Does Canonical track Ubuntu usage? If so, how? Are there "official" figures? Where can I find them?
I'm curious as to whether Canonical tracks Ubuntu usage, and if so how, whether there are "official" figures and where I can find them.
So, does Canonical track Ubuntu usage?
If so, how?
Are there "official" figures?
Where can I find them?
Note: I'm mostly interested in seeing such figures, if any exists.
The simple tl;dr answer is No - Canonical does NOT track Ubuntu usage.
That has been recently confirm by no other than Dustin Kirkland who is part of Canonical's Ubuntu Product and Strategy team.
Dustin goes on to speculate about Ubuntu usage - the only real figures are from third parties like Docker by examining pulls from their repo.
Other figures are indirect - so speculate all you like - Dustin claims 1 billion Ubuntu users (both direct and indirect users via a Ubuntu provided service).
Basically - be proud - Ubuntu is used by lots and lots of users - you are not tracked; you belong to a massive and free community.
type privacy in dash,
select security & privacy,
3
check the settings there, you will find what canonical is/can track and you can disable it.
Yes, starting in 18.04 Ubuntu will send the following to Canonical:
- Which version of Ubuntu you’re installing (including which flavor)
- Whether you have network connectivity
- Hardware stats, including CPU, RAM, GPU, etc
- Your device vendor (e.g., Dell, Lenovo, etc)
- Your country
- How long your install took to complete
- Whether you have autologin enabled
- Your disk layout
- Whether you chose to install third-party codecs
- Whether you chose to download updates during install
However, there will be options available in the installer and system settings to disable these. Canonical also says that they will make most or all of this information public.
Source
So, does Canonical track Ubuntu usage?
Yes, it does.
If so, how?
Are there "official" figures?
Where can I find them?
You can find the answers at Privacy Policy published by Canonical.