WTF is a "privacy-focused code editor?" They're just glorified text editors! They run locally! They don't connect to the Internet at all! How would they be anything other than "privacy-focused" by default? Why is this even a question?!

I fucking hate this timeline.

Anyway, to answer your question: emacs, obviously. Or vim if you're evil, I suppose. Or just whatever the Hell you want, because if your editor even has "terms of service" or a "privacy policy" of any kind something has already gone horribly wrong.

vim

Geany is a great, lightweight FOSS editor that totally respects your privacy, and supports all if the languages you mentioned, plus many more.

If you're just writing those languages, here are my picks:

For Linux and Unix:

• Xed (just called "Text Editor" in the menu)
• Geany
• Notepadqq
• Micro (terminal, but very friendly)
• Nano (also terminal, also friendly)

For Windows:

• Notepad++
• VSCodium

For macOS:

• Micro
• Nano
• VSCodium

Most of the popular open-source ones are fine. VSCodium if you want a rich GUI or perhaps Geany if you want a lightweight but beginner-friendly editor. Only things you'll have to watch out for are editors with online features like AI integration, particularly Microsoft VSCode and the new notepad.exe with AI.

Probably I'm going to be downvoted as f*ck, but if it's for HTML, CSS and JavaScript the most privacy respecting option could be vim or, with a pinch of salt, Notepad++ if you are on Windows. If you are learning grab a good reference book or website (I used w3school like 20 years ago) and break things. On a personal level, I never liked the "training wheels" that some editors force into you. But, could be that this isn't a quite popular opinion 😅

Edit: some fat-finger typos

vim

...I can't think of a "privacy-focused code editor" because code editors are generally not known for having telemetry/tracking/anything privacy-invasive in the first place? A "privacy-respecting" code editor is just a normal one. Use whatever you like. Vim is great. Maybe Kate if you want a GUI.

On the privacy front, that would be cat, I think. Well, except on Ubuntu.

Shout out to tee.

Vim, Emacs, Helix, Neovim

i like Pulsar

pluma is good. i used it until switching to vim/emacs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluma_(text_editor)

I would check out Lapce and CudaText. They are both solid editors. If you are comfortable in the terminal, then nvim as well, of course.