Ardour | |||||
| Pro Tools | Yes | Yes | |||
| Apple Garageband | Yes | ||||
| OBS Studio | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Ios Audio Recorder | |||||
| SOUND FORGE |
References: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/07/04/open-source-audacity-deemed-spyware-over-data-collection-changes https://fosspost.org/audacity-is-now-a-spyware/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/07/tenacity_maintainer_quits_4chan_harassment/
If you need a trial just ask us at https://castdesk.com