Ubuntu Is Putting Ads in Their MOTD?

A reddit thread that has received more than a thousand of votes condemns Canonical for putting ads in the motd

Believe or not, but Ubuntu is putting ads in their motd now. A reddit thread that has received a many angry comments condemns Canonical for putting ads in the motd (message of the day).

A screenshot which is displayed alongside the following message, confirms that. The message says:

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But don’t panic. This is an old problem. Currently, https://motd.ubuntu.com shows a news item about HBO’s Silicon Valley which has a reference to Ubuntu.

Instead, https://motd.ubuntu.com should show relevant items to those that use Ubuntu Server (relevant security issues, etc), instead of items for desktop users.

If you wish to deal with this whole thing, a reddit user mralanorth suppose the couple steps:

Disable the motd-news.service and motd-news.timer systemd units. Also delete the following:

  • /etc/update-motd.d/99-esm # Ubuntu 14.04
  • /etc/update-motd.d/10-help-text # Ubuntu 14.04+
  • /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news # Ubuntu 16.04+
  • /etc/update-motd.d/80-esm # Ubuntu 16.04+
  • /etc/update-motd.d/80-livepatch # Ubuntu 18.04+

The decision is up to you.

Bobby Borisov

Bobby Borisov

Bobby, an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac, is a Linux professional with over 20 years of experience. With a strong focus on Linux and open-source software, he has worked as a Senior Linux System Administrator, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer for small and large multinational companies.

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