Linux Lite Forums
General => Off Topic => Topic started by: Zead on March 14, 2015, 02:17:04 PM
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http://askubuntu.com/questions/577286/how-to-remove-t-canonical-from-firefox-browser-searches-made-on-duckduckgo (http://askubuntu.com/questions/577286/how-to-remove-t-canonical-from-firefox-browser-searches-made-on-duckduckgo)
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Wow! Remove canonical from next release of LL. On LL 2.0, I see t=canonical, on LM 16 XFCE, I do not. Can someone test for later release of LL? Search for anything and look at the URL.
Sheng-Chieh
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Might removing xul in ff do the trick ! I always remove it on all my fresh installs .
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What's the name of the package? I'll take a look.
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Ok , I ll check it out .
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Ok , either xul , or ubufox &/or xul-ext-ubufox .
I guess LL comes with the later if I remember well .
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Yep, xul-ext-ubufox it is (LL2.2).
BUT removing it, doesn't obviously help. At least not in my case having used FF with package installed before. Don't know whether it makes a difference to remove the package before launching FF for the first time? Will test and report back...
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It s the results I get from DDG research :
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cat+cooking+salmon
Note , no t-canonicals here .
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Hm, I've just tested it with a new account and xul-ext-ubufox removed.
I'm still ending up with the "&t=canonical" part. Using the /etc/skel/.mozilla copied to the new account as well as after deleting .mozilla in the new account.
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Gee , that sux mate !
Maybe in FF s Preferences ! I have Do Not Track enabled in my FF Prefs , also I have Private Browsing enabled , & cookies off , might help on your side .
Wonder if it has to do with Privacy Settings ( Cookies as an example ) in FF s Preferences .
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I found a solution on the webpage I provided, you must:
If you want to remove it, edit the file:
/usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale/*language-here*
Edit all the languages just to be sure.
Read more info on the webpage.
If your web search engine update, you must do it again probably.
The question is, why are they doing this? GNU Is free (as in freedom, for a reason), and I'm using Linux Lite, not Ubuntu... So if someone should get money from this, it's Linux Lite developers.
We don't owe Canonical money, it should be OFF by default, not ON (like their Amazon searches). It shouldn't be there in a first place.
As you found out, uninstalling the ubufox package won't help.
The web search engine is modified. It says it collects anonymous info too.
The guy in the forum said, it is happening on Mac / OSX too... Why should Canonical get money from OSX users? o.O
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It s the results I get from DDG research :
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cat+cooking+salmon
Note , no t-canonicals here .
Did you use DDG search engine? Don't do it through their website.
The search engine is modified.
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Thanx unlimited for the tips in here .
But my bet would be to be Opt-Out of everything ( if possible ) , as with google also (n their are some stuff on that also . Another thing that I use is https everywhere from eff org .
I m also worried of being tracked by ubuntu , which is supposed to be free as you said .
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Ok, have done some more testing ... and after a crash of my main user session :o ... here are the results.
I followed the recommendation in the link posted by UNLIMITY (thanks!) and deleted the relevant entry in
/usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale/<language>/duckduckgo.xml
After restarting the browser the "&t=canonical" part in the address is gone :)
Questions remain:
* At what stage and how is duckduckgo.xml getting this entry?
* Why are you not running into the same need to edit duckduckgo.xml?
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It s the results I get from DDG research :
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cat+cooking+salmon
Note , no t-canonicals here .
Did you use DDG search engine? Don't do it through their website.
The search engine is modified.
Yep , it s my search engine in FF also , with every other search engines removed .
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Thanx unlimited for the tips in here .
But my bet would be to be Opt-Out of everything ( if possible ) , as with google also (n their are some stuff on that also . Another thing that I use is https everywhere from eff org .
I m also worried of being tracked by ubuntu , which is supposed to be free as you said .
Yeah maybe I meant opt-out, I'm not english. What I was trying to say, is, it should be OFF by default. I use HTTPS everywhere too.
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Thanx unlimited for the tips in here .
But my bet would be to be Opt-Out of everything ( if possible ) , as with google also (n their are some stuff on that also . Another thing that I use is https everywhere from eff org .
I m also worried of being tracked by ubuntu , which is supposed to be free as you said .
Yeah maybe I meant opt-out, I'm not english. What I was trying to say, is, it should be OFF by default. I use HTTPS everywhere too.
Hey cool , it s what I was thinking , just wanted to make sure . By the way your english s pretty good to me , I m not english either , but I try my best .
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Ok, have done some more testing ... and after a crash of my main user session :o ... here are the results.
