Your desktop search is also an Amazon shopping lens. It's not spyware, it's a feature. Mark says so.
Welcome to Ubuntu — the operating system that replaced your reliable package manager with a sandboxed 400MB Chromium snap, searches your files on Amazon, and cancels every product it ships. Also: our logo is three people holding hands. Just hands.
In 2016, Canonical invented a new package format that is objectively worse in every measurable way — but now it's mandatory, and the Snap Store backend is proprietary. Enjoy!
Firefox snaps now launch in only 12 seconds on a modern NVMe SSD. This is because snaps mount a squashfs filesystem every single time. It's a feature. apt's Firefox launched in 1.2 seconds but who's counting.
Why share system libraries when every snap can bundle its own copy of half the C standard library? Your 256GB SSD is now 60% chromium dependencies. Chromium also auto-updates at 3am with no way to disable it.
Snaps are open source! The snap format is open source! The Snap Store itself? Entirely proprietary. You cannot run your own without reverse-engineering. RMS was right. We just didn't listen.
In Ubuntu 22.04, apt install firefox silently installs a snap instead. You did not consent to this. You cannot easily prevent this. This is what Canonical means by "linux for humans."
snapd is a daemon that runs 24/7, consumes RAM, hits Canonical's servers regularly, and cannot be removed without breaking core system utilities. Think of it as a friendly tenant you can never evict.
Every installed snap mounts as a separate loop device. Install 8 snaps, get 8 entries in df -h and lsblk. Your sysadmin coworkers will weep. df now requires a scroll wheel.
Canonical decided GNOME wasn't good enough and built their own desktop shell from scratch. Invested years of developer time, alienated the Ubuntu community, then announced in 2017 they were switching back to GNOME. "We are not giving up." — Mark Shuttleworth, days before giving up.
YEARS WASTED: ~7 · GOODWILL LOST: IMMEASURABLERemember when Canonical was going to converge your phone and desktop into one glorious unified OS? The BQ Aquaris. The Meizu MX4. The dream of "convergence." All abandoned in 2017. The community now maintains it as UBports because someone had to.
DEVICES SHIPPED: ~4 · USERS: DOZENSCanonical announced a superphone crowdfunding campaign requiring $32 million — the largest Indiegogo campaign ever attempted at the time. They raised $12.8 million. The campaign failed. All backers refunded. Mark flew to space around this time, which cost roughly the same amount.
RAISED: $12.8M OF $32M · SHIPPED: 0 UNITSUbuntu 12.10 Unity shipped with a "shopping lens" that sent your desktop search queries to Amazon and displayed ads in your file manager. Richard Stallman called it spyware. The EFF called it a privacy violation. Canonical called it a "great shopping experience." It was eventually removed in 2016 after sustained community outrage.
TRUST DESTROYED: SIGNIFICANT · AMAZON REVENUE: NEGLIGIBLEThe Linux world needed a new display server. The community was building Wayland. Canonical decided to build their own called Mir, creating a split that set Linux desktop development back years. After Unity was cancelled in 2017, Mir development was wound down for desktop use. Ubuntu now uses Wayland. The one everyone else was already building.
DUPLICATE EFFORT: 100% · ADOPTION: NEAR ZEROCanonical Ltd. reportedly did not turn a profit for approximately 15 years of its existence, sustained largely by Mark Shuttleworth's personal fortune. The man sold his internet company Thawte for ~$575 million in 1999, paid $20 million to become a space tourist in 2002, then spent the next two decades funding a Linux company as a hobby. He is the VC and the startup simultaneously.
YEARS UNPROFITABLE: ~15 · FOUNDER NET WORTH: FINE, ACTUALLYUbuntu innovated by understanding that the desktop is not just a computing environment — it's a revenue opportunity. Here's how your "free" OS earns its keep.
You searched: "my tax documents"
Sponsored result from Amazon.com. Your search query was transmitted to Canonical servers, then to Amazon's advertising API.
Local file result. Found in ~/Documents. Shown below the Amazon ad.
Canonical receives a small affiliate commission. Linux for Humans™.
Security notices now appear in apt upgrade output urging you to subscribe to Ubuntu Pro for security patches that used to be free.
Packages like curl, vim, and openssl have known CVEs. Subscribe to Ubuntu Pro (free* for personal use) to receive patches.
*Free tier limited to 5 machines. Because your homelab has 6. We counted.
Ubuntu collects system data by default. You can opt out. Somewhere. In a submenu. During install. If you read the small text. We believe in transparency.
| Data Point | Collected? | Sent Where | Can You Opt Out? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware specs (CPU, RAM, GPU) | YES | Canonical servers | During install only | To "improve Ubuntu". They mean marketing segmentation. |
| Installed packages list | YES | Canonical servers | Somewhere in Settings | So Canonical knows you replaced Firefox snap with Firefox deb. |
| Desktop search queries (2012–2016) | YES (historical) | Amazon / Canonical | Opt-out added after backlash | The classic. The original sin. The Amazon lens. |
| Snap package usage data | YES | Canonical snap store | Unknown / unclear | snapd phones home. How often? Good question. |
| Ubuntu Pro activation & machine data | YES | Canonical / Ubuntu One | You need an account | Free tier requires creating a Canonical account. Cool. |
| Your dignity | YES | Undisclosed | No | Collected at time of installing snap Firefox. |
"I think the desktop is dead. We are building Ubuntu for the cloud. Also for phones. Also for convergence. Also for IoT. Also we just went back to GNOME. The vision remains unchanged."
"Linux for Humans" — the tagline that launched a thousand forum posts asking
why apt install firefox is now a snap that takes 15 seconds to open.