Wow I really can't believe the fuss! I use 12.04 lts but had to see what
every one was whining about. I booted a live session of 12.10 and it
took about three clicks to disable the amazon results in the dash and
remove the affiliate link to amazon on the side bar(it is a link
bringing up Amazon in Firefox via affiliate link not it is not a
software program).
In my opinion there is nothing wrong with adware (advertising supported
software). I think people confuse adware with bloatware software with a
subset of its features disabled installed on a pre-installed operating
system. This software is usually set up to be the default for certain
activities and uninstalling leaves your system in an unstable state.
Thus forcing the inexperienced user to purchase the pro version of the
software.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware
By the definition just every installation of Firefox that has Google
search set as the default is adware as Mozilla get a cut of ad revenue
generated from this page. Mozilla is largely funded by this. My opinion
is neither Firefox or Ubuntu 12.10 are adware because you can opt out
without loss of functionality and there is no pro ad free version for sale.
Ubuntu is making it easy for a user to contribute to their distro of
choice but also make it easy to opt out. There is a simple not now link
on the contribution page and disabling the affiliate links in 12.10 are
simple enough for even a causal user to do. I hope the next installer
has an opt in instead of requiring opt out and I will recommend that to
the people at Canonical but am grateful to contribute especially when it
actually costs me nothing.
This is free software and I am happy the community gives us choice to
pick distro for what ever reason but am a little disturbed by the
hyperbole around this action by an organization that has helped change
the perception of GNU/Linux from geek only to user friendly .
As for the spyware objection all web accessing software and especially
web browsers are spyware. This is because the net is a giant spyware
system powered by server side cookies and click pattern identification.
Even when you disable local cookies and try to be anonymous someone
somewhere is monitoring your online activities. It is commerce that
funds the net and commerce wants to know you because it is easier to
serve you if they know you. At least with Ubuntu you can tell them not
to monitor your activities by opting out.
My 2 cents
On 12-10-25 05:02 PM, Jeremy wrote:
On 24/09/12 10:41 AM, Jeremy wrote:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/22/1319216/ubuntu-will-now-have-amazon-ads-pre-installed
Here is a screenshot of it in action:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8326/8123116192_9cf4ff6dc1_o.png
You can see the amazon icon on the sidebar I was talking about. Note
that I did not do anything special here except boot up a new VM then
search for shades of grey (for humour's sake).
I am on Mint Debian now ;)
Jeremy
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