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To disable it in about:config

browser.search.serpEventTelemetry.enabled  =  false	
browser.search.serpEventTelemetryCategorization.enabled  =  false
  • kbal@fedia.io
    0·
    2 months ago

    Ubuntu telemetry is fairly minimal, as of last time I used it a few years ago. Not remotely comparable to what firefox does. They just want to know what hardware you have, there’s no user behaviour tracking, and it’s fully opt-in (you have to deliberately turn it on when installing). KDE and Gnome have a little something like that as well now, I think. Almost everything else does not.

    Debian has a list (last updated 2023-10) of software among the 97000 packages they distribute which have been found to violate user privacy by “phoning home” for telemetry or other purposes:

    • gnome-calculator - fetches currencies
    • Firefox - multiple issues
    • Thunderbird - opt-out telemetry that is not yet patched for Debian
    • Chromium - phones home in various ways
    • syncthing - version check and lots more
    • cura - phones home in various ways, patched out in Debian
    • azure-cli - collects “anonymous” telemetry by default
    • glances - connects to several online services to discover public IP
    • webext-bulk-media-downloader - loads the website and sends version info
    • Golang - planning on implementing enabled-by-default telemetry
    • Vincent@feddit.nl
      0·
      2 months ago

      there’s no user behaviour tracking

      I mean, that depends on how you define user behaviour. It tracks which packages are frequently installed, for example, or how often people install Ubuntu in the first place. All of which I think is pretty legit, in my opinion, since that only involves aggregate user statistics that help prioritise work and detect common problems - but that’s essentially what Firefox is doing too.

      Debian is a great example of relatively commonly used free software that doesn’t really collect data btw.