Quoting: GuestIs there anything wrong with Debian itself? Just curious if you don't see it as viable for some specific reason, which would help inform exactly what you're looking for.

Nothing wrong with debian just with ubuntu

Topics like this tend to become everyone repping their own distro choice. I don't even trust myself to share an unbiased response. So there are a few general observations that we can probably agree on:

1) The large "granddaddy" distributions will tend to have the greatest compatibility.
2) The privacy and security aspects you seek can probably be implemented into whichever distribution you choose.

Choose what interests you, and then integrate the desired privacy features on top (I could drop a few suggestions).

As privacy is a big consideration in my own software and service choices, I'd also comment that it isn't just the distro which you need to think about.

Here are some of the things I do (sharing in case it is useful / helpful to you):

- Tend to stick to FOSS software where possible. (Proprietary software often phones home. See Privacy Policies regarding Data Collection.)
- Install browsers which respect privacy (e.g. TorBrowser, LibreWolf, Firefox, Brave, Chromium, Degoogled-Chromium).
- On the browser, I tend to use uBlock Origin for blocking adverts and trackers.
- On the browser, I set the Default Search Engine to NOT be Google. I have no problem with: DuckDuckGo, SearX, SearX-NG, Startpage, Brave, Qwant, Mojeek. (Some of these received bad press recently, but on the whole they're all good.)
- Switch over from Gmail / Outlook / Yahoo email accounts to privacy-respecting email instead (e.g. Zoho, GMX, Mail.com, Disroot, Tutanota)
- Switch over from Google Drive to privacy-respecting Cloud Storage instead, e.g. mega.io (20GB free, encrypted at client)
- I run my own Advert/Tracker-Blocking DNS server at home, e.g. Pi-Hole or similar.

You can run a 'Secure' distro, but you can do things with your computer which leak loads of your sensitive personal data.

I run Debian myself, and I expect you'd get along fine with that - but I'd also say these ones are good choices too: Arch, Fedora, Mint. You might want to also check out Qubes OS, Kali, Tails.

Last edited by g000h on 28 Apr 2022 at 10:28 am UTC

Quoting: g000hAs privacy is a big consideration in my own software and service choices, I'd also comment that it isn't just the distro which you need to think about.

Here are some of the things I do (sharing in case it is useful / helpful to you):

- Tend to stick to FOSS software where possible. (Proprietary software often phones home. See Privacy Policies regarding Data Collection.)
- Install browsers which respect privacy (e.g. TorBrowser, LibreWolf, Firefox, Brave, Chromium, Degoogled-Chromium).
- On the browser, I tend to use uBlock Origin for blocking adverts and trackers.
- On the browser, I set the Default Search Engine to NOT be Google. I have no problem with: DuckDuckGo, SearX, SearX-NG, Startpage, Brave, Qwant, Mojeek. (Some of these received bad press recently, but on the whole they're all good.)
- Switch over from Gmail / Outlook / Yahoo email accounts to privacy-respecting email instead (e.g. Zoho, GMX, Mail.com, Disroot, Tutanota)
- Switch over from Google Drive to privacy-respecting Cloud Storage instead, e.g. mega.io (20GB free, encrypted at client)
- I run my own Advert/Tracker-Blocking DNS server at home, e.g. Pi-Hole or similar.

You can run a 'Secure' distro, but you can do things with your computer which leak loads of your sensitive personal data.

I run Debian myself, and I expect you'd get along fine with that - but I'd also say these ones are good choices too: Arch, Fedora, Mint. You might want to also check out Qubes OS, Kali, Tails.

I totally agree with you and about the points you told there I did msot of them like switch from my own cloud, I am using protonmail and as browser brave but I talk with a system and network teacher in my school he told me a lot of bad things about privacy in ubuntu so that is why I am looking for changing. so i am probably going on a fedora base distrib. I made some search I saw a distrib called Nobara Project I am gonna look for this one. But if somebody have distrib not ubuntu base to recommend me I am taking it for try it. But in my sense privacy is really important hat is why I leaved windows and switching for a distrib different than ubuntu.

Imo Ubuntu is not any worse for privacy than the other distros.

It's only in the past that Ubuntu had minor issues with it (they used to have a deal with amazon, where they'd share your anonymized web searches made via its menu). However, it's been many years ago. 2016 was the last year they had anything like that in Ubuntu.

To be honest, all of the distros are good privacy-wise (unless you choose to install some shady one, like a Chinese or North Korean distro), so it doesn't matter much which one do you choose (at least when considering solely the privacy aspect).

As to Nobara - it's a fine distro. After running Solus for a number of years, I've made the switch to Nobara a week or so ago.

Stuff works fine, so far the impressions are good. I like it.

Last edited by DoctorJunglist on 28 Apr 2022 at 9:51 pm UTC

My impression is that while many distros are not anti-privacy (even though I would always be careful when using distros made by companies), imho there is not really any distro out there that takes care of it in a proper way.

Ultimately what might "spy" on you is the software you use and a really privacy friendly distro would do the following:
1. Warn about programs that might spy on you (in the package manager for example).
2. Disable any "spying" if possible.

Sadly in my experience no distro really does these things (at least not reliably), so in the end we as users have to inform ourselves and manually configure or stay away from certain programs.

Quoting: thimoty44Hello there ! I am looking for a distrib for gaming who respect privacy

(Stress by me.) You know that this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Do you? If you are really into gaming you will inevitably end up with Steam and/or games which are waaaay more liberal when it comes to your "privacy" than any reasonable distribution out there - including Ubuntu.

Quoting: Tuxee

Quoting: thimoty44Hello there ! I am looking for a distrib for gaming who respect privacy

(Stress by me.) You know that this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Do you? If you are really into gaming you will inevitably end up with Steam and/or games which are waaaay more liberal when it comes to your "privacy" than any reasonable distribution out there - including Ubuntu.

The thing is - There are different threats out there. You might be "willing" to permit a game company to harvest gaming metrics from you. And this will only happen whilst you are running the game or running the service client (Steam). During the rest of the time, your activity is not harvested by them. i.e. You have some level of control over what is collected.

In the case of an Operating System, that can be harvesting metrics from your entire computer usage, when you switch it on, when you are active with it, what programs you run, and so on. It's even worse with a device like a mobile phone, because the phone is equipped with lots of sensors, e.g. microphone, camera, GPS module, wifi, bluetooth, LTE module - They literally know where you are, what you type in your text messages, who are your contacts, when you're asleep, what you buy, when you go to work, etc, etc.

I'm a lot happier sharing a few metrics with Steam (whose service I can turn off whenever I feel like it) rather than Google who are a lot more invasive and difficult to cut out. Don't worry though - I block more than 95% of what Google could be collecting on me (I only use a de-Googled phone, I don't use Google for searches, and I don't use any Google services - Gmail/Drive/Docs/Maps).

It comes down to Threat Modelling (of your own circumstances) and deciding who is a Bad Actor and how you are going to block them specifically.