Linux has a copy left license meaning no one person or entity owns Linux. It's open-source which allows any company to modify how it works or just a random person can change the code or fix it. The only restriction on this license is that anyone that makes changes have to share those changes if asked, this why everyone benefits. Anyone can submit those changes willingly to be approved and help contribute. This means that Linux is built and maintained by thousands of companies and 10s of thousands of people all across the world, not for a profit or bottom line (well for the companies like Google it's probably for profit). But to make something that works the best they can make it out of their passion.

I personally love Linux because I'm sick and tired of fighting my computer and phone to do what I want when all it does is force ads and pop ups down my throat and track my every move. Linux doesn't have any of that because the people that make it use it and don't want that, no one does. Since there's no profit motive we don't have shit like that.

[–] LadyButterfly@lazysoci.al 6 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Ah so it protects your data?

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Beware, things are not that easy with Linux. If you use Windows, you use Windows. There are different versions but they are just differently old versions of the same thing. Same company, same people, same stuff. So you can say things like "Windows shares your data with Microsoft", because there's only 1-2 current versions of Windows at a time.

Since Linux is so open, there are thousands of different distributions created by thousands of different companies or even hobbyists doing that on their own time. And since it's so open, it can be configured any which way.

For example, ChromeOS and Android are two Linux distributions created by Google, and both of them collect and share your data like crazy.

Some of the more classical Linux distributions (like e.g. Ubuntu) also ask you if you want to share data with them, but most of them allow you do decline and many of them really don't share data at all (unless you run programs that do share data again).

So what you can say about data protection in regards to Linux is:

It's not Windows/Microsoft, which shares a lot
Depending on the distro, it can share just as much as Windows, or nothing at all, or a configurable amount
There are Linux distros that are very privacy focussed and share little to no data

But no, using any Linux doesn't necessarily mean your data is protected in any special way.

load more comments (3 replies)