I just opened a network monitoring tool in my zoris os 16.3 core and then i saw Canonical continuosly collecting data. By seeing that restarted my computer but still its collecting data.
I'm not surprised, every entity collects a certain amount of data, like software used, time of software usage, most used features, error logs, OS activity time and such stuff. Usually nothing that identifies the user perfectly like its name and surname, passwords, phone numbers and other.
Your statement is accurate.
Canonical does collect mundane information such as computer specs, whether live patch is enabled and so on. No personal data or personal identifiers.
You can check and manage transparency with the terminal command
ubuntu-report
to see the data.
You can fully Opt Out.
ubuntu-report -f send no
Why collect this data
Whenever you have struggled with trying to get the kernel drivers to recognize some hardware, it will give you a good idea of how this data is beneficial to the users for developers to have it.
The developers need to know what hardware to focus on, what needs work and what drivers are needed. And unless the users are willing to fill out anonymous surveys in their own time (probably not), the only other way to know is to Ask.
There is another piece of software Canonical uses: Popularity Contest. This app notes how often certain apps are used. This can be removed with
sudo apt remove popularity-contest
to prevent it from recording and sending that data.
I find popularity contest to be useful, though. I want to know that my preferred apps are represented and won't be abandoned or deprecated.
Shall this message be pinned on the Tutorials & Guides with "How to disable Telemetry in Zorin OS"?
Okay, done this. But!
nicolo@nicolo-pc:~$ ubuntu-report -f send no
Command 'ubuntu-report' not found, but can be installed with:
sudo apt install ubuntu-report
Yeah, certain commands must be installed by the user as they aren't included with the OS installation.
Interesting. ubuntu-report
worked just fine on my Zorin install and I never installed ubuntu-report
manually.
So what can I do to disable telemetry?
If ubuntu-report
is not installed; do you have telemetry?
If you do - then install ubuntu-report
and then opt out...
Why I feel that's a nonsense ?
EDIT: This response was typed thinking that @SignorCastello said "thats nonsense" when in fact, it was @Luca_Pavan. My brain glossed over the "who" while reading...
First, please check if you have telemetry.
The package is included. However, I do not know what you have installed or removed over time, nor whether that package was removed along with something that you had previously removed.
Are you concerned about your privacy? Personally I like that statistics are sent, if this way services can be improved why not? They don't identify you after all.
And how should I do it? Installing a network monitor like the OP?
Yes, that would do it.
Or use port monitoring or a port sniffer.
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