Ubuntu Ads In the Terminal, Snap disrespecting user trust, is this real in 2026
Posted by ghoultek@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 54 comments
I've been recommending folks/newbies avoid raw Ubuntu for desktop use. I recommend that they should instead opt for Linux Mint, Pop_OS, or Tuxedo OS. This was due to the install counter and other telemetry components like popularity contest. A buddy of mine sent me a text with a youtube video link and asked what's up with ads on Ubuntu. Video ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzASGvSGF3M
This is crazy to me in 2026. Many users, especially newbies, lose patience with Micro$oft with telemetry being a major motivating factor for their departure from that platform. So, Ubuntu eroding and violating user trust yet again is insane. Silently dragging Snap on to a system through stubs in the repository is just nuts.
PaddyLandau@reddit
I'm not going to watch AI slop, nor will I believe it.
I've been with Ubuntu for many years, and apart from that brief blip with Amazon, which to Canonical's credit they listened to the criticism and stopped doing it, there have been zero advertisements on Ubuntu.
Ads in the terminal? I'll believe it when I see it.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
Your statement about no ads in the terminal contradicts u/doc_willis ( https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1sk6cnn/comment/ofwu0nd/ ), and multiple other sources on the subject.
PaddyLandau@reddit
Well, I've yet to see an advertisement in the terminal. I use it nearly every day.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
See my comment here ==> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1sk6cnn/comment/ofzahul/
Notice the youtube links. There is no evidence showing up in google search results stating explicitly that Canonical has removed ads in the terminal or removed silent Snap installs. I searched r/linux before posting and still was unable to reach certainty. I posed a direct question in the thread title, because I could not determine if Canonical had discontinued their practice in regard to the 2 issues raised. This means that they started way back when and continue it now in 2026.
I get the anti-AI sentiment and I'm with the community members on NOT trusting AI, but the anti-AI sentiment seems to have blinded folks.
PaddyLandau@reddit
It's not that I don't trust it so much as I don't trust whoever created that slop, plus it's disgusting to watch. Real people are so much better. If YouTube and YouTube Music had an option to hide all AI slop, I would choose it. There is plenty of high-quality content produced by hard-working people; I don't need AI slop that I could create myself in five minutes.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
This is literally what I wrote in my comment that I linked to:
This isn't AI generated content with 3 eyes, a partial 3rd lip, a few extra fingers, and humanoid with an oddly shaped cranium. You didn't bother to look at the video, assumed it was pure slop, and was blinded by your anti-AI bias to the point that you never bothered to address the direct question in the title. I can appreciate you contributing your anecdotal evidence of not encountering ads in the terminal, but you are 10 miles off the road, in a ditch, surrounded by tall weeds. Your rush to judgement put you there.
As far as you not trusting it (AI) goes, you did say:
Your lack of belief implies a lack of trust, and the negative connotation of the word "slop" further indicates a lack of trust. Make no mistake, I don't trust AI. Skepticism with AI is healthy in my book, but don't get tunnel visioned based on distrust to the point that you miss the topic/question posed. The question wasn't nakedly posed with zero effort. I did google, youtube, and reddit search before posting. I was unable to arrive at certainty of issue removal so, I turned to a community of well informed humans.
doc_willis@reddit
I am guessing they are calling the "motd" text that sometimez mentions the ESM / Ubuntu Pro features, and I recall some 'ubuntu is hiring " message ages ago.
MezBert@reddit
Yeah, those youtube channels can be dramatic or spew nonsense, especially when infested with AI.
I have a back-up Ubuntu partition on on-development 26.04, and there are no ads in my terminal.
As for snaps, I won't lie that they're a bit invasive, and I've personally blocked them (and flatpaks too).
But I haven't seen a single person crying over the force push of flatpaks into Fedora, although being a very similar corporate-backed mechanism. Double standards to follow a certain narrative, sadly.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
If there are advertisements pushed to the user via terminal, the desktop, app. or applet, then it is serious. This isn't nonsense to folks who do not wish to be an advertisement target or be surveilled. Its a bad idea to be dismissive of a core reason for leaving Micro$oft and Apple. If the innocuous push ads are allowed, surveillance components are not far behind to allow for narrow focused targeting of advertisement and/or to sell collected surveillance data. Most who dismiss ads miss the point of telemetry creep over time.
onlysubscribedtocats@reddit
This is utter bullshit of course. Surveillance-less untargeted advertisements have existed for hundreds of years, and still exist. And as far as advertisements go, 'thanks for using our free product—here's how you get support' is a perfectly benevolent advertisement.
