Canonical Will Own Your Search: New mandatory Ubuntu plugin takes over Firefox | Hacker News Reader

Canonical Will Own Your Search: New mandatory Ubuntu plugin takes over Firefox

bugs.launchpad.net

75 pointswindsurfer36 comments

From one of the commenters:

"This new extension is installed by stealth, hijacks the search functions of the browser by masquerading itself as plain Google search but funnels those searches to your own custom Google search, and some data those searches done by unknowing users is being collected by someone at Canonical."

I don't like what Canonical is doing here, or the way they answered people's concerns on that thread. I really hope this "feature" goes away by the time Karmic ships.

Yeah, I'm less worried about the feature than I am about the attitude that put it there, though. Microsoft did a similar thing during updates a while ago. You couldn't uninstall it without editing the registry, you could only disable it, and you were never notified of it.

They way they've done it is just sneaky, and not like them at all. Not a good sign - but I've always wandered if Ubuntu might become too commercial. Maybe it's time I investigate another Distro just in case.

Wouldn't it be fairly simple to just fork Ubuntu?

If that completely misses what you meant, I would probably recommend just stepping back to Debian.

I've heard good things about Arch, if you want another bleeding-edge desktop distro. The nice thing about Ubuntu, though, is it's good for both desktop and servers, and makes it really easy to use the desktop distro for development and then use the same stuff on the server.

That's what OpenVz, KVM or Xen is for. I don't know about Ubuntu, but on the latest Debian getting an OpenVz setup going is an apt-get of a single package and then you have the pleasure of having your dev stuff nicely isolated and there's no reason to worry about whether the distro is good for both desktop and server anymore (it also means you can make conservative choices for the servers that'd be "unpleasant" to live with on the desktop...)

My home box is running 14-15 containers now - I spin up a new one for all larger projects, plus a few others. It's lightweight enough that I don't notice the overhead.

Well in a more recent update Microsoft enabled the addon's uninstallation, so now you can remove it without registry hacking.

Jebus. Some Ubuntu users are just nuts. I didn't think the folks who write YouTube comments were smart enough to know how to install Linux, but I guess they've managed to figure out Ubuntu.

The anger, tin foil hats, and self-righteousness, are kinda disturbing. I've been involved in Open Source software development for 12 years or so, and I've seen this kind of thing in the past, of course, but not very often so much of it in one place, and over a clearly experimental feature in an alpha (e.g. for developers and testers) release, that was previously discussed and documented to be a user workflow data gathering tool. Unless one assumes that Ubuntu/Canonical actually has evil intentions (in which case, why would you use the OS, when there are many other options?), this kind of response is unwarranted, undeserved, and unproductive.

I'd also wager that the people doing the most abusive complaining are the ones who have contributed the least to the community, while the people they are verbally abusing are the folks who actually make the software they are complaining about.

For some reason that bug reminds me of the way they removed update-manager from the notification area.

- No clear public information before the change, even if it affects almost 100% of users.

- Mark S. responding to the reported bug.

- Some devs avoiding straight responses.

- Introduced in late alphas, before the freezes...

I really hope that they just had a "great idea" on some meeting and people responsible for the packages have problems in handling the situation (they are attacked by hordes of outraged geeks ;) ). But if the situation repeats in 10.04, maybe it's a sign of things going bad? Unfortunately launchpad doesn't count bug subscribers, but it looks like ~60 + 2 duplicate bugs and everyone saying they don't like the idea as it is presented right now... 2 weeks after it was introduced in alpha version. IMHO that's a pretty strong signal that something's going seriously wrong.

Ubuntu response:

http://www.asoftsite.org/s9y/archives/162-What-is-this-Multi...

Basically, this is a quick and dirty way to gather some usage data. Seems reasonable to me.

You don't gather usage data without informing the individual you are gathering it from. It's a violation of privacy. This is completely unreasonable.

So any website that uses any forms of analytics (gathering usage data without informing the individual) is violating your privacy, and acting in "completely unreasonable" ways? If personal data was being collected, that would be a clear violation of privacy, but adding a simple bit of metadata to a GET request to get general statistics is completely reasonable by my book.

There's a fine line in play here. Websites are opt-in, as are OSes, but I don't think many people think of Firefox as 'Ubuntu Firefox', and rightfully don't expect that their OS is going to tamper with the expected behavior of known, third party programs. For the normal user[1], this is a 'browser lock-in' that seems worse than what everyone got mad at Microsoft for.

[1] By normal user, I mean the non-Linux-guru type that wouldn't think to try all the nonobvious workarounds. This clearly is no problem to the 'You only get to use Linux if you submit patches' crowd, but should be a big problem for roughly every other open source free software crowd.

Also, where did this headline come from? Compare:

Canonical Will Own Your Search: New mandatory Ubuntu plugin takes over Firefox

vs.

