Worst review(er) I've ever read

[kansasnoob]

I'm just about to lose it! What the heck is this:

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?is...121029#feature

What totally blows my mind is where he says:

After a day and a half of using Ubuntu 12.10 it was an internal struggle not to wipe my hard drive and just find another distribution to review. During the first twenty-four hours Ubuntu spied on me, provided performance which was distinctly sub par

Just freakin' nuts

[sffvba[e0rt]

Meh.


404

[kansasnoob]

In a later post the reviewer says:

Unless you specifically disable the feature Ubuntu monitors your activity, keyword searches and keystrokes. Some of these, along with your IP address, are transmitted to third parties. As to how i found out, check the privacy settings in your System Settings panel and read the project's legal notice (I linked to the appropriate documents in my review).

I think it's important that we clear that up!

There is undoubtedly some truth to that but that could easily be misconstrued to the point that folks will think their personal passwords and such are at risk in Ubuntu.

BS is BS no matter which way the wind is blowing! Sometimes the smell is just more overwhelming - this is one of those times.

[offgridguy]

I am more interested in this part of the review.

provided performance which was distinctly sub par

[bryanl]

One man's bug is another's feature ...

and it looks like those who think all features are bugs tend to be more emotional and expressive.

There is also the purist envy thing going on as well and that is tied into anti-capitalist and related ideologies (i.e. it is nearly religious). That is why Ubuntu, especially, is so frequently a target for venemous reviews.

It is an interesting phenomena to study and there have been some papers written about it. The 'privacy' part of this gets a lot of attention which is interesting because the same folks with all the worry about privacy also tend to be those most interested in community and relationships. The smiley in my sidebar - - seems quite appropriate here for some reason.

[jrog]

In a later post the reviewer says:



I think it's important that we clear that up!

There is undoubtedly some truth to that but that could easily be misconstrued to the point that folks will think their personal passwords and such are at risk in Ubuntu.

BS is BS no matter which way the wind is blowing! Sometimes the smell is just more overwhelming - this is one of those times.

What part of what the reviewer said in the passage that you quoted is BS, exactly? It looks as though there is not only "some truth" to what is said in that passage, but complete truth.

What's more, I believe there was (is?) some reasonable concern that even your personal passwords could be transmitted by mistake. Here is how. Suppose that you have a terminal open and are about to enter your password (perhaps for some command you are running with 'sudo'). As you are typing, you accidentally hit the Windows key (perhaps with your palm or with a missed attempt to strike 'z', or 'x', or 'SHIFT', or perhaps because you're using a laptop and you accidentally tapped the touchpad with your palm while the pointer was over the Ubuntu logo on the launcher), which causes Dash to open. Since you are a speedy typist, you didn't stop entering your password immediately after accidentally hitting the Windows key (or tapping the touchpad, or whatever), so a few stray characters from your password got entered into Dash's search bar. Those characters from your password are transmitted, AFAIK. This could be a substantial part of your password, particularly if your password is not very long. (There are other possibilities here, too; a new, inexperienced user -- e.g., my grandmother -- might not understand exactly what that bar on Dash is, and think that she should enter her password there. If she does so, it is transmitted, AFAIK.)

You might think that that's no real problem, because whatever is typed in Dash is transmitted securely (over HTTPS) to Canonical's servers. However, there's more to the story. With online search enabled by default, whatever you type is also transmitted to Amazon's servers (along with your IP address), as well as to other servers (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, BBC). In the case of Amazon at least, Amazon's servers return search results based on what you typed, and those search results are not returned securely, but are instead returned over a normal (insecure) HTTP connection. This allows someone snooping in on your connection to gather information about what you typed into Dash. It may have been your password. It also may have been something else that you don't want others to know about. It is at least disconcerting.

Here are two links with more information about the privacy issues:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/1...and-data-leaks
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012...mazon-privacy/

[snowpine]

I haven't tried 12.10 yet, but if it's half as bad as 12.04 (which I used extensively) then it deserves the bad review. Surely everyone is entitled to their opinion?

[mips]

I haven't tried 12.10 yet, but if it's half as bad as 12.04 (which I used extensively) then it deserves the bad review. Surely everyone is entitled to their opinion?

Not over here, you can't say bad things about Ubuntu here. It's kinda like going onto a apple forum and saying bad things about os x. It's frowned upon.

[snowpine]

Not over here, you can't say bad things about Ubuntu here. It's kinda like going onto a apple forum and saying bad things about os x. It's frowned upon.

The bad review was on distrowatch.com.

[KiwiNZ]

Following my experience with 12.10 I would have to agree with review, however I would be somewhat less generous about the performance, it is very poor.