i'm hoping you are only getting downvoted because of language (although, really?) and not because this tech forum has forgotten about ubuntu 12 or 14 where they integrated web search into the desktop search (like spotlight or find in windows) to show targeted ads.

I haven't used ubuntu desktop in 12 years because of that nonsense. I'm forced to use ubuntu server, though - although thanks to python3 venv and docker that's becoming less so as time wears on.

That's a long grudge to hold over a feature that was reconsidered and removed.

Maybe, but Canonical didn't learn and are back to pushing advertising and forcing unwanted changes.

To say it rather politely, the mindset exposed by introducing this feature is unlikely to go away.

As shown by Mozilla.

canonical has some of the most ridiculous IT job postings i’ve come across. just sounds like a bananas software shop. didn’t give me much confidence in whatever they cooking up in there

i started with RH (Non-EL) back in the mid-to-late 90s, and switched to gentoo as soon as one of my best (programmer) friends gushed about how much better of an admin it had made them[0], so i started down that path - by the time AWS appeared, we were both automating everything, using build (pump) servers, etc. I like debian, a lot - really! I think apt is about the best non-technical-user package manager, and the packages that were available without having to futz with keyrings was great.

Ubuntu spent a lot of time, talent, and treasure on trying to migrate people off windows instead of being a consistent, great OS. It is still with great dread that i open docs for some new package/program linked to from HN or elsewhere; dread that the first instruction is "start with ubuntu 18.04|20.04".

[0] They actually maintained the unofficial gentoo AWS images for over a decade. unsure if they still do, it could be automated to run a new build off every quarter. https://github.com/genewitch/gentoo/blob/master/gentoo_auto.... (a really old version of the script i keep to remind me that automation is possible with nearly everything...)

Not really.