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Comment by swebs | Hacker News Reader

Ubuntu doesn't mind at all if I change my browser. It even offers several different browsers in its package manager.

Oh, and it doesn't spy on me.

To be fair, Ubuntu does send usage data to Canonical, unlike some other distros. Whether or not that counts as "spying" to you is another question.

I thought it asks you to opt-in when you install?

It asks you if you want to opt-out the default is enabled.

No, its opt out, default is yes.

Ah, lazy people like me dont even read... guess thats what theyre counting on.

You can disable that very easily. And as far as I remember when I upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 on my VM, it asked me whether I was ok with sending anonymous usage data (I believe the default choice was yes which is not ideal but was easy enough to turn off).

Even if you answer No, it will ping to their servers so that it can count users that did not want it. At least Canonical are honest about it and I'm sure you could at least prevent it with your firewall settings or maybe even by editing the hosts file.

This was my experience as well. That and the new "minimal install" option both jumped out at my when I set up my latest dev box.

They only collect data of the installation process. Once installation is complete, no additional data is collected. They've even publicly released the results.

>The collected data is not-personally-identifiable. Meaning that a user cannot be singled out or tracked based on the data he/she provided. Here’s what Ubuntu collects

> Version and flavor of Ubuntu you’re installing

> Whether you have network connectivity at install time

> Hardware statistics such as CPU, RAM, GPU, etc

> Device manufacturer

> Country

> Installation time

> Whether you choose auto login, installing third-party codecs, downloading updates during install

> Disk layout

https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-data-collection-stats/

Do they not also run popularity-contest to collect installation data on packages like Debian did? Or did they get rid of that?

No. We don't.

Debian's popularity contest is opt-in (not even installed unless you request it), and AFAIK has always been this way.

> Oh and it doesn't spy on me

Hope you uninstalled all the extra bundled stuff from Amazon and friends.

Does 18.04 do that?

I'm running the 18.10 Alpha and it was still included, yes. Thankfully it's very easy to remove these days.

18.04 just ships with a hyperlink to Amazon in the sidebar. It does not come with the controversial "Amazon shopping lens" from a few years ago.

I doubt it's "just" a hyperlink. See my other comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17971394

I'd have to download the 18.04 ISO to check, which is currently unfeasible at this moment.

>all the extra bundled stuff from Amazon

Ubuntu comes with a shortcut to Amazon on the sidebar. Clicking it just opens Amazon.com in Firefox. It doesn't spy on you or anything, it's just a hyperlink.

>and friends

Such as?

> It doesn't spy on you or anything, it's just a hyperlink. You are incorrect. It's much more than a hyperlink. It's an application which was installed in Ubuntu. It specifically runs:

  unity-webapps-runner --amazon --app-id=ubuntu-amazon-default

The unity webapps runner manual says (among other things):

  Application Options:
    -a, --amazon                    Launch amazon (with geoclue store selection)
    -i, --app-id                    Launch a webapp with a specific APP_ID
    -c, --chrome                    Launch a webapp in default browser

Look at that. Amazon and Google. The --amazon switch tells amazon where you're at ("geoclue"), at the very least. And, Chrome being the "default" browser? That's funny, because Chrome isn't even installed.

So, that webapp also runs

  /usr/share/unity-webapps/userscripts/unity-webapps-amazon/Amazon.user.js

Guess what that script does? If you even accidentally click the Amazon "hyperlink", you've now associated the _machine_ to a user.

Okay, ignore that. What else is default installed as webapps? Looking around the

  /usr/share/unity-webapps directory shows only Google and Amazon.

> Such as? In Ubuntu 16.04, the "Search your computer" will also search "sources" such as "Applications", "Dash plugins", "Files & Folders", "Google Drive".

Dash plugins include things like Facebook and Google Drive (again?)

At least the search bar has more applications than just the proprietary garbage. There's things like Flickr, Shotwell, Yelp, Picasa... hmmm.

I'm not a fan of that either, nor do I use Ubuntu (for other reasons).

However, in what.. 10 mins? you've been able to discover exactly what causes the "spying" and an idea on how to disable it. Perhaps in less than an hour you'll have a good idea on exactly what data is being sent.

