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+++ title = "When do you change the default settings (on tools/apps?)" description = "Musing on defaults" date = 2023-09-28 [taxonomies] tags= ["uncategorized"] +++
That question is rhetorical. I already have a good system in place for myself.
I will always review privacy settings. It’s rare that privacy settings will default to the more private options unless you’re using certain open source software such as KDE. Perhaps ironically, I’ll usually enable the anonymous usage statistics in those cases. The reason for that is a story for another post, though.
Things like keybinds and such are another story. Sometimes I’ll change the settings to whatever gets me the most use, and sometimes I’ll avoid changing the defaults as much as possible.
On one hand, if I have something like Joplin or Firefox, I’ll obsess over each setting and get it configured just so. These are tools that I’ll likely only use from devices I own, and only from a small percentage of them at that. I’ll only need to do that setup once every few months.
However, take something like Vim or tmux: I use these very often (more often than Joplin for sure), but I use them on almost every system I work on. This includes systems that aren’t owned by me or systems that I’ll only use once every few months. If someone else uses the system, they should be able to expect how these tools will behave.
It’s for this reason that I haven’t configured tmux, Vim, or similar tools on my own systems. I use the system default settings for tmux. I think I have small vanity options configured for Vim (syntax highlighting, hard tabs), but nothing more.