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back to article Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04: Make yourself at GNOME. Cup of data-slurping dispute, anyone?

Ubuntu 18.04, launched last month, included a new Welcome application that runs the first time you boot into your new install. The Welcome app does several things, including offering to opt you out of Canonical's new data collection tool. Ever since Edward Snowden confirmed so many once outlandish conspiracy theories, the …

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  1. Claverhouse Silver badge

    The canvas and footprint of one's browser is already possibly enough to identify machine and user.

    I've never really remotely understood why all that crap --- especially browser make and version ( for which their were those jolly little switcher extensions in the olden days ) --- was even vaguely necessary to include in the Ur-Browsers when they started.

    I don't really care much about this dispute, nor much of the privacy debate ---- takers should restrain themselves to what's needed at any time, whilst users should man up and expect that when they've submitted something or interacted, information is going to be kept and that they always have, and had, the choice to refrain from doing anything at all --- nor Gnome, KDE all the way !

    However, the way this is going, instead of attacking the practices of the, mainly American, but also British and Russian etc. security services; and the spying and intrusions of the, mainly American, and British and EU etc. etc. dying Media ( anyone remember the thatcherite 'News of the World' phoning home ? ), injured people will just devolve into squabbling over the piddly crap instead from a devotion to their own self-importance.

    I now demand all the information held here over my upvotes and downvotes since I joined.

    0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    GNOME 2

    Pity Red Hat and Ubuntu and all the others who have given us the abomination called GNOME 3...pity they didn't think about a little marketing and a little <gasp> data collection before they made GNOME 3 the default desktop.

    *

    Signed: Fedora28/XFCE user

    1 0 Reply
  3. Quids

    Better check the view count

    I take it this article is discussing a video which at time of publishing has just under 2,500 views.

    Seems that people aren't so interested in actually disabling the tracking features as they are about the wider aspect data collection in Ubuntu, the total view count there is quite a lot more.

    1 0 Reply

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. shaolin cookie

    3rd choice

    Opt-in vs opt-out -- they could just have no default but disable the Next button until the user has chosen either one. That'd probably get a bit more participation than a basic opt-in, while less than a simple opt-out.

    3 0 Reply
    1. hayzoos
      Reply Icon

      Re: 3rd choice

      Finally, somebody pointed out other ways to present the options. People are stuck in the current paradigm of binary opt-in or opt-out and one has to be the default.

      For some reason I feel the need to quote the band Rush:

      "You can choose a ready guide

      In some celestial voice

      If you choose not to decide

      You still have made a choice

      You can choose from phantom fears

      And kindness that can kill

      I will choose a path that’s clear

      I will choose free will."

      1 0 Reply
  6. FrankAlphaXII
    Devil

    You can see what Firefox reports to Mozilla fairly easily

    You can see what Firefox is sending to Mozilla if you're concerned with it or merely curious, its not much more than what Canonical's collecting.

    On Windows its in the C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\whateverprofile.default\datareporting folder and its in the equivalent locations on Linux and *BSD. I'd imagine its the case on Android also, but my phone's charging at the moment in my bedroom and I can't be bothered to go look (I use Windows and FreeBSD/TrueOS but since there's no Beastie icon, the devil will just have to do).

    They're compressed JSON files but you can decompress them and see everything it sends.

    HTH. HAND.

    1 0 Reply
  7. Howard Hanek
    Happy

    Opt Out

    I installed 18.04 but did 'opt out' but mostly from the acquired habit of never agreeing to any data sharing scheme from anyone after all the violations of trust that it won't be used against me.

    1 0 Reply
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know that some people feel that there is such a thing...

    as "non personal" identifiable data or that simple "technical details" of your box is somehow harmless but looking behind the scenes at the changelogs in certain "anonymous" sysytem and bug reporting programs in my Linux Mint VM shows that there are changes being made due to privacy concerns.

    Check out the latests changlogs to "apport" the "automatic bug reporting" for example:

    ================

    apport (2.20.1-0ubuntu2.16) xenial; urgency=medium

    * data/general-hooks/generic.py: Only include JournalErrors for apport-crash

    reports which are private by default. (LP: #1738581)

    (Might want to --purge remove kerneloops while your at it.)

    1 0 Reply
  9. FlippingGerman

    Opt-something

    It doesn't have to be opt-in or opt-out in the way it's often used, where an option is preselected. It's quite possibly to have radio buttons, which if used HTML-style do not have a default one "clicked". The user MUST make a choice, and cannot simply click next. This seems much better for the privacy conscious, since it's not a default setting, and better for Canonical than opt-in because a default of "off" gets them hardly any useful data.

    1 0 Reply
  10. lijogrg444

    for me Mint Linux all the way

    Mint all the way , which is way lighter and which allows all the main desktop environments

    "we found a somewhat custom GNOME to suit the essence of Ubuntu. GNOME have the sensation of a modern desktop, bold but rather high consumption for Linux."

    https://www.linuxeo.com/linux-os-reviews/linux-mint-vs-ubuntu-comparison.html

    0 0 Reply

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