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Ubuntu 16.04 Will Not Send Local Searches Over the Web By Default
jones_supa writes: Canonical introduced Amazon Product Results as part of Ubuntu 12.10, which meant that local searches performed by a user in Dash were also sent online. This made many Ubuntu users spill their coffee and got criticism from EFF and FSF as well. The so called "Shopping Lens" had to be manually disabled if that kind of search behavior was not desired. Finally after years, Canonical is reacting to the negative feedback and respecting users' privacy, so that Ubuntu 16.04 (the next Long Term Support release) won't send local searches over the web by default. The Amazon search feature is still available for those who explicitly want to use it.
What happened? Is it not cool now that Windows is doing it too?
Canonical will never regain my trust. The mere fact that they were capable of sending users' private data to their business partners means Ubuntu is dead for me.
Canonical reacted to user feedback? That must be a first.
Welcome back, old friend. I'm glad they've changed their stance. Not happy it ever was their stance, but I'm glad they've changed it none the less. Keep up the good work Canonical!
It's all thanks to systemd.
Nope, since you stopped using Ubuntu it ceased being. This happens every time you stop liking something. We all thought you were aware of your powers....
Amazon not paying enough?
The likeliest explanation is that Amazon is no longer paying Canonical enough money for this to be default behavior.
People still use it, mostly because not everyone has heard about the multitude of alternatives that were inspired by Ubuntu to become a better version of Ubuntu.
Seriously Canonical, didn't you have a meeting on this with the classic PRO vs CON list? Was it inconceivable that some would not like being tracked, even anonymously(if true) and a large portion of that population would be the geeks who you NEED? People, like geeks, who know what GNU/Linux is, why it is used and spread that far and wide and were using Ubuntu and promoting it if not developing for it. Pissing those people off and causing them to move to Debian for example was not a good idea.
Good to see 16.04 LTS will disable this next year but you really screwed the pooch as they say on this one.
So, did they apologize?
Most people who use Linux know that Anonymous collection of data isn't all that anonymous To quote Princess Bride "I don't think that means what you think that means"
I avoid Unity like the plague. If they want to default to providing a "smartphone" interface on my has-a-keyboard-and-mouse, doesn't-have-a-touchscreen computer, there are plenty of alternatives like XFCE, Mate, Cinnamon, etc.
Usually, the idea is that open source means wide spread adoption and a tiny fraction of that, like 0.01%, can be monetized. Or, another idea is to send marketing to the masses of users, which is what Canonical was doing.
In the end, people and companies just don't want to pay for anything if they can. As a result, open source companies need to find other income streams and everybody tries to "opt-out" of that if they can.
The best uses are are self-serving contributions, like devices drivers, CPU patches, etc. And, internal use for lowering costs, and some companies like Facebook who use it a lot can open source and share the burden. And, use as product components since no need to pay the original contributors. Just throw a bunch of open source stuff together, call it a product, and offer support for it.
Ubuntu, now with 35% less buttfuckage!
I've seen a lot of people move to CentOS, even on the desktop. For a Java developer having OpenJDK 8 and 7 directly in the repo is wonderful. Ubuntu 14.04 still only has an old version of 7 which is a major problem for many Ubuntu based dev shops.
Or, if one is offended by misquotes: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
So is it now approved by Stallman?
If the product is free, you are actually the product. Look at pretty much everything that is handed to you free: there's always some kind of catch.
Debian and Ubuntu are what, half of desktop Linux use?
Ubuntu has many editions that differ by the desktop they run, out of the box. Thus no need to set up a theme, configuration etc.
- Unity
- KDE
- Xfce
- LXDE
- Gnome 3
- Mate
Then there's Mint :
- Mint Cinnamon
- Mint Mate
- Mint Xfce
- Mint KDE
Then there's lesser known stuff out there.
I don't understand. It's like saying you don't like anchovies, so you won't eat pizza, while staring at a list of 10 anchovy-less pizzas.
Some people have an iMac and only run the web browser on it.
I think Unity is fine for the same limited kind of use.
It's literally a left-side launcher for Firefox and Libre Office, and a bar for clock and wifi and shit.
