When you install Ubuntu the Unity desktop
will send your searches over the web by default, showing you products
you can purchase from Amazon and other retailers, including eBay. Oh,
you searched for Firefox? Did you mean you wanted to purchase a Mountain
Equipment Men’s Firefox Jacket from Amazon? No thanks, Ubuntu—I just
wanted to launch Firefox.
This is an obnoxious and privacy-concerning feature, and Canonical has been raked over the coals for it by the EFF. They’ll finally be dropping it in the next version of Unity, Unity 8. But Unity 8 needs a lot of work and won’t arrive on desktops until Ubuntu 16.04 in April 2016—Canonical is more focused on Ubuntu for smartphones in the short term.
There’s no need to wait. Here’s how to strip the annoying shopping
search results out today, be it with a sledgehammer or with a scalpel. Continue Reading
