How to create a USB flash drive without the spyware?

[susanne260]

I tried to create an Ubuntu USB flash drive with the “persistence” option turned on with the Universal-USB-Installer, because I wanted to remove the spyware feature and not have to do it every single time I boot from the USB drive, but Ubuntu was incredibly slow with the persistence file.

So, I re-created the USB drive without the persistence file. But now I have to manually remove the spyware every time I use it.

Is there a modified ISO image I could download that doesn't have the spyware? Any other solutions?

[axel668]

You can try another version that doesn't include the spyware, like Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Ubuntu Gnome Remix, or you can switch to Linux Mint (which is 99% Ubuntu, too, under the hood).

Or you can create a custom LiveCD as described here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization

[Sealbhach]

I'm using Debian with XFCE on a USB stick right now. I started up the Debian CD in a Virtualbox machine and installed it directly onto the USB as if it were a regular hard drive. I never found the persistent option installs to be satisfactory, but this Debian install is working great. It takes a little more effort to get Debian up and running OK, but it's worth it. Very quick and efficient and low memory usage.

.

[sudodus]

You can try another version that doesn't include the spyware, like Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Ubuntu Gnome Remix, or you can switch to Linux Mint (which is 99% Ubuntu, too, under the hood).

Or you can create a custom LiveCD as described here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization

+1
Not only that, they are faster to boot and to run too, particularly Lubuntu with the ultra light-weight desktop environment LXDE

[susanne260]

I had almost forgotten about Xubuntu and Lubuntu, thanks for reminding me.

I'll try them. It looks like they aren't as bloated as Ubuntu, which is another bonus. I'll also give Debian a try later.

[prodigy_]

Low performance with persistence is a result of frequent writes. Mounting / with noatime and removing journal with

tune2fs -O ^has_journal $(mount -l|grep " on / "|cut -d' ' -f1)

could help a lot.

[n4pgw]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the spyware on the USB stick?

It sounds like something Ubuntu is installing when formatting....

A little scary here.

[3rdalbum]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the spyware on the USB stick?

It sounds like something Ubuntu is installing when formatting....

A little scary here.

Don't be scared, it's just a search engine. People spreading FUD have called it "spyware" but it's no more spyware than Google.com.

[mick222]

It annoys me people using Ubuntu and being so down on it for trying to make it support itself. If the price of free software is an easily removed link to Amazon why complain. There are plenty of distros out there that you could use instead.

[susanne260]

Don't be scared, it's just a search engine. People spreading FUD have called it "spyware" but it's no more spyware than Google.com.

Ubuntu should NOT send users' personal information to anyone by default if they search for their own files! This is unbelievable.

New users might not even know how to disable it right away. And if you go to google.com you know that you are searching the web, not from your own files.

And to make it even worse, the results are sent back over plain HTTP, so that anyone could easily listen in between. Why don't you fetch the images over HTTPS at the very least?