Isn't Autohotkey effectively a keyspectator should I feel safe that I'm allowing this program to watch my keystrokes

Question

Recently I started using Autohotkey just to automate some abbreviations so it's a hotstring e.g

::btw::by the way

Replaces "btw" with "by the way" as soon as you press an default ending character.

Effectively it's watching my keystrokes and (not logging them) but then I feel that makes me insecure? But I really want to use the tool. I can't tell if I'm being pedantic or my points are valid but essentially I see it as a potential keylogger since it does watch the keystrokes it just doesn't store them maliciously.

Is it still safe to use, keystokes are quite sensitive including passwords, credit card data etc so should I feel okay using this?

Answer 1

You don't have to trust it any more than you trust any other program you run. Any program could steal everything you type if it were malicious; the fact that AutoHotkey reads what you type as part of its legitimate function doesn't make it any less safe.

Further, AutoHotkey is trusted and known to not be malicious. (It's also open-source, so if you don't trust other people to vet it, you can do so yourself and then build from the source you verified.)