Make a mental note to yourself. If in five or ten or however many years Canonical has not attempted to introduce surveillance ads into their terminal, will you do some self-reflection?
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
I, as the user and owner, of the hardware and internet connect, get to determine if, how and when I want to support or not support a free product. If being subjected to unsolicited advertisements crossing my eyeballs (support) is mandatory then the product isn't free. I don't allow ads on my hardware, desktop, terminal, etc. I will not offer support in that manner, thus my statement is NOT bullshit. You might allow such adverts and you are within your rights to make such a determination. Neither Canonical nor any other entity has the right to make that choice for users.
onlysubscribedtocats@reddit
It is free, and it is not mandatory. You can turn it off.
Yes it is. 'If the innocuous push ads are allowed, surveillance components are not far behind' is completely unsubstantiated.
They literally do. If you hate advertisements in your free product, don't use it.
You're being incredibly paranoid about this. I don't like most advertisements, but I recognise that a functioning society requires some way of conveying to people that Things Exist. If there's a new bakery in my neighbourhood, I'd like to read about it in my city newspaper. If there's a new and temporary cultural exhibition in town, I don't mind seeing a banner next to the local skate park. I like bread, and I like culture, and my community is improved when knowledge of these things is conveyed.
But modern ads have a few problems. There's the hypercapitalist ones that invade public spaces and attempt to manipulate our feelings rather than conveying knowledge of Things Existing. Then there's the digital ones that require surveillance to hyper-specifically target us.
But that doesn't mean that literally all advertisements are bad.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
If I have to turn it off that means I'm being subjected to something that I don't want and was unsolicited. My time spent turning it off isn't free and the bandwidth that I pay for isn't free. I do not consent to unsolicited adverts being fed to me over connection that I pay for. You are welcome to consent to it on your time and your dime.
Are you blind to how capitalism and market forces work? Starting with something seemingly innocuous is not by accident. It is to lower trust and build a habit of acceptance. Accept a little now, and accept a little more over time. I'm sure you are aware of the concept of feature and mission creep. Broadcasting adverts is the mission in this context and is implemented as a feature. Once acceptance of innocuous adverts is established over some time, it is a matter of time before someone wants to target their advert message to specific groups. Maybe I'm giving you too much credit and you don't understand how marketing and advertising work. Google "are innocuous adverts a precursor to targeted advertising". I'll leave you to it.
Notice that you are consenting to adverts, where as I don't. Consent is not automatic. Laws and policies govern advertisements, which is part of the reason why corporations employ legal user agreement contracts. You cannot expect me to buy into you being unaware of this, when this subreddit is dedicated to discussing the intentionally copy-lefted entity called "Linux".
You pose an innocuous example. However, changing the content of the adverts would immediately change acceptance. What do I mean? Change the advert content from an announcement about a new bakery to something that is pr0n0gr4phic in nature and it would be rejected out right. Adverts being good or bad basically are irrelevant from the stand point of me rejecting as a whole, from the start.
Where as you consent to being used, I don't consent to being a free opportunity for someone to make a buck off of me. Those innocuous adverts amount to $$$, and not tiny amounts. Again, they are NOT free if I'm paying for the infrastructure that they are delivered over (my internet connection). Just because we don't share similar views on adverts does not make me paranoid. I posed a direct and legit question in the thread title.
creamcolouredDog@reddit
The difference is that dnf does not install flatpaks or snaps over rpm packages
BashfulMelon@reddit
Flatpak has also been widely accepted by the community as a distribution format, and anyone can run a Flatpak repository which AFAIK still isn't possible with Snap.
MezBert@reddit
It hasn't though.
It's still marginal and even flatpak installs of Steam decrease consistently.
It's not because a bunch of Red Hat e-mails create some narrative around it being adopted by the community than it's reality.
BashfulMelon@reddit
Sorry, I don't live on your planet. I live on the planet where the most popular consumer Linux device is the Steam Deck which relies on Flatpak for third party apps. Maybe on your planet Red Hat tells Valve what to do?
MezBert@reddit
For me neither. I used
I also added flatpak to my IgnoreGroup in Arch-based distros as they can be insidiously installed if you don't pay attentionin large updates and proceed.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
I don't use Snap at all and the only flatpak I've used is ProtonUp-Qt. It is convenient but I'm not married to the idea of using it. Fedora in the past seriously considered integrating a telemetry system throughout distro. The integration would have been in a similar manner to how Snap is integrated into Ubuntu, which is to say that it would be akin to fat build up around and in between layers of muscle tissue and organs in the abdomen. Worse than seriously considering telemetry integration, the management team attempted employ sane-washing and political spin techniques, to sell it to the user base. The user based bucked immediately.
