VSCode Marketplace Web Pages No Longer Allow Direct VSIX Downloads
15 comments
·February 4, 2025welder
diggan
Nice find. Now we wait a week or two for VSCode/Microsoft to add some new popup asking people to login to MS Live (or whatever their auth system is called today) in order to download extensions, and that endpoint will be put under auth too.
echoangle
How would a default VS Code installation download the extension then? You don't need to log in with your MS account in VS Code.
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IceWreck
Use this instead - it's OSS and not microsoft controlled.
diggan
Is that a straight up mirror of marketplace.visualstudio.com or do authors need to upload their extensions to both places?
doug_life
Unfortunately its not a mirror. Some extensions have licensing issues that prevent them from being on open-vsx. For example PlatformIO. I ran into this issue earlier this week when trying to set up Windsurf which uses open-vsx.
Neywiny
I noticed this maybe a week or so ago. I used that functionality extensively for computers without network access and was very confused. Saw some SO answer about it being a Windows vs Linux thing, which is stupid for a browser but whatever. That wasn't the case. I did find a way to do it, I forget off the top of my head. At the end of the day I just used vscodeoffline and ran the python server directly (getting docker up and running for basically just a venv was a large hassle).
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joshstrange
I’m actually kind of surprised it took Microsoft this long to push back against the VSCode clones. While I don’t agree with the step they took, it does seem like one of the more mild things they could’ve done.
RyanHamilton
You always begin mild. Ratchet up slowly. Then when someone complains roll back a little or plead ignorance. Keep repeating until complainers leave to go elsewhere. Keep the majority of users. Repeat until "done".
diggan
> I’m actually kind of surprised it took Microsoft this long to push back against the VSCode clones
Why would Microsoft push back against VS Code forks? I thought "Microsoft <3 Open Source", is that no longer true now when people forgot about the old Microsoft?
animuchan
It's funny how our standards for MS are like "their latest user-hostile move was malicious to a very reasonable degree, so it's all good."
welder
The clones never used Microsoft's marketplace, most comments here are misinformed or falsely assuming malicious intent. Classic HN
worble
Microsoft: We love open source!
Microsoft: No wait, not like that!
They just changed a web UI to no longer have a download button but you can still download all extension versions:
https://www.gallery.vsassets.io/_apis/public/gallery/publish...
The download button is still available inside vscode and Cursor never used the marketplace anyway. So many commenters are getting worked up over nothing. No malicious intent here, just classic HN jumping to the wrong conclusion.