Add ability to disable the iTunes integration

[tiotrom]

I do not see any way of disabling that. Why is that? Thanks!

[nathandyer]

@tiotrom The iTunes directory was added around five years ago, and at the time we wanted to make sure that it was a key component of the app because it's used in so many places (the search bar, the welcome screen, the Top 100 view, etc.). Looking at it now, I can see why people would want to disable it either for privacy reasons or simply to minimize network traffic. I'm certainly open to the idea of adding an option to disable it in a future version.

[tiotrom]

That would be great if we can remove it! Add it as optional maybe?

[Hanouta]

Not exactly what @tiotrom asked for, but I think the iTunes Top 100 Podcasts should be loaded on demand(i.e. when clicking on the Discover Podcasts button on the welcome page or the toolbar) rather than at startup.

Advantages:

• increased Privacy
• less network traffic(especially on the first run because it is downloading all thumbnails)
• potentially faster startup time

Disadvantages:

• it would take slightly longer to load the Top 100 (shouldn't really matter that much because I don't think most users will use that feature on a daily basis)

The option to disable it completely should still be added at some point(because it connects to iTunes when using the search), but this would definitely be an improvement imo.

@nathandyer What do you think?

[nathandyer]

@brn9hrd7 I agree completely that it should load on demand rather than at start time, in addition to adding the ability to disable it. The only real downside that I'm particularly "bothered" by is that on first launch on a system it will take longer to load the directory (which I know a lot of people use as a starting point for building their library), but I think the benefits far outweigh this one particular annoyance.

[nathandyer]

Just a note, I've opened up a new issue #450 to track progress on the on-demand loading vs. disabling issue addressed in this issue

[bdougherty]

Perhaps it could be toggled between the iTunes index and https://podcastindex.org/?