Ubuntu to ship with ads

[RupertPupkin]

Ubuntu 12.10, due out next month, will come with Amazon ads by default in the Unity interface:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/o...n-ubuntu-12-10

There's a big discussion of all this on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/commen..._preinstalled/
It sounds like Amazon's "suggested purchases" will come from searches of the local machine, or at least your browsing history. Yikes!

Canonical must really be desperate for money to stoop to this. I predict an even greater exodus from Ubuntu over this issue than over the Unity fiasco. They might not survive this.

Ubuntu, 2004-2012, R.I.P.

[mmix]

heh, ubunut is just another windows behind the penguin.

[Demz3]

Originally Posted by RupertPupkin

Ubuntu 12.10, due out next month, will come with Amazon ads by default in the Unity interface:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/o...n-ubuntu-12-10

There's a big discussion of all this on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/commen..._preinstalled/
It sounds like Amazon's "suggested purchases" will come from searches of the local machine, or at least your browsing history. Yikes!

Canonical must really be desperate for money to stoop to this. I predict an even greater exodus from Ubuntu over this issue than over the Unity fiasco. They might not survive this.

Ubuntu, 2004-2012, R.I.P.

even bee might leave Ubuntu due to this to :P. i see a lot using Gnome-Shell Remix on the ubuntu forums, IMO i can see Ubuntu going downhill from here on. though ever since Unity came ini think thats been happening

[smr54]

Apparently trivial to remove.

As many Ubuntu fans are as, errm, fanatical as some of the other distributions, and Apple, I doubt it means its death.

Whether it will mean a mass exodus, I don't know, but were I forced to make a wager that this is the death of Ubuntu or not, I don't know.

I don't think Bee is the proper barometer for what will happen.

[Demz3]

Gnome Project might do it in Gnome 3.10 if not 3.8

[smr54]

A less hysterical view about it, admittedly Ubuntu centered (as the site is omgubuntu)

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/o...n-ubuntu-12-10

[MALsPa]

Originally Posted by smr54

A less hysterical view about it, admittedly Ubuntu centered (as the site is omgubuntu

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/o...n-ubuntu-12-10

There, it says you can remove the shopping results with this command:

sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

The whole thing reminds me of how Linux Mint generates funds with custom searches engines (see: http://www.linuxandlife.com/2012/07/...search-in.html).

[nonamedotc]

My reaction to this "salesperson OS" would be exactly similar to one of the users on Reddit and I quote

What? Really? This sounds all kinds of bad. This is one of the things I hate about Windows computers, pre-loaded with crap trying to sell me something.

I want a computer, an OS, not a sales pitch.
[ ... ]

[Dan]

Originally Posted by Rupert

... It sounds like Amazon's "suggested purchases" will come from searches of the local machine, or at least your browsing history. Yikes!

Okey dokey. That'll be the last time I download and try Ubuntu, then. Thanks for the heads-up.

[ocratato]

Originally Posted by Dan

Okey dokey. That'll be the last time I download and try Ubuntu, then. Thanks for the heads-up.

If you run it up in a new, clean VM it won't find much browsing history, so you should be fine for trying it out. Of course, if you should decide to make it your main OS then it will be more interesting.

[hadrons123]

I never liked the search in dash in unity or gnome-shell, becoz I don't want to type few letters for accessing an app everytime. I want that action to be done by classic way!

Even though I don't use ubuntu, I simply don't want the project to fallout becoz of lack of money. After all Ubuntu was my first distro when I started to try Linux on my laptop.

[ocratato]

Originally Posted by hadrons123

I never liked the search in dash in unity or gnome-shell, becoz I don't want to type few letters for accessing an app everytime. I want that action to be done by classic way!

Couldn't agree more!

Why anyone thinks that we can remember the (sometimes bizzare) names of the programs we rarely use is beyond me. Make it easy for me to organise the programs within a menu structure and I will be much happier. I don't much care if its a classic menu, or something like Gnome3's Applications window, just give us the tools to organise it according to our requirements.

This emphasis recently on search for both applications and documents seems to be prompted by the ordinary user's inability or unwillingness to organise their stuff so that they can then find it again. While we probably need tools to get the users back out of their mess, it would be more helpful to come up with some ideas that would prevent it from happening in the first place.

Getting back to the topic...

I am not sure it is such a disaster for Ubuntu. They are the ones doing most of the advertising and hence often the first ones that those escaping from Windows come to. Compared to the Windows environment this amount of advertising is pretty mild, so their new ex-Windows users won't mind much. Once they get comfortable with the Linux/FOSS world view they will move on to other distributions, like Fedora.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by ocratato

If you run it up in a new, clean VM it won't find much browsing history, so you should be fine for trying it out. Of course, if you should decide to make it your main OS then it will be more interesting.

Aye. And the solution to defeat it is not difficult.

It's the principle of the thing.

[DBelton]

Well, all you have to do to disable it is remove it.

sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

But something like that should not be installed by default.

[smr54]

For those who also use Ubuntu, and want their voices heard, there is a bug report filed. It's possible enough negative attention will get it changed.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...g/+bug/1054776