MutualRaid@reddit
You are posting a channel which pivoted to AI slop some time ago, what you're watching is synthetic - the face, the voice, the background, all of it.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
Thank you for the info. The video author's content is not something I frequent. However, the content of the video is what I'm most concerned with. What Ubuntu does that is harmful, affects how the other distros are viewed. This is especially true with how rumors/misinformation spreads. Many users are scared to interact with the terminal due to fear of complexity. Ads in the terminal will push folks to say "I'm not touching that thing" or might motivate them to leave Linux. When trust is violated and one has been burned, avoidance is the path of least resistance.
onlysubscribedtocats@reddit
that's rich from someone whose trust was violated by believing ai slop to be real.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
There are multiple sources on the web and other youtube videos bringing up the subject of adverts in the terminal and snap components being silently installed. Some are from well known voices in the Linux community. So, even if the voice and imagery are synthetic, the validity of the claims is what I'm most concerned about. Would you feel differently if the topic was raised by Wendell of Level1Linux, Chris Titus, Matthew Moore, Quidsup, KeepItTechie, or Brodie Robertson?
onlysubscribedtocats@reddit
Yes. Anything an AI says is null and void, and cannot be trusted. I will not listen to it, and neither should you. By giving any credence to AI's words, you allow yourself to be manipulated by big tech, which is doubly rich when you oppose advertisements so much.
If a human says something, I might pay attention. It depends on the human, and it depends on the arguments.
People who have a meaningful message to spread can put in a little effort to present their message themselves. Those who use AI instead either don't care that much, or are trying to maliciously manipulate public opinion with spam.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
I can understand your anti-AI sentiment. However, I never stated or implied that I trusted AI. According to the video description only the audio in some languages was AI generated. It does not indicate if the English language audio was AI generated. The video does not look like it as AI generated. It looks like a human standing with a green screen rendered video behind them, and some typical video editing elements added. So please to don't claim that I'm giving credence to AI's words. I cosigned nothing.
I asked...
You responded yes. Here is: * Brodie 3+ years ago ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8jz4snEjiI * "Linux User Space" a little over a year ago ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik5srDPTA3U
The 2 videos above do not appear to be AI generated. So now I've included human youtubers. There are other sources both on and off youtube that raise these issues, but do not explicitly state that Canonical been removed the issues. There is also the issue of the CVE that was raised in the video. I've confirmed via other sources that the CVE is real.
As stated in my comment here ( https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1sk6cnn/comment/ofyybh2/ ) I posed my question (is this real in 2026) in r/linux is because: * a friend asked me about the claims in the video, I had no idea about them, and I was unable to determine if Canonical had removed the issues * I searched r/linux and was unable to determine if Canonical had removed the issues * I don't use or recommend raw Ubuntu or derivatives that use Snap, because I'm against Snap and Ubuntu's track record of telemetry * I've intentionally been disconnected from discussions about Ubuntu due to my avoidance
Your anti-AI sentiment seems to have blinded you to question I posed and the additional material in the video's description. My post was not about promoting AI content, but asking a question about the validity of the claims.
ExactFun@reddit
Ai or not, these complaints have been around for like a decade and are barely relevant anymore. Can you imagine people still bitching about Windows 7 or Vista? Like... Macroslop doesnt need a great hits to be shitty.
That said... I think ai and groupthink work hand in hand to making opinions on the internet fuckin dead and homogenous.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
Do you mean that ads in the terminal on Ubuntu and Snap components being silently installed have been around for a decade? I googled and found that there are other sources bring up both issues. From googling I was not able to determine that Canonical removed either issue. If they haven't removed either issue then the issues are not merely something in the past but they remain in the present. As I stated in another comment, I have been disconnected from discussions about Ubuntu for many years, avoid raw Ubuntu, and recommend to others to avoid raw Ubuntu. I instead recommend polished derivatives such as Linux Mint, Pop_OS, and Tuxedo OS (these don't have Snap). I also recommend against Kubuntu and KDE Neon because both employ Snap. However, there reddit users who still recommend Ubuntu to newbies. Those who recommend Ubuntu to newbies might not know about the terminal ads or silent Snap component installs. There is an even higher chance that a newbie has no knowledge about the issues.
