
Canonical Will Own Your Search: New mandatory Ubuntu plugin takes over Firefox - windsurfer
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/402767
======
cstejerean
From one of the commenters:

"This new extension is installed by stealth, hijacks the search functions of
the browser by masquerading itself as plain Google search but funnels those
searches to your own custom Google search, and some data those searches done
by unknowing users is being collected by someone at Canonical."

I don't like what Canonical is doing here, or the way they answered people's
concerns on that thread. I really hope this "feature" goes away by the time
Karmic ships.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Yeah, I'm less worried about the feature than I am about the attitude that put
it there, though. Microsoft did a similar thing during updates a while ago.
You couldn't uninstall it without editing the registry, you could only disable
it, and you were never notified of it.

They way they've done it is just sneaky, and not like them at all. Not a good
sign - but I've always wandered if Ubuntu might become too commercial. Maybe
it's time I investigate another Distro just in case.

~~~
bmelton
Wouldn't it be fairly simple to just fork Ubuntu?

If that completely misses what you meant, I would probably recommend just
stepping back to Debian.

~~~
benatkin
I've heard good things about Arch, if you want another bleeding-edge desktop
distro. The nice thing about Ubuntu, though, is it's good for both desktop and
servers, and makes it really easy to use the desktop distro for development
and then use the same stuff on the server.

~~~
vidarh
That's what OpenVz, KVM or Xen is for. I don't know about Ubuntu, but on the
latest Debian getting an OpenVz setup going is an apt-get of a single package
and then you have the pleasure of having your dev stuff nicely isolated and
there's no reason to worry about whether the distro is good for both desktop
and server anymore (it also means you can make conservative choices for the
servers that'd be "unpleasant" to live with on the desktop...)

My home box is running 14-15 containers now - I spin up a new one for all
larger projects, plus a few others. It's lightweight enough that I don't
notice the overhead.

------
SwellJoe
Jebus. Some Ubuntu users are just nuts. I didn't think the folks who write
YouTube comments were smart enough to know how to install Linux, but I guess
they've managed to figure out Ubuntu.

The anger, tin foil hats, and self-righteousness, are kinda disturbing. I've
been involved in Open Source software development for 12 years or so, and I've
seen this kind of thing in the past, of course, but not very often so much of
it in one place, and over a clearly experimental feature in an alpha (e.g. for
developers and testers) release, that was previously discussed and documented
to be a user workflow data gathering tool. Unless one assumes that
Ubuntu/Canonical actually has _evil_ intentions (in which case, why would you
use the OS, when there are many other options?), this kind of response is
unwarranted, undeserved, and unproductive.

I'd also wager that the people doing the most abusive complaining are the ones
who have contributed the least to the community, while the people they are
verbally abusing are the folks who actually make the software they are
complaining about.

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viraptor
For some reason that bug reminds me of the way they removed update-manager
from the notification area.

\- No clear public information before the change, even if it affects almost
100% of users.

\- Mark S. responding to the reported bug.

\- Some devs avoiding straight responses.

\- Introduced in late alphas, before the freezes...

I really hope that they just had a "great idea" on some meeting and people
responsible for the packages have problems in handling the situation (they are
attacked by hordes of outraged geeks ;) ). But if the situation repeats in
10.04, maybe it's a sign of things going bad? Unfortunately launchpad doesn't
count bug subscribers, but it looks like ~60 + 2 duplicate bugs and everyone
saying they don't like the idea as it is presented right now... 2 weeks after
it was introduced in alpha version. IMHO that's a pretty strong signal that
something's going seriously wrong.

------
ZeroGravitas
Ubuntu response:

[http://www.asoftsite.org/s9y/archives/162-What-is-this-
Multi...](http://www.asoftsite.org/s9y/archives/162-What-is-this-Multisearch-
thing-in-my-Firefox-about.html)

Basically, this is a quick and dirty way to gather some usage data. Seems
reasonable to me.

~~~
hvs
You don't gather usage data without informing the individual you are gathering
it from. It's a violation of privacy. This is completely unreasonable.

~~~
loginx
So any website that uses any forms of analytics (gathering usage data without
informing the individual) is violating your privacy, and acting in "completely
unreasonable" ways? If personal data was being collected, that would be a
clear violation of privacy, but adding a simple bit of metadata to a GET
request to get general statistics is _completely reasonable_ by my book.

