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Canonical
Basic information
Founded 2004
Type Private company limited by shares
Industry Computer Software
Official website https://www.canonical.com/


Canonical is a software company best known for creating Ubuntu. It is largely funded by South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth.

Upstreaming

Alongside Red Hat and Google, Canonical makes up a substantial portion of upstream security patches in the Linux ecosystem. They maintain AppArmor,[1] a Linux security system that proactively manages threats, Snap,[2] a Linux appstore with sandbox support, and Livepatch,[3] a system to patch the Linux kernel without needing to reboot.

Tracking

Canonical is collecting user telemetry from Snap,[4] which is shipped by default in Ubuntu.[5]

Previously, Canonical sent local file search queries to their own servers, which were used to recommend ads on Amazon.[6] In 2014, this feature was removed.[7]

In 2018, telemetry tracking for hardware components, software configuration, and crashes has been added in an opt-out model.[8]

Ads

Running apt update in the terminal shows an ad for Ubuntu Pro
Running apt update in the terminal shows an ad for Ubuntu Pro

Canonical started adding opt-out[9] ads for their Ubuntu Pro service to apt when updating Ubuntu in September of 2022.[10]

References

  1. "AppArmor". AppArmor. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. "The app store for Linux". Snapcraft. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. "Livepatch". Livepatch. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. "Snap Store metrics". Snapcraft. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. "Installing snap on Ubuntu". Snapcraft. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. Stallman, Richard (12 Jul 2012). "Ubuntu Spyware: What to do?". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. Hoffman, Chris (29 Oct 2014). "Ubuntu's Unity 8 desktop will remove the Amazon search 'spyware'". PCWorld. Retrieved 16 Mar 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. https://superuser.com/questions/1311588/how-to-opt-out-usage-data-collection-in-ubuntu-18-04-bionic
  9. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1434512/how-to-get-rid-of-ubuntu-pro-advertisement-when-updating-apt. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/10/ubuntu-pro-terminal-ad