I followed the recommendation in the link posted by UNLIMITY (thanks!) and deleted the relevant entry in
/usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale/<language>/duckduckgo.xml
After restarting the browser the "&t=canonical" part in the address is gone :)
Questions remain:
* At what stage and how is duckduckgo.xml getting this entry?
* Why are you not running into the same need to edit duckduckgo.xml?
How? DuckDuckGo is in partnership with Canonical or something.
(I don't understand the second question)
But if your DuckDuckGo search engine will get updated, the canonical entry will get back, MAYBE.
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Thanx unlimited for the tips in here .
But my bet would be to be Opt-Out of everything ( if possible ) , as with google also (n their are some stuff on that also . Another thing that I use is https everywhere from eff org .
I m also worried of being tracked by ubuntu , which is supposed to be free as you said .
Yeah maybe I meant opt-out, I'm not english. What I was trying to say, is, it should be OFF by default. I use HTTPS everywhere too.
Hey cool , it s what I was thinking , just wanted to make sure . By the way your english s pretty good to me , I m not english either , but I try my best .
Ok, I will edit my post to correct it. Thanks. I wouldn't even tell you ain't english. But you know, the most understand thing is that you understand people, and they understand you.
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Last time I saw DDG had nothing to do with Canonical , unless it changed . We never know now .
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Thanx unlimited for the tips in here .
But my bet would be to be Opt-Out of everything ( if possible ) , as with google also (n their are some stuff on that also . Another thing that I use is https everywhere from eff org .
I m also worried of being tracked by ubuntu , which is supposed to be free as you said .
Yeah maybe I meant opt-out, I'm not english. What I was trying to say, is, it should be OFF by default. I use HTTPS everywhere too.
Hey cool , it s what I was thinking , just wanted to make sure . By the way your english s pretty good to me , I m not english either , but I try my best .
Ok, I will edit my post to correct it. Thanks. I wouldn't even tell you ain't english. But you know, the most understand thing is that you understand people, and they understand you.
Yes sir . we understand each other .
But that ddg thing with canonical s bugging me , it was supposedly a no track search engine , unless canonical sneeked somewhere . It will have to be checked out .
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Last time I saw DDG had nothing to do with Canonical , unless it changed . We never know now .
&t=
Through partnerships with developers and companies, DuckDuckGo has been integrated into many applications. In these partnerships, a portion of DuckDuckGo's advertising revenue is sometimes shared back. To assign advertising revenue and collect anonymous aggregate usage information, developers add a unique "&t=" parameter to searches made through their applications.
(It's taken from the DDG website, so yeah they are partners now). I feel like Canonical is mainly after money now...
https://duck.co/help/privacy/t Read here.
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Last time I saw DDG had nothing to do with Canonical , unless it changed . We never know now .
&t=
Through partnerships with developers and companies, DuckDuckGo has been integrated into many applications. In these partnerships, a portion of DuckDuckGo's advertising revenue is sometimes shared back. To assign advertising revenue and collect anonymous aggregate usage information, developers add a unique "&t=" parameter to searches made through their applications.
(It's taken from the DDG website, so yeah they are partners now). I feel like Canonical is mainly after money now...
Thanx for the info , well , will have to maybe use Dogpile , LxQuick , PrivateLee , or Gigablast now I guess , thanx for pointing this out .
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Last time I saw DDG had nothing to do with Canonical , unless it changed . We never know now .
&t=
Through partnerships with developers and companies, DuckDuckGo has been integrated into many applications. In these partnerships, a portion of DuckDuckGo's advertising revenue is sometimes shared back. To assign advertising revenue and collect anonymous aggregate usage information, developers add a unique "&t=" parameter to searches made through their applications.
(It's taken from the DDG website, so yeah they are partners now). I feel like Canonical is mainly after money now...
Thanx for the info , well , will have to maybe use Dogpile , LxQuick , PrivateLee , or Gigablast now I guess , thanx for pointing this out .
You can remove the canonical from search engine, or just search through their website. I used ixquick.com before. Or you can use startpage.com (for google searches, but I don't want to have anything with google,so). I trust ixquick more than DDG though. But I like DDG's video recommendations, recipes, and all...
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@UNLIMITY
The second question was @altman, how he got rid of it without editing the file.
Yep, am aware of the risk of an update. Will check from time to time.
Thanks for your help! :)
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The thing is that I never seen t-canonical search results on my ddg searches .
Might have to do with xul removed I guess ,
I tried to check for ddg s search results to see from the op s link above & never saw this t-can results , I think it has to do with my ff prefs settings , don t know .
