Out of interest when was the last time you installed Windows?

I have to agree that installing Windows is not something for beginners though. Recently I installed Windows 7 three times on two different machines. So that is twice on one PC on the same day, as after installing some weird error came up that even the helpdesk didn't know how to fix, so the advice was to just wipe the harddrive and install again. On the second machine installing went fine, until installing some additional software (ironically with Microsofts own installer) failed because it had no access to write to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu. Right, Windows installer not having permission to add icons to the start menu, after a fresh install. Luckily there was a solution, involving either changing advanced user account control properties of a hidden folder (good luck for beginners) or entering a number of obscure command line commands (good luck for beginners). Installing Windows 8 luckily goes a lot faster, and except for the blue screen of death that showed every time you booted it up it worked perfectly. So in the end, out of four clean Windows installations, just one went correctly. And still some people claim Windows is easy....

There is no data tracking.

There is a feature in Ubuntu that allows you to search the internet from the Dash (the "desktop" home screen). It send your search terms encrypted to a server run by Canonical, which can then send results from various sources back (encrypted) for display on the screen. If you select one of those results, it can open a browser window displaying the results (using an in-the-clear connection). If a MitM attacker is watching your data streams, they could conceptually figure out what you were searching for by scanning the HTTP query sent by the browser when results are selected.

If I recall correctly, the issue was that the search terms were to look for data in your own computer (not on-line), and that for some stupid reason Canonical thought it'd be a good idea to send those search terms to Amazon so it could show ads in the dash along with the search results. So the actual issue was letting a third-party get info that could be used to tell what stuff do you have in your own system.

The problem is not so much about whether it can be disabled or not (which if I recall correctly actually consists on uninstalling something, unless that changed after the reveal), the problem is that by still using Ubuntu you'd be telling Canonical that having such a feature installed and enabled by default is a good thing, even if you decide to remove it. Quite several users moved away to other distros just for this reason, even if they were fine with Ubuntu otherwise.

In the end no sure what came out of all this =/

Out of interest when was the last time you installed Windows?

I have to agree that installing Windows is not something for beginners though. Recently I installed Windows 7 three times on two different machines. So that is twice on one PC on the same day, as after installing some weird error came up that even the helpdesk didn't know how to fix, so the advice was to just wipe the harddrive and install again. On the second machine installing went fine, until installing some additional software (ironically with Microsofts own installer) failed because it had no access to write to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu. Right, Windows installer not having permission to add icons to the start menu, after a fresh install. Luckily there was a solution, involving either changing advanced user account control properties of a hidden folder (good luck for beginners) or entering a number of obscure command line commands (good luck for beginners). Installing Windows 8 luckily goes a lot faster, and except for the blue screen of death that showed every time you booted it up it worked perfectly. So in the end, out of four clean Windows installations, just one went correctly. And still some people claim Windows is easy....

The real question is if you tried to install other os's on the problematic machines?

If I recall correctly, the issue was that the search terms were to look for data in your own computer (not on-line), and that for some stupid reason Canonical thought it'd be a good idea to send those search terms to Amazon so it could show ads in the dash along with the search results. So the actual issue was letting a third-party get info that could be used to tell what stuff do you have in your own system.

That's much closer to the true story. Which would probably not cause similar waves if an operating system made by Microsoft or Apple did the same -- there's a difference whether you make no secret out of selling your customers or whether you pretend that you're the Freedom Fighter From the Land of the Righteous, and you still do the same. Canonical, once upon a time, made a promise that Ubuntu was free and would remain free forever. They broke that promise.

Which, just like the introduction of Unity, is a shame. Until then, Ubuntu was the best working Linux distro.

There is a feature in Ubuntu that allows you to search the internet from the Dash (the "desktop" home screen). It send your search terms encrypted to a server run by Canonical, which can then send results from various sources back (encrypted) for display on the screen. If you select one of those results, it can open a browser window displaying the results (using an in-the-clear connection)...

...It's simply a differentiating feature in Ubuntu you don't have in Mac OS or Microsoft Windows (yet), and you can disable it or remove it if you don't want it. It's on by default because most consumers seem to want it, out of the box.

