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Comment by dc3k | Hacker News Reader

> trying to ram this type of behaviour down my throat is despicable unethical behaviour and I don't condone it. It is why I've switched to Linux for my daily computing needs.

Last time I used Linux (well, Ubuntu specifically) every time I searched for anything in the file system I would see at least half a dozen ads for products on Amazon. Significantly worse than anything I've ever seen in Windows 10 personally. Uninstalled it and never using it again.

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I believe Ubuntu was the only Linux distribution doing such thing (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.en.html). You may want to try some other distribution like Fedora, openSUSE or Debian.

There was just 1 checkbox to turn it off, not lots of checkboxes and hidden registry entries like in Windows and I think not all telemetry can be turned off on normal Windows, you need Enterprise

Not anymore, they (Ubuntu) turned it off.

Really? I've never seen that. Is it under GNOME in the default install?

It was in one of Ubuntu's releases, 16.04 I believe? Unity included Amazon results in its search results.

EDIT: 12.04. Time flies. Memory sucks.

I'm using 16.04 right now, how does one trigger those? I've never seen them.

I was wrong, it was actually in the 12.04 days. Didn't remember it to be so long ago. I believe it's disabled by default in newer releases.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2840401/ubuntus-unity-8-deskt...

It was indeed 12.04 and only affecting Unity (Canonical's Desktop Environment), not other DE's like GNOME or KDE.

You should check out https://fixubuntu.com nonetheless, which surfaced at that time, is still up and relevant.

Ah that's good that they seem to have come to their senses.

I found it fairly easy to turn those off. YMapparentlyV'd.

Yes, one distro (of dozens people use) tried running ads once, it was a PR disaster, and they stopped doing it quite a while back.

The Unity fiasco wasn't the only PR disaster Ubuntu has had over monetizing Amazon integration: around the 11.04 timeframe they semi-blackmailed Banshee over their integrated music store and added Canonical affiliate links.

That a bit like saying "Google, one of dozens of browser makers".

Ubuntu has 50% market share.

If you want to be pedantic about it, why not focus on the ads being half a decade ago and not in the past couple of LTS releases?

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