But as I saw ddg has links with canonicals , so I lokok elsewhere . ( another search engine . )
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The thing is that I never seen t-canonical search results on my ddg searches .
Might have to do with xul removed I guess ,
I tried to check for ddg s search results to see from the op s link above & never saw this t-can results , I think it has to do with my ff prefs settings , don t know .
But as I saw ddg has links with canonicals , so I lokok elsewhere . ( another search engine . )
I removed xul package before I even written this thread, and had this t-canonical stuff. Maybe you removed the package before you started Firefox? It's only the search engine modified, so if you say you don't get t-canonical from search engine, the xul could be what modifies the search engine.
I hope you are aware I am talking about search engine, from the bar. PREFERENCES > SEARCH > DEFAULT SEARCH ENGINE.
I don't understand why they have to squeeze such a bullcrap there? They have a default website in Firefox, for google search I think, which brings them money, thanks to Ubuntu Firefox Modifications (that xul package). Now they are in DuckDuckGo engine. Even online searches are enabled by default on Ubuntu, which are used for ads too. They also accept donations. If people want to give them money, they will. Why do I have to search the internet for information to be able to stop their tracking? I don't care it says it's anonymous, the truth is, you never know how anonymous, and if they even say the truth. And like I said, I'm using Linux Lite, not Ubuntu. I know Linux Lite is based on Ubuntu, but whatever. GNU is free (both as in price and freedom). if I will ever use Ubuntu, then I could leave the t-canonical in DDG. But It's not very right what they do. GNU/Linux distributions approved by Free Software Foundations would never do that, if they did, they would be removed. They even pointed out why they don't recommend Ubuntu, one of the points were the "online searches" spying.
I'm trying to support Free Software Foundation, and I prefer 100% free distros, but I'm glad there are distros like Linux Lite, because my laptop, precisely my graphics card doesn't work right without kernel blobs. I couldn't even get full resolution. But I heard Intel GPUs works great without blobs.
One of the reasons why I switched from Windows to GNU/Linux, was the spying on it, and now I'm getting it from Canonical. -.- Not as bad as Microsoft, but still. And I got tired of Microsoft's crap anyway + why should I pay for Windows when there are free better alternatives? I also heard they tried to destroy Free Software movement (The Halloween documents). But who knows if that documents are legit. But It's pretty cheap from them to do that. Funny they are copying features from both OSX and GNU/Linux. Maybe GNU/Linux is much harder to use than Windows, but I still love it, It's better, much better. And Linux Lite is probably most easier to use GNU/Linux distro I tried. I tried many distros. Even with Ubuntu and Linux Mint, I had to search the internet on how to set up Samba shares. But with Linux Lite, it was easy and fast + they provide very simple documentation for that.
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The thing is that I never seen t-canonical search results on my ddg searches .
Might have to do with xul removed I guess ,
I tried to check for ddg s search results to see from the op s link above & never saw this t-can results , I think it has to do with my ff prefs settings , don t know .
But as I saw ddg has links with canonicals , so I lokok elsewhere . ( another search engine . )
I removed xul package before I even written this thread, and had this t-canonical stuff. Maybe you removed the package before you started Firefox? It's only the search engine modified, so if you say you don't get t-canonical from search engine, the xul could be what modifies the search engine.
I hope you are aware I am talking about search engine, from the bar. PREFERENCES > SEARCH > DEFAULT SEARCH ENGINE.
I don't understand why they have to squeeze such a bullcrap there? They have a default website in Firefox, for google search I think, which brings them money, thanks to Ubuntu Firefox Modifications (that xul package). Now they are in DuckDuckGo engine. Even online searches are enabled by default on Ubuntu, which are used for ads too. They also accept donations. If people want to give them money, they will. Why do I have to search the internet for information to be able to stop their tracking? I don't care it says it's anonymous, the truth is, you never know how anonymous, and if they even say the truth. And like I said, I'm using Linux Lite, not Ubuntu. I know Linux Lite is based on Ubuntu, but whatever. GNU is free (both as in price and freedom). if I will ever use Ubuntu, then I could leave the t-canonical in DDG. But It's not very right what they do. GNU/Linux distributions approved by Free Software Foundations would never do that, if they did, they would be removed. They even pointed out why they don't recommend Ubuntu, one of the points were the "online searches" spying.
