Re: recently-used.xbel
On 21/08/2020 12:31, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote: On 21/08/2020 14:01, Mike McClain wrote: I took a look at ~/.local/share/.recently-used.xbel and see that not only is it tracking what I do but claims to be the property of freedesktop.org. This file records your most recently used local files. It is used to populate the "Recent Files" lists in many applications. If this still bothers you, you can disable it, but this seems to require per-toolkit settings. For example, for GTK3, edit ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini and add this line to the [Settings] section: gtk-recent-files-enable = 0 See: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/74031/disable-recently-used-in-gtk-file-directory-selector Delete ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel then log out and back in. You might need similar settings for other toolkits such as GTK2 or Qt; the reappearance of ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel will alert you to this. Kind regards, -- Ben Caradoc-Davies Director Transient Software Limited <https://transient.nz/> New Zealand
Re: recently-used.xbel
On 21/08/2020 14:01, Mike McClain wrote: I took a look at ~/.local/share/.recently-used.xbel and see that not only is it tracking what I do but claims to be the property of freedesktop.org. Is there any way to see if this is being sent to them and who might they be selling this info to? It's bad enough that Google and so many others care to spy on us but it's really uncomfortable to think my own computer is doing it. This is worse than Big Brother. This file records your most recently used local files. It is used to populate the "Recent Files" lists in many applications. It is not sent to anyone unless you are syncing your home directory with a cloud service. Every href in my ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel starts with "file:///" (a local absolute file URL). freedesktop.org is the organisation that maintains standards for filesystem layouts and some configuration file formats so that different applications and Linux distributions can use the same directory structure, launchers, and so on, to make life easier for users and application developers. They never receive user data. The tag owner="http://freedesktop.org;> in recently-used.xbel just means that they define the meaning of the enclosed tags. Kind regards, -- Ben Caradoc-Davies Director Transient Software Limited <https://transient.nz/> New Zealand
recently-used.xbel
I took a look at ~/.local/share/.recently-used.xbel and see that not only is it tracking what I do but claims to be the property of freedesktop.org. Is there any way to see if this is being sent to them and who might they be selling this info to? It's bad enough that Google and so many others care to spy on us but it's really uncomfortable to think my own computer is doing it. This is worse than Big Brother. Thanks, Mike -- Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments. - Rose Kennedy