Bug #402767: multisearch add on blocks the functionality of firefox location bar

And how many parts of the top one are actually true? Maybe none?

You can't submit a bug without a specific problem. A title like "Multisearch breaks user trust" wouldn't fly.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 "Microsoft has a majority market share"

If you really think that "Multisearch breaks user trust" is the problem then maybe you should file that bug.

I love how nasty people get about this stuff: "For the last time: Who is the mastermind behind Multisearch and who is requiring its implementation?"

Don't they realize that Ubuntu is a commercial OS that's given away for free? If you want Freedom, use Debian!

But I love Linux. I want some distro, any distro to gain large market share. The linux world is too shattered, too splintered to make a dent in the consumer marketplace, and it needs a large, popular distro like Ubuntu to create focus. Adding this sneaky extension breaks user trust and splinters the linux user base.

Mamma and Pappa don't care about this only nerds do. Nerds can move away from linux but I guess cannonical feels Ubuntu has gained traction with Mama and papa and that it doesn't need nerds anymore.

Yours might, but most Mammas and Pappas still don't know what an operating system is.

then canonical forgot who installed ubuntu on mamma and pappa in the first place. what was done can be undone.

And what does the market share bring you? Have Ubuntu and Canonical got large userbase willing to pay for a support and further development (like redhat), or have they attracted people willing and able to contribute someting (like debian)? Not so much.

They only can (try to) dictate to others and make them do what they want and need. Which is hardly making Linux any better, I think.

About people willing and able to contribute something : Yes Ubuntu has attacted such people. Maybe not everyone is contributing in code but many people contribute to Ubuntu through user forums and other such community avenues. Many many times I have searched for something not working on linux (for example some wifi card) and most of the times I have ended up finding the answer on the ubuntu forums. Similarly Ubuntu has also garnered a dedicated following of people who love to just tell other people about it.

Basically I wanted to say that Ubuntu may or may not have succeeded in getting a large developer following, but it surely has developed a healthy and active community and not just a passive userbase.

Adding this sneaky extension breaks user trust and splinters the linux user base.

Like Microsoft directing all search to Windows Live, or the iPhone using the iTunes Music Store? The difference is that Ubuntu is at least cost-free.

The reality is that nobody cares about this. Those that do should be using Debian. (The only value that Ubuntu has added is a default color scheme and nice desktop background for Gnome. Most Linux users have not gotten much from Ubuntu.)

I don't see that big of an issue with this. If it helps Ubuntu make money and all it does is make the Google search result page look different, then it's fine. It's installed by default; it's removable and disableable just like every other Fx extension. What's the big deal?

Who uses the bundled firefox anyway? It's always a release behind (and now this)...

Many, actually

Just a clarification: It's not 'mandatory', it just gets installed by default with the Firefox package. Put clearly this means "you can just disable it".

Still, what a crappy 'extension' to Firefox :/, this is why I build mine from source.

You can't uninstall it without removing Firefox though. It's enabled by default, too, so all users of your Ubuntu machine will get it enabled no matter what.

It's a Firefox extension, and so can be disabled like any other Firefox extension.

It's not like any other Firefox extension -- it's a system extension, it's not in your profile in ~/.mozilla

It will always be enabled by default, you can't uninstall it, and you can only disable it after you've created a profile.

It's enabled 'by default', but it's still a regular Firefox extension that can be turned off easily.

Comment #2 by Alexander Sack reads:

Thanks. To workaround you can disable the extension in tools -> addons.

Later Adam Bielinsky fleshes it out:

At the moment, every user on a machine has to click Tools, then Addons, then Extensions, then Multisearch, then Disable, and then restart Firefox.

You're right in that it's not mandatory, but the fact that they keep saying it can be easily removed "for the time being" does make me a little suspicious.

"you can disable the extension "Multisearch" in Tools -> Addons for the time being."

"its just an intermediate thing what you see now and you can always disable it in Tools -> Addons for the time being."

Maybe they're just being cautious with their wording because it's still alpha.

I don't see what the big deal is. If Canonical can make a little more money with this to keep funding the distro then good for them, it's a barely profitable company that offer its main product for free. As for the extension, it gives the same results as regular google, don't like it? Remove it, it's just a firefox extension. Or install your own firefox.

It doesn't give the same results. The interface is terrible compared to the default Google interface.

I'm not daft enough to be using Karmic alphas on my home computer but on the current 9.04 version with bundled Firefox 3.0, the default Ubuntu start page and the "real" Google homepage give quite different search results.

Perhaps it's down to the Ubuntu page delivering US search results or something, I don't know - but I definitely prefer the standard Google page.

Ubuntu: http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-2070091971271392%3A...

Google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Radio+1&btnG=...

Would have been much better if they made a deal with google and firefox and got there own 'real' search page. Like http://www.google.com/firefox

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