Beware: Zorin OS sends anonymous pings every 60 minutes to their servers

[Valtam]

Can anyone tell me if they told people about this software before they distributed it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeAsInFreedom..._every_60/

[firenice03]

Googled and found... https://zorinos.com/legal/privacy/before-31-may-2018/


But still thou....

[Valtam]

Privacy Policy aside, I mean like in a Press Release of some kind eg. Zorin X.x Released - New Features, zorin-census etc etc
Or is it just in a Privacy Policy?

[firenice03]

I think there would be better means of guessing an active user count... besides how they do...

which includes an anonymous unique identifier for your computer. We use this information to count the number of active users of Zorin OS. The unique identifier does not identify you, unless you (or someone acting on your behalf) discloses it separately.

Funny too - you have to choose to send an error report with the same identifiers -- HUH go figure...


I'll stick with LL  ;D

[Valtam]

Looks like they have done an Ubuntu, only worse. By first, not making a public announcement about this new software when it was first introduced (happy to be corrected here) and second, having no easy opt-out for the new linux user built in from the beginning, instead, expecting people to go into the Terminal to remove the spyware.

Sh*t like this REALLY irkes me! Here we are, trying to promote linux to Windows folk, telling them it's privacy respecting, then going and doing something like this. It's always two steps forward, one step backwards with linux #soannoyed

[Artim]

Is invading the users' privacy without saying so becoming "the new normal?"  I'm with [member=2]Jerry[/member] on this one.  It only takes one such instance to set Linux back in the "marketplace" of OSes.

[supergamer]

It is worse than that, sort of along the same lines but if you have Cairo dock installed and update to the 19.04 base, it installs Nautilus and with that comes package miners (I am not sure exactly what package has those perquisites in them but Cairo dock used to not need Nautilus so it really doesn't matter). None of this is told to a user and I had to find it out why performance was sucking at that level. Just some warnings from my testing as I am sure it is going to get worse. A clean install of the mini 19.10 Xubuntu iso does not have those in there just to let everyone know.

[TheDead]

I understand the need for a software developper to have a baseline somewhere for there product.
If you HAVE to know when people install your software, just make it open a one time webpage when it's done, sending a +1 to your database.
ADD : Even better, a webpage explaning and ASKING to confirm install before sending the info.
More infos or frequency than that is quite irrelavent I think and if the computer is not internet connected, which is quite rare nowadays, you will not have the info anyways.
It's called margin or error.

[trinidad]

Debian popularity contest has been around for a long time, but the installer on the ISO offers the option to not install it. I opt in now because of the hoopla over wayland and SSH X11 forwarding. I do not opt in to any Mozilla data collection unless it's absolutely necessary like the problem last year that fast tracked the solution under studies. Some server connections can require pre-connection testing for load distribution. Maybe Zorin's servers are potentially becoming over-loaded, or they are looking for a usage guideline number compared to bandwidth to project for the future. Obviously they should have asked. They probably considered it trivial (had no interest in user data, only usage, potential load) and did not build an opt in into the ISO. Dumb but not MS evil.

TC

[Valtam]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBI4Cl4rM6o