Disabling Ubuntu Telemetry Services

Ubuntu started to enable telemetry in recent versions on an opt out basis, so if you don’t want to send data to Ubuntu here is a script from Github.

#!/bin/bash
################ Description: ###################
# This script will disable all opt-out under 
# Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (Codename: bionic).
# At first the telemetry domains will be resolved 
# to the local host and second all malicious services
# will be removed from the system.
# The following work has a system-wide effect not just
# for a single user.
################ Parameter: #####################
# None
################ Implementation: ################
clear

if test `id -u` -ne 0
then
  echo -e "[-] Missing privileges..."
  exit 1
fi

# resolving to localhost:
echo "[*] Resolving \"metrics.ubuntu.com\" to localhost"
echo 127.0.0.1 www.metrics.ubuntu.com >>/etc/hosts
echo 127.0.0.1 metrics.ubuntu.com >>/etc/hosts

echo "[*] Resolving \"popcon.ubuntu.com\" to localhost"
echo 127.0.0.1 www.popcon.ubuntu.com >>/etc/hosts
echo 127.0.0.1 popcon.ubuntu.com >>/etc/hosts

# Removing telemetry services:
echo "[*] Removing telemetry services"
apt purge -y ubuntu-report popularity-contest apport whoopsie >/dev/null 2>&1

if test $? -eq 0 
then
    echo "[+] Telemtry services successfully removed."
    exit 0
else
    echo "[-] Removing of telemtry services failed."
    exit 1
fi

echo "[*] Decline telemetry"
ubuntu-report -f send no

Instead of running the script you can manually add the domains to your Pi-Hole blacklist (or /etc/hosts file), metrics.ubuntu.com and popcon.ubuntu.com. And then just remove the telemetry service programs manually and it looked like the script missed one and we’ve added a hold on them as well.

sudo apt purge ubuntu-report popularity-contest apport whoopsie apport-symptoms && sudo apt-mark hold ubuntu-report popularity-contest apport whoopsie apport-symptoms

My Ubuntu KDE Plasma Virtual Machine is one of my favorites to use daily, and this gets rid of the poor decision that Ubuntu made with opt out telemetry tracking. But at least with Linux, you have control of your operating system and can remove what you don’t want or you can recompile with changes. But Ubuntu needs to do better or they’re going to lose even more users now that there are many good Linux distributions to choose from.