I can understand the anti-Ai sentiment and I don't trust AI. I did not know the video was made with AI or that the channel had switched to producing content with AI (as some claim). However, this is not a "group think" incident as again I've not used Ubuntu for more than a decade. The fact that I've intentionally been disconnected from Ubuntu (and discussions about it) is part of the reason for me raising the question. Part of the reason for me posing the question here in r/linux, is because a friend asked me about the issues raised in the video and I had no idea about it. Please keep in mind that I searched r/linux before posting and was unable to determine if Canonical removed either issue.
Whether Ubuntu is more or less stable than Windows 11 is an entirely separate conversation. I'm still not going to use or recommend Ubuntu or any derivative that uses Snap by default.
JvPeek@reddit
I mean.. they had amazon ads in the sidebar 13 years ago. That was when i stopped suggesting Ubuntu to new users.
MezBert@reddit
It's not like you could remove it in about 1 second...
JvPeek@reddit
Sure you can. But you can also remove copilot in Windows 11.
MezBert@reddit
How? I couldn't last time I had to work with Windows (10). I have yet to use Windows 11.
JvPeek@reddit
To be honest: I don't know. But i see people claiming that you can. My last Windows I used daily was XP.
My point is: I use Linux so I DO NOT have to remove a bunch of crap I don't want. I want my PC to serve me and not a corporation.
MezBert@reddit
That's a fair point. I can definitely hear it, as it's the same for me.
But I have never fought against Ubuntu for hours on end to remove crap, like I did 20 years ago when I was still on Windows.
It's usually something I can deal with in a few minutes.
I honestly spend more time removing some stuff from a certain company I find extremely toxic than some bloat from Ubuntu.
Designer-Tax-8923@reddit
wild how canonical keeps shooting themselves in foot with this stuff. been telling people to skip ubuntu for years now and this just makes it worse
mint really is the way to go for anyone jumping ship from windows - clean install without all this corporate nonsense trying to monetize your terminal
JakeEllisD@reddit
What's wrong with Fedora?
Demented_CEO@reddit
Fedora is wonderful and I highly, highly recommend people give RHEL a try. It's the single most polished OS experience I've ever had and it's beautifully integrated to do anything you could possibly want.
Just saying this out loud for those who also do work on their PCs: RHEL with a support contract is really something employers should look into. Fantastic user experience, which is of course mirrored in Fedora.
MezBert@reddit
I have had much more polished experiences trying out Deepin, Zorin, Ubuntu, Pop!_Os, Mint, EndeavorOS, MX-Linux, etc... All have a much more polished experience than Fedora in my opinion.
Fedora spins are a little more polished than base Fedora with vanilla Gnome though. I've used Gnome for 20 years, among which 8 on Gnome 3/40+ and polished is the last word I'd use for it, whatever the distro. More like a buggy mess in my opinion.
Nevyn_Hira@reddit
It's not deb based?
Honestly that's it for me. I started out on rpm based systems back in the late 90's / early 2000's but hated yum (in the early days it updated the repositories every time you did anything with yum. I'm not sure if it stopped doing that but it was annoying and slow - especially on dial up. Weirdly I started using apt-get on RH 7.3 back when RH7.3 was a thing) so moved onto deb / apt based systems (Debian at first but found myself frustrated by the outdated desktop apps. Ubuntu after that. I did resist Ubuntu just because I wasn't impressed by the community - a lot of "if there's a problem, it's got to be the hardware. It's definitely not Ubuntu" stuff at the time. I've been using Mint for the last .... lot of years mainly because Canonical keep shooting themselves in the "foot". Amazon, Mir, Snaps etc.).
bitwaba@reddit
I'd say Fedora and CachyOS. Mint feels like an outdated suggestion in 2026
Maybe-monad@reddit
If Cannonical is shooting itself in the foot for pushing snap then Red Hat is pushing itself in the foot for pushing flatpaks but nobody talks about it and, most importantly, nobody talks about maintaining deb packages for applications that are now only available as snaps.
BashfulMelon@reddit
Really? Information that doesn't impact privacy, can't be sold, and literally only helps them make a better distribution is too much?
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
Absolutely no entity needs install counter info. If they don't understand how to improve the distro without telemetry then they are failing miserably at a core job of being a distro. maintainer.
