{"id":227811,"date":"2026-03-26T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/4-times-open-source-apps-broke-their-users-trust\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T14:35:11","slug":"4-times-open-source-apps-broke-their-users-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/26\/4-times-open-source-apps-broke-their-users-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"4 times open-source apps broke their users&#8217; trust"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/times-open-source-apps-violated-their-users-privacy\/\">4 times open-source apps broke their users&#8217; trust<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/times-open-source-apps-violated-their-users-privacy\/\">https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/times-open-source-apps-violated-their-users-privacy\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-03-26 09:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.howtogeek.com\">www.howtogeek.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Preserving privacy is one of the primary reasons that many turn to open-source software. Unfortunately, publicly available source code hasn\u2019t stopped some apps from breaking their users\u2019 trust. Here are some of the most high-profile worst offenses.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"ubuntu-12-10\">\n                        Ubuntu 12.10<br \/>\n               <\/h2>\n<h3 id=\"the-time-canonical-added-amazon-listings-to-your-search-results\">\n            The time Canonical added Amazon listings to your search results<br \/>\n    <\/h3>\n<p>In the mid-2000s, Ubuntu became the most well-known version of desktop Linux, attracting many due to its relative ease of use. But during the height of its popularity, the project also toyed with moves that many Linux users were uncomfortable with.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest controversy came with the release of Ubuntu 12.10 in 2012, when Ubuntu\u2019s parent company Canonical introduced Amazon store listings into the Unity Dash search results. If you tapped the Ubuntu icon at the top of your screen and began typing in search of apps or files, you would also see stuff you could buy from Amazon. In order to do this, what you typed had to be sent to Amazon\u2019s servers, prompting sites like ours to tell you how to disable tracking in Ubuntu.<\/p>\n<p>This way for Canonical to make money from affiliate links lasted for four years before eventually going away in Ubuntu 16.04. Unfortunately, the pre-installed Amazon web app would live on until Ubuntu 20.04.<\/p>\n<p>                                            \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t                                                    &#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/times-open-source-apps-violated-their-users-privacy\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>4 times open-source apps broke their users&#8217; trust https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/times-open-source-apps-violated-their-users-privacy\/ Publish Date: 2026-03-26 09:30:00 Source Domain:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":227812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static0.howtogeekimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/a-windows-and-a-linux-screen-with-tux-in-the-center.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71,79],"class_list":["post-227811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux","tag-ubuntu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227813,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227811\/revisions\/227813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}