Pi-hole Detected 58 Requests to ZoringGroup.com in Under an Hour

General Help
1

I recently installed Pi-hole and noticed that, in less than an hour, there were 58 requests to ZoringGroup.com in the logs.

Are these requests related to telemetry or analytics? If so, is there a way to disable them?

Thank you.

2

Hi, did you opt out of the census at point of install? This just pings the zoringroup to let them how many PCs are using Zorin, nothing else.

3

I don't remember opt-out in installation. is there a command to do this?

4

It is on the page where it asks if you want to download updates and install third party drivers. It may even be an opt-in. Let me check the Unofficial Manual I wrote.

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10000168911116×2484 116 KB

5

Well the installation of the OS was months ago, is there option/command to disable or remove it?

6

i have try:

sudo apt remove zorin-os-census

restarted and still getting hits

7

Do You have automatic Updates enabled? When You goo to Settings>Privacy>Connections is there the Toggle enabled?

1 Like
8

yes is enabled

9

The cronjob of Zorin census may be still active, check with:

ls -lh /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,yearly}
1 Like
10

Sorry, I made a Mistake. I didn't meant automatic Updates. I meant the automatic Check for Connections in Settings>Privacy>Connections. When this is enabled, disable it.

11

I would separate two things here: the census package and GNOME/NetworkManager connectivity checking. After disabling Settings > Privacy > Connectivity, reboot or restart NetworkManager, then watch Pi-hole again for a few minutes. If it still appears, check which machine is making the DNS request and whether a cron entry is left behind under /etc/cron.* as littlekun suggested. Removing zorin-os-census alone will not necessarily stop a desktop connectivity check.

12

One small check before removing more packages: from the Zorin machine itself, run resolvectl query zoringroup.com and then watch the timestamp in Pi-hole while toggling Settings > Privacy > Connectivity. If the request stops only when that toggle is off, it is probably the GNOME connectivity probe path, not the census package. If it continues with the toggle off, then I’d look for a remaining cron/systemd timer: systemctl list-timers | grep -i zorin, plus the /etc/cron.* check.

13

this one?

/etc/cron.hourly:
total 4.0K
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.1K Dec 10 2019 zorin-os-census

14

disable now