Richard Stallman Calls Ubuntu "Spyware"

[Awesomeness]

And yes Ubuntu is spyware, not only because they agreed with Amazon to incorporate Amazon search in their pannels, but because they bundle the most advanced piece of software to track user movements: The Web Browser.

You're confused. When one opens the web browser, he/she knows that one is online.
Ubuntu is spyware because nobody tells the user beforehand that perceived offline searches are in fact transmitted online.

That said, it would be nice when distributors bundled Ghostery, a privacy Firefox extension.

[droidhacker]

As much as I dislike ubuntu (and amazon search is only PART of the reason why), stallman is obviously not taking his meds.

[GreatEmerald]

That said, it would be nice when distributors bundled Ghostery, a privacy Firefox extension.

But, last time I checked, Firefox already includes a private browsing mode like that out of the box?

[Cthulhux]

the fact that the reasons you guys give for the advantages of BSD are just so ridiculous that they're not even funny. It should probably kind of tip you off.

Well, no, it does not.

[XorEaxEax]

11 pages of rants and stupidity....

You should post less.

Stallman has absolutely no right to degrade canonical or tell people what to do or what to think.

It's called 'voicing your opinion' and yes he has every right to do so, same as everyone else.

When he himself knows that his words will be posted all over popular tech and science sites like ars and the like... he knows just how damaging his statements can be and WTF does he hope to accomplish with them?

It's up to people to choose to listen and agree/disagree.

If you aren't willing to compromise then you can't really use the internet... hey you think that ad up there in the right corner is not keeping a cookie and tracking you?

But that is the thing, YOU are the one who decides when to compromise. If someone _chooses_ to use Ubuntu with Amazon spying on their search results then that's just fine. However making sure that people know what that means before making that choice is important, and it's a damn shame that Ubuntu didn't go upfront about this and actually make it an opt-in choice with full explanation during installation.

And yes I can use the internet without compromising, and I can choose to compromise on MY terms. There's a reason plugins like adblock,flashblock,noscripts etc are so incredibly popular.

THEY HAVE A BIG SHINY BUTTON RIGHT ON THE SYSTEM CONTROL PANEL CALLED 'PRIVACY' IT TAKES 5 SECS TO CLICK IT AND SHUT IT OFF.

That button only became reality AFTER people caused a shitstorm, so now they hope a shutoff button in the preferences will placate their users. I hope it doesn't and that this becomes an opt-in choice during installation/first bootup where it belongs.

I don't know WTF they were thinking, they've ruined a large part of their image on the way they've handled this.

you can blame canonical for this as much as you can blame phoronix for showing ads so the mere fact you are posting here makes you an hypocrite

You're not even making a lick of sense. When I come here I make a conscious choice of visiting this webpage, when I search my local files I'm not making a conscious choice of sending my search results to Amazon.

[peperoni]

You're confused. When one opens the web browser, he/she knows that one is online.

Users in general don't know anything about security and what is even worse is that they don't want to know nothing about computers and security, so putting a web browser in their hands is the perfect tool to know how they think, what they do, what products they demand and why. All OSs include web browsers including Linux, and if exposing user data is spyware (as the Ubuntu case), evil or whatever you want to call it then Linux in general is as spyware (or evil) than Ubuntu, Microsoft or Mac OS, and Stallman is an hypocrite! If Stallman didn't made such absurd statements, as in the case of Ubuntu, then it wouldn't exist so different judgements depending on his favourite distros.

[Pawlerson]

Use FreeBSD then. Like all we smart people do.

Why would anyone ever use this MORON OS? It's made by idiots for idiots and freebsd is almost the worst bsd.

[peperoni]

No. Just no. Hell no.

Most web browsers (the open source ones, anyway) do not track you. The webpages you visit do. You can choose to avoid them.

Web browsers are the catalyst that allow you to use Google search (or any other search engine) that in the end is the way to know what you do everytime you visit your web pages, the problem is that you ignored it!!!

[Pawlerson]

There is nothing interesting in your little FreeBSD that just about anybody would prefer to actually replace the OS the person has as it is. Cry about it all you like but the fact that the reasons you guys give for the advantages of BSD are just so ridiculous that they're not even funny. It should probably kind of tip you off.

There's not even a single advantage in a tinny bsd world. The most funny thing related to bsd zealots is DragonflyBSD proving it's much faster when using Linux principles. It outperforms freebsd by a very large margin and shows all of the freebsd benchmarks are worthless. It's an only bsd that deserves attention and its developers deserve kudos, because they're sane and friendly unlike jerks from freebsd.

[Cthulhux]

Why would anyone ever use this MORON OS? It's made by idiots for idiots and freebsd is almost the worst bsd.

Actually, no.