I had never read this before... huh very interesting. the thing is shutupten can't really be malicious, i block internet access to it before i run it, and it does work... when i toggle the items and reboot it does disable those items. so i'm not sure what to make of that article really. a lot of companies do annoying tactics like that to make money... but eh i dunno
How does doing those two things mean it cannot be malicious? Though yes, it is very possible that it is not. It could do exactly all that is advertised, but do you trust that fact knowing how the company operates its business otherwise?
Personally I use one of the many collection of scripts from any number of git repos. They are not as pretty, but they are open source. So I can myself verify everything they do, which I do so I can copy paste it all in to one huge perfect script for me. And some blocking in pi-hole for common telemetry.
Then forget it somewhere not back it up to when I need it the next time and have to redo it all again, but oh well.