Warning about electron's removal of Node.js vm module

Hi, I am using bytenode to encrypt my electron application source code and it works very well, here is the version I am currently using.

"bytenode": "^1.1.7"
"electron": "^12.0.0"

When I packaged the app, electron gave me a warning that

The vm module of Node.js is deprecated in the renderer process and will be removed.

This is electron’s Release Notes Persisted.

I would like to ask if electron really removed the vm module of Node.js in the renderer process, will it be affected if I continue to use bytenode？

[OsamaAbbas]

Bytenode depends on vm in order to work. So removing it may break bytenode.

I can think of a workaround if vm is removed, but I need to try it first to make sure it works.

[OsamaAbbas]

I can think of a workaround if vm is removed, but I need to try it first to make sure it works.

@OsamaAbbas What was your idea for the work around?

I tried to remember it but could not!

Almost a year ago I was not able to remember what the workaround that I had to restore bytenode functionality if electron goes with removing vm module.

Strangely enough, I remembered it suddenly yesterday, so I wanted to record it here before I forget it again!

Depending on how electron would remove the support for vm in the renderer process, we have two options:

1. Just replace require('vm'); with require('node:vm');. This trivial solution works for now and it does not trigger the deprecation warning. ( This is because of how they are intercepting the require request, they only look for vm specifically. See it here reset-search-paths.ts#L10 ).

2. If electron decides to take a more radical approach by blocking every possible way to reach to the vm module (which seems unreasonable and hopefully unlikely), the other option will be creating a custom vm module. It’s a hacky solution and I have not try this workaround (fully) yet, but it should work.

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bytenode will stop having support for electron?

Hopefully not.