Ubuntu 12.10 review

BUY THINGS

Something that’s clearly not welcome is the integration of Amazon into the OS, with both a dedicated Web App that launches the site in your browser and search integration in the Dash.

Just as previous versions of Ubuntu let you find online video and music, Ubuntu 12.10 now also integrates search results from Amazon. So, start typing ‘driver’ to add Additional Drivers (now part of Software Sources) and you get the option to buy the film Drive on Blu-ray.

Amazon results are integrated into the Dash, but it’s a bit annoying how dominant they can be

At some points our Ubuntu Dash was completely full of unwanted Amazon results. For example, we were searching for ‘Synaptic’ to install the package manager, but rather than return results from the Ubuntu Software Centre, it returned a load of things to buy from Amazon. To our mind, the Ubuntu Dash should be there to search through your own data, not provided a hook into a huge commercial organisation.

Under System Settings, Privacy, it’s possible to disable online search results, so that they don’t appear in the Dash. However, this can cut out some of the useful ones. A better approach is to delete the offending Lens. The easiest way to do this is to install the Synaptic Package Manager and search for ‘unity-lens-shopping’ and remove the Package you find. This will kill all Amazon results, but leave everything else alone. You may need to log out and back in again to completely finish it off.

You can disable online search results, but we think you’re better off removing the shopping lens instead