CubeIDE forcing you to login to ST is complete [...]

Maybe some have other ideas as just tracking? Today it is a login, but tomorrow it could be a login with a monthly payment... Just like the boiling frog: heat the water slowly.

This has several subjects to address:

On the topic of drivers.  Look at the drivers for an AVR or simpler processor.  The hardware is simple enough that writing low level drivers for I2C are reasonable to do (and I've done some). 
On the other hand, the hardware for the I2C interface (for an example) has a lot of modes, and drivers provided by the manufacturer are highly recommended.  A purist would say "go write your own".  I am not a purist.  If the manufacturer cannot write decent drivers for their own hardware, then what?

The LL drivers are just enough to load registers.  You need to figure out what the registers do.  OK...  HAL drivers?  They need to document them, not so much how to use them, but what their assumptions are.  Are their effective mutexes to keep the hardware safe from multiple uses?  There needs to be in an operating system environment.  Are they provided by HAL?  I'm not sure.

I have drivers which encapsulate the HAL drivers.  They are operating system dependent (FreeRTOS), C++ classes that enable programmed NSS, address lines, R/W lines, mutex protection, and changing clockrate for different chips, etc. Changing for a different operating system simply requires changing mutex access.

Should ST have provided them?  Nope. Should it tell me how the HAL drivers were designed?  Yep.

As far as monitoring goes, it seems to split into two different subjects:

1. Monitoring logins and requiring logins to access data:  enough has been said here to indicate that most people seem to be bothered enough to complain, but not enough to quit using the product.  In the case of some environments, internet access is not possible for either security reasons or the simple "it's not here".  Since the content of GitHub and the manufacturer's download seems to be different, GitHub is not really sufficient if you want what ST has.
2. Constant update to refresh ST tools:  Now I think that's a bit much at times.  The CubeMX application gets shut down at times to do some file structure changes on the project software.  Start it back up and it wants to make sure everything is up to date.  Annoying.  I know there are settings, but still....   

What would be nice to see is a plan from ST that acknowledges some of these issues, and whether or not they will be addressed, and how.  Note that this is NOT a product development state secret, since it is unrelated to how the product hardware (processors) will be designed, what's next, etc.

Making your customers feel better is a good business goal.

Login required for every single small thing is so annoying. Want datasheet for our processor? Oh, you need to login.

You need some utility right now when you are on site? Ok, just login. You forgot which email/password you use? Nevermind, just reset your password or create new account. We will answer in few hours.

Oh, You want to download library? You know the drill...

If they are afraid of bots, they should use some captcha alternative.
What will be next? Like and subscribe?

The analytics on documentation and other downloads can and already are gathered without a login.

@Oskar_H , a silent opt-in on newsletters are already executed in some cases:

https://community.st.com/t5/feedback-forum/st-marketing-abuse/td-p/596281

@Harvey White , what you are describing with your higher layer drivers is the platform/OS layer depicted as the "Driver" (yellow) layer in this picture:

https://microchip.wdfiles.com/local--files/harmony:overview/harmony.jpg

The HAL belongs to the hardware "PLIB" (red) layer and should provide the interrupt safety, but not the access control. Instead the famous broken "HAL lock" tries to do both, but doesn't actually provide any of those, while simultaneously adding an unjustified way of failure under a basic and completely normal usage. A spectacular failure, which just shows that the developers do not understand what they are doing...

Which now (not that it had an explanation before) explains the "HAL_lock".  Apparently a good thing that I managed to wrap the function in my own operating system choice of semaphores. 

Now if we only had a decent explanation of how the rest of it worked, and what they thought they were doing.

I'll agree that task interlocking with semaphores is another level up.  Wonder why we had to go to a rival manufacturer to find that out?

Wonder if a decent explanation of HAL (and LL) drivers might mention some sort of layer model?

It's beyond expectations to teach people how to design software for a manufacturer of chips.  Not their job.  However, a small document that describes software levels and what part their software plays, and where it is, well.......

For a company that espouses Azure as a wonderful solution (and second lines FreeRTOS), if we're doing operating systems.  Somewhere I managed to find some supporting documentation.

Why am I not surprised?

Eventually, documentation will make or kill your product.  Wonderful to have advanced features and "golly gee whiz" hardware.  Now to figure out how to use it (and the application notes are not all that good in places).

The log-in function in my IDE isn't even working.  It just does nothing.

So now I'm stuck.

ST...  we really don't need this log-in nonsense.

If you really must force it on us, you need to make sure it is 100% reliable - and it ain't.

This is wasting my valuable time.

After a while, a project with STM32. I forced to log-in... I just want to know where is this feature really useful and why we must be log-in?

@Slh as far as I am concerned: nope, this BS is not usefull at all - at least for the users. It's just annoying.

I cannot login in the STM32CubeIDE, it keeps faling, I can login in the browser, but I cannot download the software for reinstall, everytime it keeps promting me for loggin into stm again, even that I already is logged in. I have a plain private internet connection without any additional firewall than the one there is on my computer. I do not use vpn.

i have also tried to disable my firewall, still no luck, Have also tried hotspot on my phone.
I have tried all three network settings under the preferences.

i you want us to login it would be great if it worked

I've got the same issue. There is no logging (IDE) possible.

Got a window "User Authentication Dialog", then, after some time "Connection lost".

I'm working in a "private enviroment", every other application, app, straming,.... which uses internet is working fine.

So please . remove this bug!

Thanks Winfried