Compare that to say, Windows, there we have no idea on exactly what data is being sent out or how to completely disable it (beyond being a company with volume licences or using firewall rules).

> However, in what.. 10 mins? you've been able to discover exactly what causes the "spying" and an idea on how to disable it.

True, but that's only because I've been using the OS for a while. A lot of this is accumulated knowledge. There were a lot of gotchyas over the past 4.5 years (approx time I've been using Ubuntu .. coincides with my current employment time) that have been... eye opening.

Yes, it's still better than Windows as far as inspectability for the reasons you just identified. And it's still better than OS X as far as usability (my opinion). But it's still be very disappointing on many levels. I'm sure there are other things which could cause additional disappointments in Canonical that I have yet to discover.

Honestly I use Fedora at home. Even that isn't ideal -- I very much dislike the default GNOME environment and have repeatedly encountered trouble upgrading to different releases. I've been seriously thinking of just building my own personal distro.

It doesn't compromise the users privacy in any meaningful way. Back in version 12.04 there was a scandal wherein searches on the desktop could return remote results from Amazon. Canonical countered that all data was going through them and no personal info was leaked but nobody actually wanted to see ads in their desktop search or share data about their files with Canonical thus this was changed in 14.04 or 14.10 if I recall correctly.

Essentially this hasn't been an issue in about 4 years.

> It doesn't compromise the users privacy in any meaningful way.

I would have to disagree. The mere fact that it's there and visible by default means it can be accidentally clicked on. Doing that opens a native application which loads an Amazon-provided javascript file. Cards are off the table after that loads.

Pity that 18.04 is basically a steaming turd, with plenty of broken things ootb. It's hardly surprising, because "you get what you pay for", and you pay exactly zero for it. Don't get me wrong, Linux purely from the command line is awesome, but the desktop experience sucks balls.

> 18.04 is a steaming turd [...] the desktop experience sucks balls.

Based on your vocabulary, I'm assuming you don't install Ubuntu using the network installer and expert mode, and then create your own desktop environment starting with a good window manager like i3. A person like you is definitely better off using macOS or Windows.

i3 + nixos + the same desktop follows with all my machines. With a simple declarative configuration. Nothing changes, nothing breaks. Emacs + st + firefox and all the programming languages just work.

> A person like you is definitely better off using macOS or Windows.

I'm not necessarily going to disagree with this - I switched from desktop Ubuntu to Mac and have hardly looked back because I really don't miss constantly dicking around with config files playing UI glitch whack-a-mole. Mac UI certainly has its own healthy share of warts - in fact I find it practically unusable without Divvy and Moom, for starters - but on the whole it's polished, functional, aesthetically pleasing, and usually doesn't get in the way of doing work. Those are all very important qualities to me as someone who spends a non-trivial amount of time doing things outside of a terminal.

Just because I'm capable of rolling my own desktop environment doesn't mean I want to or that it's a particularly good use of my time, and I imagine a lot of potential/would-be Linux users probably feel the same way. Being dismissive of that perspective is counterproductive if you believe that the world would be better off with more FOSS usage (as I do).

You could probably buy a laptop that comes with Linux. Set it to update on some regular schedule. Install whatever tools make you happy and have as little trouble as your mac.

"Rolling your own desktop environment" takes all of a few hours. I'm pretty sure you made as much of an investment learning tools for your new mac when you bought it.

I used Linux for a good number of years more than I've been using Mac. None of the things you are describing are as simple and hassle-free as you describe. You can get most things working smoothly enough with customization, but there is a baseline level of UI glitchiness in most distros that is very difficult, if not impossible, to overcome completely. It's not necessarily terrible but by comparison Mac is more psychologically ergonomic for me personally.

If you have supported hardware which logically includes hardware that the OEM sells with linux it actually honestly is that easy.

Nope, I've got more important things to do than waste time on a near vertical learning curve. Apologies for not being a l33t h4x0r like you, but the situation is dire for ootb desktop Linux, which is a shame.

I feel like I'm getting a better experience for free than any that I paid for with Windows.

You get what you paid for is what ignorant people say about software. The entire software landscape is absolutely littered with very very expensive turds. Cost and quality don't seem to be terribly correlated.

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