Comment by hypeatei
12 hours ago
Notepad++ is solid but they had a recent kerfuffle involving their security practices and the response didn't inspire much confidence. But if you turn off auto-updates then it's a good alternative if you're still on Windows.
The issue Notepad++ is having, is the same as a lot of open source projects: They don't have a ton of money, don't have a business entity, and are struggling to get/keep a software-signing key in those circumstances.
So the people taking pot shots at the developers, I guess, maybe be more specific with what they did wrong and what they should have done instead. Because if you actually understand the history/circumstances (and the fact it was a third-party hosting provider compromised), one would expect more blame on the systemic under-funding of OSS than "developers bad."
Are people wanting them to create a business, monetize Notepad++, so that they no longer have issues with hosting/certificates? I'm guessing not.
More than a small kerfuffle. A supply chain attack by a state actor, believed to be China, resulted in undetected malicious code executions from June 2025 to December 2025.
I love Notepad++ but yea, zero confidence in that dev right now. Its programma non grata on my machines at the moment.
Theyre also very political and giving them access to my machine now feels even more risky.
If you'd like a lightweight replacement, here's Kate. It's somewhere around a zed featureset, a little less.
A key benefit of it is that it's not an electron app. It's an old C++ app that's still just chuggin' along.
https://kate-editor.org/get-it/
Which response are we talking about which was problematic?
Hurting MAGA feelings or criticising Israel I'd guess.
I didn't realize until recently that the very popular Notepad++ was such a lightning rod over the years for controversy and (though I can't guarantee correlation is causation) security issues.
20260202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876823 Notepad ++ hacked for Je Suis Charlie comments(web archive link) (65 points, 74 comments)