There are not that many alternatives, actually. Ubuntu has just the correct release cycle (imho) and most of the distro-distro-distros (such as Mate) suffer from different sets of bugs. The screen tearing bug is in most of the distros and there are no fix to it if you have nvidia hw (yes, I've tried all solutions).
It's been integrated into systemd.
...presumably you've tried all solutions other than buying an Nvidia card that is supported by Linux.
While I won't claim that installation and updating of said drivers is EASY, it's certainly not impossible. I'm running *buntu on multiple hosts and I only have issues with the screen tearing on unsupported cards. Replace the card with a $40 supported version and your issues will (sort of) go away.
You only have to turn off the shopping lens. No need to change the whole desktop.
There is anonymous to the advertisers and then there is anonymous to the NSA. Different levels of anonymous so it really depends on what the definition of anonymous is.
Are you certain this was exactly what the OP had in mind when mentioning anonymous in the post?
... when Mark Shuttleworth formed Canonical, one of the strongest claims they made was that ubuntu would always be free. I *do* appreciate that Canonical's activation of the spyware feature was publicised and only relevent to users of the Dash in the Unity desktop, and also aware that it's a bit of a leap of faith to suggest that 12.10 and onwards were anything other than free, but the fact remained that Canonical started to take kickbacks from Amazon - payment - for data generated by ubuntu users. In other words, ubuntu users were doing stuff that resulted in Canonical getting paid. This doesn't - quite - meet up to "free"... Like the parent post to which you responded, my reaction to the announcement was to continue to run on 12.04 LTS for a bit longer than expected, then make the switch to Mint, initially [and currently] on the ubuntu-derived Mint edition, but with testing currently underway to complete a migration to LMDE 2.0. But from my perspective the key point was that my decision was to literally and completely walk away from ubuntu/Canonical. I didn't agree with the ethics of their decision and the *only* mechanism I had to voice my opinion was to drop their product like a hot potato, which I did. I had been a user of ubuntu since 5.04, Hoary Hedgehog. I got to ubuntu via Mandrake/Mandriva, which in turn I got to after getting annoyed with Red Hat. Once bitten, twice shy. Perhaps the unique perspective here is that users of Linux are, by definition, very much aware of the impacts of acts like this from Canonical. I dare say that there are many GNU/Linux users out there today [well, I'm one] who once used Windows but got so disenfranchised at the machinations and underhand practices of Microsoft that they decided to walk. In any scenario where it becomes clear that a party is acting in an underhand or dishonourable way, the single, simplest response we have in our power is to stop using any product by such an un-trusted source. ~10 years ago I gave up on Microsoft because they were blatantly not trustworthy. 4 years ago I gave up on Canonical/ubuntu for the same reason. I can't say for certain whether Mint will continue to be honourable, but if they slip, I'll move on. Eventually [I hope] enough of us will do that such that companies realise that they "can't get away with it" and will treat their users with respect. Today companies are so big that no amount of end-user action, short of "walk", will bring about a change. Even a non-profit has to be relevant.
My company already migrated the workstations from Ubuntu to a different distro back when Canonical did this. Between their absolutely horrible initial Pulse implementation, the absolutely craptastic Unity interface being rammed down our throats, and then the totally sneaky way they brought in the Dash searches, we had had enough.
What alternative distributions have the "Just freaking works" on my hardware without having to spend all day trying to figure out why it's not working?
I'm an Arch user, but Ubuntu just seems to have things right most of the time, with release cycles, security updates, development. So they make a few mistakes, but they're willing to correct them and move on.
Yay spoilers, now I don't have to go see the movie.
.. now where did I hide my favourite picture called bustytrollopbentonfascinatingangle.jpg?
Oh...not on google..oops!
My brain actually froze when I reached the quoted sentence above. After years what now? I normally don't respond to editing but this was a pretty bad one.
Maybe
That's probably not perfect either but it's a hell of a lot easier to read.
Fedora? Although it has most of the same problems as Ubuntu (systemd, unity, etc...) so that's maybe not a huge win.
I read the internet for the articles.
Not at all a coincidence that the NSA just shut down a dragnet program...
UbuNSA.
Fuck off racist.