it seems like this forum section is becoming my blog, lol.
i ran into some privacy-related concerns with Remmina, a RDP/VNC client for Linux, which has news checking that is impossible to disable without recompiling the package (I just made a backport for myself, but I’ve been building various packages for years now) and going by the following discussion developers made this impossible to disable at runtime on purpose, which just feels questionable for many reasons.
Also, Remmina passes what seems like a unique user ID to their server (I didn’t bother to check the source, just assuming based on the configuration file in ~/.config/remmina).
Here’s the related gitlab issue with with my comment at the bottom:
Looks like you’re getting some push back over there (at GitLab). fwiw, my flatpak install of remmina on a ubuntu variant allows turning off both ‘news’ and ‘statistics’ sending functionality. I see that that’s noted by one of the most recent posts in that thread.
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yeah, they went from evasive statements directly to personal attacks. this gem in particular, though:
If you consider this a privacy issue, well, good luck with FB, Microsoft, and even with the Firefox telemetry.
I guess I’ll have to look for an alternative because any new version could bring further surprises.
e: also if this is fixed in Debian it’s better than nothing i guess.
e2: in the end, i just went with using wlfreerdp directly with a few per-host .desktop files, which just works and has no overbloated gui that I don’t actually need.
I’m going to post my final observation on the subject here, because this quote has been bugging me for a while now, and I need to get this out of my system:
NEWS periodic_rmnews_uuid_prefix is a kind of technical cookie needed to avoid to re-display the same news message to the same user.
this explanation is, frankly, horseshit. unless the news are targeted at specific users (for what purpose?) there’s no need whatsoever in any client identifiers being provided in order for the client to figure out of the news entry is fresh or not.
this also implies existence of a database where unique client identifiers correspond to last news entry consumed for which I also fail to see any practical need, other than tracking.
so, either there’s incredible technical incompetence at work here, or they were taking me for a fool. neither possibility particularly appeals to me.
fwiw, my flatpak install of remmina on a ubuntu variant allows turning off both ‘news’ and ‘statistics’ sending functionality. I see that that’s noted by one of the most recent posts in that thread.