I'm trying to support Free Software Foundation, and I prefer 100% free distros, but I'm glad there are distros like Linux Lite, because my laptop, precisely my graphics card doesn't work right without kernel blobs. I couldn't even get full resolution. But I heard Intel GPUs works great without blobs.
yes sir , this Pref s search engine , heard or had read that it s not recommended to search from this search engine , could not find it real quick . I use it as a Home search engine instead of say google or whatever their is .
I use ddg as a default search engine as my default starting page also . It might be because of that .
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The thing is that I never seen t-canonical search results on my ddg searches .
Might have to do with xul removed I guess ,
I tried to check for ddg s search results to see from the op s link above & never saw this t-can results , I think it has to do with my ff prefs settings , don t know .
But as I saw ddg has links with canonicals , so I lokok elsewhere . ( another search engine . )
I removed xul package before I even written this thread, and had this t-canonical stuff. Maybe you removed the package before you started Firefox? It's only the search engine modified, so if you say you don't get t-canonical from search engine, the xul could be what modifies the search engine.
I hope you are aware I am talking about search engine, from the bar. PREFERENCES > SEARCH > DEFAULT SEARCH ENGINE.
I don't understand why they have to squeeze such a bullcrap there? They have a default website in Firefox, for google search I think, which brings them money, thanks to Ubuntu Firefox Modifications (that xul package). Now they are in DuckDuckGo engine. Even online searches are enabled by default on Ubuntu, which are used for ads too. They also accept donations. If people want to give them money, they will. Why do I have to search the internet for information to be able to stop their tracking? I don't care it says it's anonymous, the truth is, you never know how anonymous, and if they even say the truth. And like I said, I'm using Linux Lite, not Ubuntu. I know Linux Lite is based on Ubuntu, but whatever. GNU is free (both as in price and freedom). if I will ever use Ubuntu, then I could leave the t-canonical in DDG. But It's not very right what they do. GNU/Linux distributions approved by Free Software Foundations would never do that, if they did, they would be removed. They even pointed out why they don't recommend Ubuntu, one of the points were the "online searches" spying.
I'm trying to support Free Software Foundation, and I prefer 100% free distros, but I'm glad there are distros like Linux Lite, because my laptop, precisely my graphics card doesn't work right without kernel blobs. I couldn't even get full resolution. But I heard Intel GPUs works great without blobs.
yes sir , this Pref s search engine , heard or had read that it s not recommended to search from this search engine , could not find it real quick . I use it as a Home search engine instead of say google or whatever their is .
I use ddg as a default search engine as my default starting page also . It might be because of that .
Yeah, it doesn't happen if you search on their website.
Anyway, I added some stuff to my previous post, so read the rest. xD
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Guess I would have a look at this link , might look a little bit paranoid , but it s some interesting readings : https://prism-break.org/en/categories/gnu-linux/
Will reread your post fella .
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When Firefox next updates, you may have to go through the editing process again. Theres other ways around this:
1) We could start packaging Firefox and distributing it raw, untouched via the LL repos. Unlikely to happen anytime soon, FF is a big project and just takes to much time to track. At the moment our focus is on our own software.
2) Download a raw copy of FF, throw it in your /home/user dir and make a shortcut to it.
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Guess I would have a look at this link , might look a little bit paranoid , but it s some interesting readings : https://prism-break.org/en/categories/gnu-linux/
Will reread your post fella .
Have this website in favorites for a long time now...
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I like this site too . In Bookmarks also .
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Package xul-ext-ubufox is for "Ubuntu-specific configuration defaults"
apt-cache show xul-ext-ubufox
Package: xul-ext-ubufox
Priority: optional
Section: web
Installed-Size: 207
Maintainer: Ubuntu Mozilla Team <[email protected]>
Architecture: all
Source: ubufox
Version: 3.0-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
Replaces: ubufox (<< 0.9~rc2-0ubuntu3)
Provides: firefox-ubufox, ubufox
Depends: aptdaemon, libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.26)
Recommends: firefox (>= 9.0)
Breaks: ubufox (<< 0.9~rc2-0ubuntu3)
Filename: pool/main/u/ubufox/xul-ext-ubufox_3.0-0ubuntu0.14.04.1_all.deb
Size: 25920
MD5sum: 161d4126db6cc93737d84613fdc2c783
SHA1: f8d208697e51cdd8908c50d645bf8916f32fa7eb
SHA256: 025bfdd9fd956a1080165242376788e82b1403f85a9e5e1232191251846ec0de
Description-en: Ubuntu-specific configuration defaults and apt support for Firefox
Adds Ubuntu-specific modifications to Firefox.
.