BashfulMelon@reddit
Basic information like that makes it possible to prioritize what users actually want instead of guessing or listening to the loudest people on social media. There are literally no downsides, but I guess open source projects need to be handicapped compared to proprietary software just because the vibes around telemetry are bad and not because it's doing anything harmful.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
Again, telemetry data for prioritization is a myth and an excuse. If they don't know what users want then they should engage with the community and ask, instead of just deploying surveillance components. I'm not advocating for proprietary software. If devs don't understand their user community and maintain a proper relationship with them, then they've failed at a core part of their mission. If the only way devs can determine what users want is by turning the user into a rat in an observable experiment, they've failed. The data collected is wide open to misinterpretation. Misinterpretations will not get the user what they want. What do I mean? I might use app. A because I don't have a better alternative, but hate app. A. My desire might be to have a better alternative be developed, instead of incremental improvements to an app. that I hate but use due to lack of better options.
BashfulMelon@reddit
Most users don't want to be part of a "community." They don't want to have to talk to developers. You're just asking them to prioritize tech nerds at the expense of the vast majority of people, which is what they do now and it's a huge factor in why community-developed open source software has so much trouble breaking into the mainstream.
If this is how anonymously making a number in a spreadsheet go up by one makes you feel, you need to talk to a therapist about your paranoia.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
You said:
If they don't want to be apart of a community then they obviously don't want to share their opinion on what is or is not a priority. They don't care enough to make their desire(s) known. You just defeated the purpose of your statement and attempted to bolster it with an assumption that open source projects are only prioritizing tech nerds and/or the loudest voices in a crowd. There are plenty of valid ways of surveying users without surveilling them or turning them into rats in an observable experiment without their consent. You dump an additional assumption through implication that something innocuous now will remain innocuous in the future and comes with zero risk of being exploited by external actors. The paranoia angle is worn and heavily overused. Reputational attacks don't win arguments.
BashfulMelon@reddit
This is just arguing that it's fine to ignore people that aren't motivated enough to be part of a community that is easily accessible to developers, but also it's just an assumption that developers aren't prioritizing those kinds of people? You're exhibiting the prioritization right now!
Not without introducing unacceptable bias. Basic statistics.
"Something might become malicious later" is textbook slippery slope fallacy. Same argument as "don't trust open source operating systems because they could just put a virus in the updates!"
Do we really care about valid arguments? Then why are you using appeals to emotion by using loaded phrases like "turning them into rats in an observable experiment?"
Seriously, read some issue tickets or merge request comments. Every decently sized user-facing OSS project will have developers wishing they had usable metrics.
I'll show you this but keep in mind that they're discussing opt-in metrics which is what they already have. They're so desperate for unbiased information that they're looking at Google search suggestions.
So this clearly isn't mythological.
flumpfortress@reddit
That video is not real. It's all AI. Can people not notice that?
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
No it is not easy detected as AI. However, the validity of the claims of adverts in the terminal and snaps silently being installed is what I'm concerned about.
doc_willis@reddit
from what I have seen the the text "ads" last I noticed were basically overblown drama. And are trivial to disable, and even more trivial to just ignore.
the apt packages pulling in snaps have also been discussed to death.
I recall the telemetry discussions to also be rather overblown. And comparing it to what Microsoft and other companies (including reddit) are doing is a bit disengious.
ghoultek@reddit (OP)
I've been disconnected from conversations about apt pulling in Snaps because I've avoided Ubuntu. Even though stuff is trivial to disable, it doesn't mean that they won't be re-enabled in the future or shifted to new points of entry. This creates the cat and mouse game that is going on right now on Windows. Disable or uninstall a feature or service on Windows and it randomly and silently gets re-installed and/or re-enabled. Most users do not want to fight with a distro/OS/distro maintainer. This makes drawing in a user into a cat and mouse game a failure to serve the users needs.
I personally don't want to be proverbially looking over my shoulder when entering terminal commands. I'm against the use of Snap, thus I don't use Ubuntu. However, my reasoning is beyond don't like snap then don't use Ubuntu (or Kubuntu/KDE Neon). It was once suggested that I could run Kubuntu and just uninstall the Snap architecture. My response was an immediate "Hell NO!" If I chose that path then anytime I install or reinstall Kubuntu I would be forced into pulling up the proverbial floor boards (Snap). I would also have to keep up to date with changes in Snap to ensure my remove work is complete. I see no point in giving myself extra busy work. So I avoid any distro. that employs Snap. I take the same approach to telemetry. If I disallow small and seemingly innocuous instances of telemetry in the present then I don't have to fight big, sprawling, invasive forms of telemetry in the future. I might even relax some of my telemetry restrictions. However, a relaxation of restrictions in one area does not mean I'm on board with a policy of blanket restriction relaxation in all areas.
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RoomyRoots@reddit
Base Ubuntu has been mid for a long while. Just use one of the remix or Debian if you want a better experience.
stommepool@reddit
Ok!