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

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

Upstreaming edit

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 edit

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]

References edit

  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