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Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

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Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#151

Post by mattdeboard »

astine wrote: post #140
rbanffy wrote: post #137

Am I the only one here who thinks this is not disturbing at all? If you don't like it, it's not very difficult to turn off. If you find it too difficult to turn off, maybe Ubuntu is not the right operating system for you.

If this becomes an important money maker for Canonical, you just know that they will find a way to make it hard to turn off. This seems like the first step where they are willfully making the user experience worse rather than better, to fulfill a shortterm end. If this is the only way for Canonical to break even on Ubuntu, that says a lot about the future of desktop Linux in general.

If it's ever any harder than "apt-get remove --purge" then you'll have a problem worth complaining about. Until then, meh.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#152

Post by qbrass »

rbanffy wrote: post #137

Am I the only one here who thinks this is not disturbing at all? If you don't like it, it's not very difficult to turn off. If you find it too difficult to turn off, maybe Ubuntu is not the right operating system for you.

It's not that difficult to install software either. They could have made it opt-in and saved themselves a bunch of bad press.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#153

Post by lhnn »

rbanffy wrote: post #137

Am I the only one here who thinks this is not disturbing at all? If you don't like it, it's not very difficult to turn off. If you find it too difficult to turn off, maybe Ubuntu is not the right operating system for you.

Ubuntu's goal has always been Linux for the Masses. Now, if the discussions are accurate, unknowing users will be searching "my_girlfriend_michelles_porn.zip" and see that information passed to Amazon. It's not what most people would want, and in the land of choices, Ubuntu has in minutes made it a lot harder for me to recommend them.

Xubuntu is pretty nice... but I might end up moving to Debian if they start pushing this out.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#155

Post by andreasvc »

dfc wrote: post #123
andreasvc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I gave was incorrect (I was confused with what happens when you install a .deb file without installing its dependencies), but the point of apt-get being better than dpkg for this still stands.

Your unsubstantiated claim still stands...

I don't understand why you're making such a big fuss about this rather inconsequental point. All I'm saying is that you should generally use apt-get and not the lower level tool dpkg. I used an incorrect justification for that (removing doesn't lead to an inconsistent state), but you still should preferrably use apt-get. Let's get back to debating more interesting stuff now.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#156

Post by andreasvc »

diggan wrote: post #125
andreasvc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I gave was incorrect (I was confused with what happens when you install a .deb file without installing its dependencies), but the point of apt-get being better than dpkg for this still stands.

I wonder what point you're talking about. The one and only point you made was that dpkg force removes packages at runtime and it doesn't do that. What other point is there?

It's right there in my comment:

> the point of apt-get being better than dpkg for this still stands.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#157

Post by adgar »

w1ntermute wrote: post #43

Just a note: all the ads will be removable with the command: sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping --purge

If this is an important part of the user experience, why can't Canonical provide an "Advertisements" or "Amazon" settings UI that can turn these features on and off by a checkbox?

My guess is because they know if they make it too easy to turn off, and the ads aren't actually improving their users' lives (ads for books when you search for apps?! Might make sense for technical books I guess...) everyone will just turn off the ads.

Making it this hard to turn off a new feature because you don't trust it will help the users... must be heartbreaking to sell out your users like that.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#158

Post by rbanffy »

qbrass wrote: post #152
rbanffy wrote: post #137

Am I the only one here who thinks this is not disturbing at all? If you don't like it, it's not very difficult to turn off. If you find it too difficult to turn off, maybe Ubuntu is not the right operating system for you.

It's not that difficult to install software either. They could have made it opt-in and saved themselves a bunch of bad press.

I suspect most users would consider this a useful thing rather than an intrusive feature.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#159

Post by jellicle »

I don't think Ubuntu has really thought this through.

Besides the privacy problems, making your software into adware is incredibly destructive to its image. Ubuntu can no longer be used by any self-respecting or privacy-conscious company or individual. Imagine the CTO of IBM - "So, this Ubuntu is adware? And it sends all our searches to Amazon? Are you kidding me? Get out of my office and get me a list of real OSes, you know, business-class operating systems."

I mean what I say when I say, "can't". The image of adware is too low to be considered business class. Would you buy a bottle of wine that had an ad for hemorrhoid medication on the side? You might for yourself, maybe, if you're a wino, but would you buy it as a gift? Would you buy it for a restaurant? Would you buy it for a dinner party?

Ubuntu has just classified itself in with the Netzeros of the world, as bottom-of-the-barrel software. It marked itself on the forehead with a big tattoo that says "substandard software" - they set the brand on fire. That change is going to hurt more than any extra revenue is going to help.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#160

Post by dfc »

andreasvc wrote: post #155
dfc wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your unsubstantiated claim still stands...

I don't understand why you're making such a big fuss about this rather inconsequental point. All I'm saying is that you should generally use apt-get and not the lower level tool dpkg. I used an incorrect justification for that (removing doesn't lead to an inconsistent state), but you still should preferrably use apt-get. Let's get back to debating more interesting stuff now.

I'm not the only one that thinks your claim is left wanting. I cannot speak for them but I am interested in why you think apt-get is preferred over dpkg in this case because I am a decade long loyal user of Debian. My original point was that the dpkg command is shorter and that is why I have used it over the longer apt-get invocation. I am generally interested in learning more about Debian. If the way I have been doing things is wrong I would like to know why so that I can improve my skills. Does that make sense?

I'm not being snarky, I'm generally interested in learning more about Debian and it seems that you might be able to improve my knowledge.

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