Canonical Ubuntu does or at least did though. Caused a shitstorm years ago despite it being opt-in back then. I don't know how they do it nowadays.
KDE also has opt-in usage tracking but I trust that project enough to believe it's really only for improving the software.
If ET had been an android-phone he had been long called home before the intro started
That's a good one! But to be fair, Apple calls home just as much. They just don't sell that data (yet).
Judging by this decade I don't estimate in decades anymore.
I have been using it exclusively for years. Does its job most of the time and when it doesn't and I include Google results (via bang !g) Google doesn't really find it either.
However, I've opted out of most Google services in parallel, so their model of me probably isn't the best anymore. If in their bubble, their results may still be better (creeps me out though, so I live with non-perfect search).
118.0.1 was first released on Sept 28 too, so this isn't exactly breaking news.
But contrary to Linux or even Windows (unless they pull some hardware requirement shit again) you need to switch to another OS and not simply do a release upgrade.
Why do you compare patches for major software releases with updates for hardware? Those are completely different topics.
LTS just means staying on the same release and guaranteed support for that time which is important for businesses. As a consumer you can always just do a release upgrade.
Since most businesses rely on Windows anyway, that's pretty much irrelevant for this discussion. They cannot use Chromebooks either.
Browsers do have exploits from time to time. Clicking suspicious URLs can be dangerous.
I hate the Apple approach of "90% of users don't understand this, so we won't allow it". That's exactly the reason I cannot use Apple products. I've always argued exactly like you - offer expert settings instead. That requires more testing for their QA but PCs are still around, so it's obviously doable.
That's what I meant. Of course they use that data and don't let it sit on their servers not knowing what to do with it...