Integrates the browser with Ubuntu to:
* Enable searching for missing plugins from Ubuntu software catalog
* Add the following options to the Help menu
- Get help on-line
- Help translating Firefox
- Ubuntu Release Notes
* Set homepage to Ubuntu Start Page
* Display a restart notification after upgrading Firefox
* Add ask.com to the search engines.
.
You can uninstall this if you prefer to use a pristine Firefox install.
Description-md5: d3a589833861a3e410e82d2a68586881
Enhances: firefox
Homepage: https://launchpad.net/ubufox
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Origin: Ubuntu
Supported: 5y
Task: ubuntu-desktop, ubuntu-usb, kubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-full, kubuntu-active-desktop, kubuntu-active-full, edubuntu-desktop, edubuntu-usb, xubuntu-desktop, lubuntu-desktop, ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntu-gnome-desktop
Package: xul-ext-ubufox
Priority: optional
Section: web
Installed-Size: 378
Maintainer: Ubuntu Mozilla Team <[email protected]>
Architecture: all
Source: ubufox
Version: 2.8-0ubuntu1
Replaces: ubufox (<< 0.9~rc2-0ubuntu3)
Provides: firefox-ubufox, ubufox
Depends: aptdaemon, libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.26)
Recommends: firefox (>= 9.0)
Breaks: ubufox (<< 0.9~rc2-0ubuntu3)
Filename: pool/main/u/ubufox/xul-ext-ubufox_2.8-0ubuntu1_all.deb
Size: 56222
MD5sum: 48f48503090501a6af48e15d75215e76
SHA1: 100b5bd88c5689078d11818e73d749d6dd2f0178
SHA256: 623c06fbad31ff9c26c5ba60ae56f4fcbc71ddde51d48e6740d98f80444c24c0
Description-en: Ubuntu-specific configuration defaults and apt support for Firefox
Adds Ubuntu-specific modifications to Firefox.
.
Integrates the browser with Ubuntu to:
* Enable searching for missing plugins from Ubuntu software catalog
* Add the following options to the Help menu
- Get help on-line
- Help translating Firefox
- Ubuntu Release Notes
* Set homepage to Ubuntu Start Page
* Display a restart notification after upgrading Firefox
* Add ask.com to the search engines.
.
You can uninstall this if you prefer to use a pristine Firefox install.
Description-md5: d3a589833861a3e410e82d2a68586881
Enhances: firefox
Homepage: https://launchpad.net/ubufox
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Origin: Ubuntu
Supported: 5y
Task: ubuntu-desktop, ubuntu-usb, kubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-full, kubuntu-active-desktop, kubuntu-active-full, edubuntu-desktop, edubuntu-usb, xubuntu-desktop, lubuntu-desktop, ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntu-gnome-desktop
Not needed in LL. So it's best to remove it.
sudo apt-get remove xul-ext-ubufox
It looks like Firefox uses two files to colect statistits for Canonical. I've removed them and added a seach engine from Mozilla website.
This is my idea on how to deal with this.
Ctrl+Alt+T then run
rm $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/searchplugins/duckduckgo.xml
sudo find /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale -name "duckduckgo.xml" -type f -exec rm {} \;
After removing duckduckgo.xml from all the locations I've visited next url and added duckduckgo
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?atype=4
This will stick untill the first update. And then you need to remove duckduckgo.xml from /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale/*/
If you remove it, Firefox will use the one in /home/username/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/searchplugins/duckduckgo.xml
Might be easier to save it as a script so you could run it with a mouse click.
Open the text editor paste next in it
#! /bin/bash
sudo find /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale -name "duckduckgo.xml" -type f -exec rm {} \;Then save it as fix-duckduckgo.sh, right click on the file -> make executable.
Next time firefox is updated just run the script.
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It looks like Firefox uses two files to colect statistits for Canonical. I've removed them and added a seach engine from Mozilla website.
Canonical and their tracking. -_-
Thanks.
Anyway, I wanted to ask something (so I don't create a new thread for a simple question).
Is there any way to get notified about updates without installing Ubuntu software center? I know it's not recommended to install from its updater.
Also AppArmor GUI / tool would be nice in the future, but not priority though. I still don't know if to use SElinux, Apparmor, or other.
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In the future please make a new thread, we don't want to confuse the other people. I've been "spanked" :) a few times about that before.
Is there any way to get notified about updates without installing Ubuntu software center?
Currently there is no such method. It is recommended to use the default updater in LL.
I haven't come across a GUI for the AppArmor. To tell you the truth I've never needed it. :)