In my opinion it is alarming that even a Linux community website uses Google Analytics although many privacy focused users probably use Ubuntu MATE. I absolutely do not want to undervalue the work of the UM Team for this website but I wonder whether it would be hard to replace Google Analytics with Matomo Analytics https://matomo.org/.
Nevertheless I love this distribution 
and its community!
Mickey 
My attitude towards Google worsen one more time after reading a newspaper article about the cooperation of Google with the Chinese government. According to this article the concern develops a censored search engine Maotai in China that blocks website e.g. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or search terms about human rights, religion and peaceful protest.
In a country where people are shown to the public on big screens next to the street with there names underneath because they walked across red traffic lights and in a country where every human has a social credit score and is being ranked by the government to get a better job or to be allowed to go by train, plane or bus, there has gone or is going something really wrong.
And Google supports this surveillance and censored country!
Everyone has to form an opinion about this issue, but for me it is one more reason why I avoid using their services.
Mickey 
@Mickey I don’t know where you read this, but it’s all wrong!
Google, Facebook and others were allowed in China, under one condition only… Collected datas about Chinese citizens should stay in China, which is IMO is absolutely normal and other countries like mine should take example as datas about us have nothing to do in USA, as USA can use those datas to make pressure on a country.
So Google, facebook and others did not respect the contract and continued to send datas in USA, So they were kicked out, and have no worries they got their own Facebook version (a copy of the one you know), their own Google remake (Baidu).
Now that Google want to go back in China, that’s normal, after all it’s a market of … 1.2 billion people and i hope they will never be allowed (they are starting to be evil in the bad sense of the word.
What China ask if Google respect his part, is that google do not show websites which collect datas and send them to USA, all the website you are speaking about are collecting datas and keep them in USA…
I went on a regular basis in China, i never saw what you said, people take the train, air plane whatever they want, when they want, imagine if they cannot… they won’t be any busness possible(and they are in the top 3). Plus if you ever went in China and saw how they drive, you will understand that people crossing at the red light and having their face on a TV is absolut B.S.
Of Course. Like Facebook, Google is designed to monitor and control::: Control and monitor. George Orwells 1984 was Google’s template.
According to duckduckgo, Google has *infected 75% of web sites with it’s Stalkerware AKA Google fonts and Google analytics. Google also controls what may or may not be used in web sites - if the site wants to be seen at all.
Mass brainwashing, or more like brain-wiping has the masses believing that Google is the second coming, can walk on water and turn it into wine. Unfortunately, there is no turning back. Children are already assimilated, and resistance was futile because their parents don’t have the time, the know-how, or care that their children belong to Google.
I remember when one “Surfed the Information Highway”. Today we browse the Google catalog and in exchange for that ‘free’ search service, we only need to let Google into our bedrooms.
I bet the cyber-war will be privacy against dictatorship by Google. When many religions describe Satan, well, look it up in any Bible, Koran, or whatever. They all describe Google - to a T!
just sayin’ s’all.
I
*infected = my word, not Duckduckgo
Your English is very good, but “he” and “him”??? Google is not a human being - yet. You praise the tools of Google but those tools would work just as well without Stalking it’s visitors. No web site, and that’s all Google is - a glorified web site with a load of sneaky stalkers disguised as Google “apps”.
When you use the analogy of us not telling our neighbour everything; that may be true, but we also only tell people what we want. With Google, they take what they want. We don;'t have a choice. Have you tried to “opt out” of the Google stalkers? You are met with a wall of links to hundreds of partners and Google apps that stalk you. You need to visit each site, then hunt down their opt-out option and fill in reams of information. The option should not be to opt out, rather the option should be to Opt In.
just sayin’ s’all
i.
This is how it works with governments and companies like Google. Governments who, over the last few decades, have been fully co-opted and are now the unambiguous servants of a ruling globalist, corporatist class;
Wait and see which information technology companies float to the top
Have the “conversation” with said companies to ensure they favour establishment narratives. This conversation will typically take the form of offering to indirectly subsidise their operation if they play ball and threatening to make life easier for their competitors if they don’t.
By favouring said companies, establish their complete market dominance and, in doing do, ensure the vast majority of users are now funnelled into their information communication technology services.
Having captured the majority of users, government then enacts surveillance and censorship, in the absence of any democratic accountability, via the proxy of “private company policy” of companies like Google, and Facebook.
The only question any individual citizen needs to ask themselves is at what point they will care enough about the above to refuse to play ball. Or, whether the convenience of access to services like Google and/or the hindrance of non-access means that Google et al’s state-sponsored surveillance and censorship is a price worth paying.
Answers will no doubt vary.
Not surprised by the answers on here. Fantasy and conspiracy theories are always more exciting than reality. It’s easy to forget how rubbish search engines were until Google came along. Even now, if you don’t use Google then you are making life difficult for yourself. Wouldn’t come anywhere near my list of evil companies; motor car manufacturers, oil producers, tobacco, palm oil producers, builders, junk food makers off the top of my head. If Google has a fault, it has made us more stupid.
Yes. Of course. All is well. Carry on.
Yes, it is easier to see just the great part of any company. It is more comfortable to use Google products blindfolded according to their disadvantages.