~~~
req2
There's a fine line in play here. Websites are opt-in, as are OSes, but I
don't think many people think of Firefox as 'Ubuntu Firefox', and rightfully
don't expect that their OS is going to tamper with the expected behavior of
known, third party programs. For the normal user[1], this is a 'browser lock-
in' that seems worse than what everyone got mad at Microsoft for.

[1] By normal user, I mean the non-Linux-guru type that wouldn't think to try
all the nonobvious workarounds. This clearly is no problem to the 'You only
get to use Linux if you submit patches' crowd, but should be a big problem for
roughly every other open source free software crowd.

------
jrockway
I love how nasty people get about this stuff: "For the last time: Who is the
mastermind behind Multisearch and who is requiring its implementation?"

Don't they realize that Ubuntu is a commercial OS that's given away for free?
If you want Freedom, use Debian!

~~~
windsurfer
But I love Linux. I want some distro, _any distro_ to gain large market share.
The linux world is too shattered, too splintered to make a dent in the
consumer marketplace, and it needs a large, popular distro like Ubuntu to
create focus. Adding this sneaky extension breaks user trust and splinters the
linux user base.

~~~
_pi
Mamma and Pappa don't care about this only nerds do. Nerds can move away from
linux but I guess cannonical feels Ubuntu has gained traction with Mama and
papa and that it doesn't need nerds anymore.

~~~
ramy_d
then canonical forgot who installed ubuntu on mamma and pappa in the first
place. what was done can be undone.

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cookiecaper
I don't see that big of an issue with this. If it helps Ubuntu make money and
all it does is make the Google search result page look different, then it's
fine. It's installed by default; it's removable and disableable just like
every other Fx extension. What's the big deal?

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jcapote
Who uses the bundled firefox anyway? It's always a release behind (and now
this)...

~~~
vincent_vega
Many, actually

------
thenduks
Just a clarification: It's not 'mandatory', it just gets installed by default
with the Firefox package. Put clearly this means "you can just disable it".

Still, what a crappy 'extension' to Firefox :/, this is why I build mine from
source.

~~~
windsurfer
You can't uninstall it without removing Firefox though. It's enabled by
default, too, so all users of your Ubuntu machine will get it enabled no
matter what.

~~~
martey
It's a Firefox extension, and so can be disabled like any other Firefox
extension.

~~~
blasdel
It's not like any other Firefox extension -- it's a _system_ extension, it's
not in your profile in ~/.mozilla

It will always be enabled by default, you can't uninstall it, and you can only
disable it after you've created a profile.

~~~
thenduks
It's enabled 'by default', but it's still a regular Firefox extension that can
be turned off easily.

Comment #2 by Alexander Sack reads:

 _Thanks. To workaround you can disable the extension in tools - > addons._

Later Adam Bielinsky fleshes it out:

 _At the moment, every user on a machine has to click Tools, then Addons, then
Extensions, then Multisearch, then Disable, and then restart Firefox._

------
freetard
I don't see what the big deal is. If Canonical can make a little more money
with this to keep funding the distro then good for them, it's a barely
profitable company that offer its main product for free. As for the extension,
it gives the same results as regular google, don't like it? Remove it, it's
just a firefox extension. Or install your own firefox.

~~~
windsurfer
It doesn't give the same results. The interface is terrible compared to the
default Google interface.

~~~
andyking
I'm not daft enough to be using Karmic alphas on my home computer but on the
current 9.04 version with bundled Firefox 3.0, the default Ubuntu start page
and the "real" Google homepage give quite different search results.

Perhaps it's down to the Ubuntu page delivering US search results or
something, I don't know - but I definitely prefer the standard Google page.

Ubuntu: [http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-
pub-2070091971271392%3A...](http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-
pub-2070091971271392%3Aougxymc6y19&ie=UTF-8&q=Radio+1&sa=Search)

Google:
[http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Radio+1&btnG=...](http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Radio+1&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=)

------
stse
Would have been much better if they made a deal with google and firefox and
got there own 'real' search page. Like <http://www.google.com/firefox>