I think Windows 7 added something similar (called Federated Search Connectors [picture]). It's not used too much, and kindly clunky, partly because it doesn't have a "casual user" GUI (you have to write a script to add a new search engine). But you can choose who to send your search to, and who returns the results. For example, eBay or Amazon or Google or Wikipedia or whoever. In a previous install of Windows 7, I had one for Google, one for Amazon, and one for GameDev.net - but because it wasn't very polished or refined yet, and not one-click away, I didn't use it much and didn't bother re-adding it when I reinstalled Windows 7 a year or two ago.

Btw, I only reinstalled it as motivation for cleaning and organizing my files, not because the install was buggy or really needed a reinstall. And was a fairly simple (but not casual-user friendly) process, though it did take most the day (3-5 hours in a "click and walk away" kind of way) because I was messing around with hard drive partitions and reformatted the drive (which took some time).

As Google Android has proven, users are quite happy to run Linux. It just needs to be marketed upon them (sigh...).

I migrated 100% to UNIX once Microsoft added (albeit easily crackable) DRM to their operating system and frankly, never looked back and though UNIX / Linux is not a great choice for playing games, it is perfect for making them.

One hint though, is get used to the command-line (and a simple tiling window manager) so you can survive Linux desktop environments since they are all a complete failure.

If I recall correctly, the issue was that the search terms were to look for data in your own computer (not on-line), and that for some stupid reason Canonical thought it'd be a good idea to send those search terms to Amazon so it could show ads in the dash along with the search results. So the actual issue was letting a third-party get info that could be used to tell what stuff do you have in your own system.

That's much closer to the true story. Which would probably not cause similar waves if an operating system made by Microsoft or Apple did the same -- there's a difference whether you make no secret out of selling your customers or whether you pretend that you're the Freedom Fighter From the Land of the Righteous, and you still do the same. Canonical, once upon a time, made a promise that Ubuntu was free and would remain free forever. They broke that promise.

It's not closer to the true story, unless you really think hearsay from the Internet rumour mill is in fact more reliable than words from the keyboard of one of the developers.

As I pointed out, when you search for something using the search bar of the Dash, the search terms are sent to Canonical, who maintains a database of search terms and results from multiple sources (just like Google does, weird). It returns those results to you. If it does not have results in its database, it can search external entities, like Amazon, to try and satisfy those results. It does not send any information to Amazon (or whomever) other than the search terms, and those terms have all identifying information stripped other than any Canonical key necessary to use the remote API. Canonical does not track individuals, except the IP information required for a round-trip HTML query. As I said, the only security hole is in the case of a man-in-the-middle attack viewing any subsequent browser session if the user selects to go online to view the results.

The feature is disabled with a single click in an interactive control panel. It has been since the official release of the software. Notification that this is happening is on the Dash home screen, so it should be no surprise that you're using the software for what it advertises it does.

I fail to see how providing increased, but optional, functionality is in any way impinging on someones freedom. There is nothing in the search that limits any known freedom. The source is free (GPLv3). Anyone is free to study, modify, or remove the search, and without compromising other functionality. Can you describe how exactly the promise that Ubuntu will remain free has been broken?

Which, just like the introduction of Unity, is a shame. Until then, Ubuntu was the best working Linux distro.

Not particularly insightful or constructive.

One hint though, is get used to the command-line (and a simple tiling window manager) so you can survive Linux desktop environments since they are all a complete failure.

Are they? I mean like new KDE is quite usable, Maybe you need to tweak it a bit, but still very usable...

Are they? I mean like new KDE is quite usable, Maybe you need to tweak it a bit, but still very usable...

Try comparing KDE 3.5 with 4.x and you will see the difference. KDE 4 is muddling and gimmicky.

Interestingly KDE 3.5 and Gnome used to be head to head in popularity before KDE 4 came along, it is only now that Gnome has run into serious issues that KDE is becoming popular again because it is the best of an extremely bad bunch.

Even Xfce is starting to have a large share even though it was never even developed to be a full weight desktop environment. This shows that there has certainly been a failure in the Linux desktop somewhere and it is all because of this stupid tablet PC craze, where everything looks like it should be on a touch screen. I haven't even seen a touch screen device that runs Gnome 3 or Unity lol.

Even as a Linux / UNIX evangelist, I will admit that the most efficient desktop I have known is that provided with Windows 2000.

I run Ubuntu Server on my home server, ArchLinux on my laptop, Windows 7 on my desktop PC and XP on my wife's netbook. Life is good.