BTW, here is an interesting talk from Eric Grosse, Google’s security chief:
Hallo stevecook172001
I think we see similar difficulties with this particular altruistic mega-corp…
A plethora of choice can be a burden, effective monopolies bring their own problems.
They may be evil.
They may be intrusive.
They most certainly want your soul.
In exchange for it, or as little of it as you are able to give Google you have practically the best suite of research and management tools on the Internet for nothing more than the cost of your Internet connection. Sure they don’t do deep web analysis or provide some of the more obscure stuff search engines with a paywall might but if you are say, looking for a certain aggregated information that a lot of other people are probably looking for, they’re the ticket. Gmail’s plus-addresses are also a neat feature for filtering and using the same address with multiple accounts.
There’s a reason why Google is synonymous with search, advertising and life management, all in a single word. It’s sheer ubiquity, capability to find you the most relevant results based on query, ease of use for its communication services and capacity to hold all you can feed make it one of the most unrelenting oracles we have on the Internet.
As someone who usually goes down the path of least resistance and values practicality, the results I had received with Google as a general-purpose search platform is unparalleled, and I could never see myself without it, despite how “Evil” they are. Facebook is equally as bad, anything owned by Oath is also equally as bad… we should face some facts here. If anything you use has a corporate name attached to it, and isn’t just some passion project funded out-of-pocket for whoever works on it then it is bound to find some way of profiting from your very existence for as long as it can until death parts you from the world.
You’re already out there, somewhere. Unless you’re using Tor every single day, avoid video games like they’re evil fruits, communicate with people expressly in real life, decline government citizenship and services, use an identity separate from your birthname, conduct your own business in private, make exchanges only in cash and use a VPN for everything else then you’re not some ghost floating out of sight. You exist somewhere else, and you can be found.
Same as M$, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, Telecom and many many many many many more.
Most of you use a “proprietary OS” = Evil No1
Most of you use “Social Networks” = Evil No2
Most of you live in capitalist societies = Evil No3
Most of you use an “easy to use” OS cause you only want “to use” this computer.
I am wondering why you are complaining? You are already playing the game. You are in the game. But you are not the master of this game. Not as long as your pc is online and “living” online.
Of cause google is bad. But google is good too! 
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341d3df553ef0147e0e1aec2970b-pi
I know you do not want to hear it - but we (the consumers) have lost this game already. Maybe we could have changed something 20 years ago. But no one cared and no one fought at that time. Only a small group did. But the majority of the consumers did what consumers do = use/consume. And the industry is not interested in your privacy.
My two cents.
There is a BIG difference between those “rubbish” search engines (SEs) as you called them, and Google.
There was never a fee to use the real SEs. Google may not charge a dollar value, but most people put a value on their privacy, which Google dictates has no value. Google’s AI is used to respond to your searches based on your Google profile, and most of the content results Google provides, is for sale.
Google has shrunk the Internet into what Google feels is best for you based on your profile. Google controls the content and how content is displayed so they can stalk your visitors, as well as you.
Calling facts and figures a “conspiracy theory” is just a prime example of an assimilated Googie brainwashed by apps and superficial fluff. By all definitions, Google is a legalized Stalker - legal because only governments will have the tenacity to stop them, as many countries have done.
The differences between those SE’s you trashed and Google is, that with the SE’s, one would freely surf all of the ‘Information Highway’. Now one pays with their privacy to be led through the Google catalog while their electronic peeps follow them everywhere.
Google was ordered by the EU to stop profiling by scanning and AI’ing people using Gmail.
Did they stop scanning and profiling americans? NO! Because the U.S. governments buy that information using YOUR money to monitor YOU. It’s no “theory”. It’s a fact - Google it - they are proud of it.
Googies take note - resistance was futile - you have been assimilated - there is no escape - you are forever in their books and you are For Sale.
Google is NOT a search engine. It is a machine designed to use the ‘search’ scenario’ in exchange for stripping away our privacy, selling us products that we don’t want, need or care for, and to sell our profile to any advertiser and government with enough money. WE are Google’s product!
i
That’s a bit extreme. Google has succeeded because it gave people what it wanted through their search queries and before it expanded into a multi-billion dollar empire built upon the digital enslavement of people it was still a really good engine and one I preferred nine times out of ten, having found everything I ever wanted save for some super obscure things other engines also couldn’t find due to it being “Lost to time”.
Google’s M.O. isn’t just to quarter you for resale, it’s to make really good products which succeed in their functionality and provide their end-users the benefit of information they want, alongside with services which are the best of their trade, primarily because they have the money to make it happen through said invasion of privacy.
It’s a tough price to pay, and cold comfort knowing the government already owns you anyway.
It’s not extreme. It is merely stating the facts.
Before Google the biggest search engine was probably yahoo. This started off as a human indexed system, and it contracted out its automated searches to various other companies (at one point including Google) . All search engines would take somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute to provide the results, which were more often than not irrelevant to the query you had entered. Companies paid for their pages to be high up on the search index.
Then Google came along. Searches took seconds. Results were relevant. Pages were ranked purely by relevance.
Google became popular because it was better. Hugely better.
That’s akin to saying that slaves should stop complaining because their master gives them nice looking clothes.
I think comparing Google to slavery might be jumping the shark, bub.
Just because the bars are decorated with pretty ribbons, does not make the cages we all live in go away