Smart Scopes: Good or bad or just plain horrible

[MadmanRB]

I decided to make a poll about this as I do hope I am not alone in my dislike for the new smart scopes in Ubuntu 13.10.
I mean holy crud does smart scopes bite the proverbial gluteus maximus.
I know you can turn them off but it is yet another "feature" of Ubuntu I feel is un needed, un nessasary and very annoying.
But I digress that is my opinion, but I do want to know what you think.

[viking777]

It comes to something when the main 'feature' of a new Linux release is the addition of up to 100 pieces of spyware (sorry, scopes). They have lost the plot and ought to be completely ignored until they regain it. It is not often I agree with Richard Stallman, but he is absolutely right on this one, boycott the Unity desktop until the spyware is removed - and I say this even though I think Unity is the best DE the Linux world has ever had by a very long way (or it was until they removed dodge windows, another very unsmart move).

[K7AAY]

I switched to Xubuntu and so did www.FreeGeek.org - every machine going out the door (including school and non-profit donations) is scope-free, Unity-free.

[QIII]

That's because Unity is not really suited well to the older hardware they get donated. I don't know that it has anything at all to do with things like the shopping lens.

I asked them about this some time ago when it was announced that 2D Unity was going away.

[orb9220]

I switched to Xubuntu and so did www.FreeGeek.org - every machine going out the door (including school and non-profit donations) is scope-free, Unity-free.

Glad to hear it from another portlander and was even a volunteer building them there back in 2003?
FreeGeeks is an Outstanding place and resource for people here in the Portland area.
Helping other's to help themselves in attaining a computer,Learn about Free Software and learning computers with their free classes.

And an outlet for giving back by becoming a volunteer,contributer of old systems or just donate cash to.
A great non-profit I wished was emulated in other major cities. Some cities have similar programs but not at FreeGeeks level.

And the majority of recipients volunteering their time to receive one of these free computers.
Doesn't need to be bogged down with buy me things. As the majority of them couldn't afford the products anyways.
.

[Erik1984]

I'm fine with Unity but the smart scopes just annoy me. Especially with the default settings where all the internet sources come together and (sometimes) useful scopes like Wikipedia get mixed with commercial results which are completely irrelevant to your search. That's maybe the biggest issue, the shopping and music store results just don't make sense most of the time. I'm not talking about the privacy stuff here, just the precision of the results.

[jeehyun]

Most scopes/lens are not useful for non english user. It's only for US, UK and commonwealth countries.
And I can't delete scopes/lens. Of course I can't add my scopes/lens.
It's not good.

[philinux]

I'n fine with unity having got used to it for years now. On the topic of scopes etc I have online results turned Off. Simples.

The debate as to whether they should be on or off by default is another matter.

[viking777]

A surprising feature of this thread is that (to date) it has been available for 5 days and yet only 15 people can be bothered to vote on what I consider to be such an important issue. I am used to my views being out of the mainstream, but I didn't think they were that far out!

For me the problem with scopes is not that they exist, there is a whole 'Facebook' generation for whom the concept of privacy having value is completely alien, their problem is that they are forcibly imposed upon me if I want to use Unity (Facebook isn't imposed on anyone). Yes I know you can switch them off, but that is not good enough, scopes should be opt in, not opt out. There are a couple of ways this could easily be done and which would satisfy the concerns of both the privacy and non-privacy lobby. The first is to have the whole scopes project as an installable application in Ubuntu repos, this solves the problem with the least effort. The second method is to ask people during the distro install/upgrade if they want to have them or not. Add another screen explaining what scopes are, explaining why some people are concerned about them and allowing each individual to choose to install or otherwise. This is in the spirit of Linux. For those that choose to install them, then at first boot up they should be presented with the choice to enable them all, choose which to enable, or enable them at a later time, they should never be enabled by default. More complicated than the first option but still in the spirit of Linux.

It must be terribly galling for those contributors to Linux that have fought to keep its values over the years to see them subverted as Canonical are trying here, it makes me wonder if the next Ubuntu release should be renamed 'Treacherous Turncoat' but I don't suppose it will be.

[deadflowr]

A surprising feature of this thread is that (to date) it has been available for 5 days and yet only 15 people can be bothered to vote on what I consider to be such an important issue. I am used to my views being out of the mainstream, but I didn't think they were that far out!

Actually, this is just an extension of the amazon dash search function, so it's really been discussed ad nauseum for over a year now.

This adds nothing new to the discussion(s).