Karin Chan

How To Disable Amazon / Shopping Suggestions And Other Unity Scopes In Ubuntu 13.10

<div style="text-align: justify;">In Ubuntu 13.04, if you want to get online search results in Dash without shopping suggestions, you can simply remove the Unity Shopping lens. In Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) you can't remove the Shopping lens but there is another way to achieve the same thing and it seems this isn't obvious because I've seen quite a few users complaining about it. So here's how to disable the shopping scopes or any scope for that matter, in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, without disabling all the online search results.</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/ubuntu13.10-shopping-suggestions.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Unity Dash sopping suggestions" border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh_ZN1dFan1SxeHi1TrujFUIm7jyXcguTvjJ6PfsOTiKiWdOx_Dz8UfEfI3e3nDXfyzS-lPqpUv4GFWV2p7XgPOCW8oLfCGCayoy9fYvnbbPSlzpqr1aopP9lxPsoeRWG47C1G0pEbGC0/s320/ubuntu13.10-shopping-suggestions.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unity Dash with shopping suggestion</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">First of all, don't try to remove the Unity Shopping Lens in Ubuntu 13.10 because it won't work. Here's what you'll get if you try that:</div><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">$ sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping<br />Reading package lists... Done<br />Building dependency tree       <br />Reading state information... Done<br />Note, selecting 'unity-scope-home' instead of 'unity-lens-shopping'<br />0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.</blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If you remove <i>unity-scope-home</i>, which was selected instead of <i>unity-lens-shopping</i>, you won't get any results in Dash, not even for installed applications.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can't remove the Unity Shopping Lens in Ubuntu 13.10 because there's no Shopping lens. Ubuntu 13.10 comes with a feature called <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/unity-smart-scopes-feature-lands-in.html">Unity Smart Scopes</a> (or "100 scopes") which uses a huge list of scopes to display results in Dash and among these, there are some used for shopping. So if you don't want shopping suggestions in Dash, you must disable these shopping scopes (see below).</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/ubuntu13.10-no-shopping.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Unity Dash no sopping suggestions" src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/ubuntu13.10-no-shopping_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unity Dash without shopping suggestions</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><h2>How to disable Unity Dash plugins (scopes) in Ubuntu 13.10</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To disable a Dash plugin (scope) in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, open <i>Dash</i>, go to the <i>Applications</i> lens (either do it manually using your mouse or use the Super + A keyboard shortcut), click "Filter results" on the right and under "Type", select "Search plugins". All the Dash search plugins (scopes) should be listed, like in the screenshot below:</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/ubuntu13.10-dash-plugins.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Unity Dash plugins" src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/ubuntu13.10-dash-plugins_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dash plugins (scopes)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />To disable a plugin, click on it and then click the "Disable" button:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/ubuntu13.10-dash-disable-amazon.png"><img alt="Unity Dash Amazon scope" src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/ubuntu13.10-dash-disable-amazon_thumb.png" /></a></div><br />Later on you can enable them back in the same way.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Disable the Amazon / shopping suggestions Unity Dash scopes</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If you don't want shopping suggestions in Dash, disable the following scopes (by using the instructions above): Amazon, Ebay, Music Store, Popular Tracks Online, Skimlinks, Ubuntu One Music Search and Ubuntu Shop.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To disable all these shopping Dash plugins/scopes from the command line</b>, use the following command:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Lenses disabled-scopes "['more_suggestions-amazon.scope', 'more_suggestions-u1ms.scope', 'more_suggestions-populartracks.scope', 'music-musicstore.scope', 'more_suggestions-ebay.scope', 'more_suggestions-ubuntushop.scope', 'more_suggestions-skimlinks.scope']"</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>inspired by <a href="http://marcosbox.blogspot.com/2013/10/ubuntu-1310-la-ricerca-su-amazon-non-si.html">MarcosBox</a></i></div>

How To Disable Amazon / Shopping Suggestions And Other Unity Scopes In Ubuntu 13.10

In Ubuntu 13.04, if you want to get online search results in Dash without shopping suggestions, you can simply remove the Unity Shopping len...

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu 13.04 was supposed to get a new Unity <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SmartScopes1304Spec">Smart Scopes</a> feature, which eventually <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/03/29/smart-scopes-not-landing-in-13-04-will-land-in-13-10/">didn't make it</a>, but if you don't want to wait for Ubuntu 13.10 to try it, you can install it right now in Ubuntu 13.04, by using a PPA.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Smart Scopes tries to provide a better and smarter Dash search experience by adding various scopes that return relevant data depending on the search terms.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://img.netupd8.com/unity-smart-scopes_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Smart Scopes Ubuntu Unity" border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXSRgiCXgRX-NQvbSjPyTXLfF5B5MoGgEAwLauaQn_AOSOoW-V91ZVX8nw5rAKvgJpuGVn9jHr_5nArekRanfUZxoauDWysR9FV0YWLkw3tgL_izH6uPWKrsk7jPMUYmXOy8VDwyvsaJo/s320/unity-smart-scopes_1.png" title="Smart Scopes Ubuntu Unity" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a name='more'></a><b> </b> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Installing the Smart Scopes, you'll get some new categories and sources on the home lens. When you search for something, Dash tries to automatically select the right categories and sources for your search term so for instance if you search for "Pink Floyd", Dash will automatically select the "Music", "Reference" (which in turn selects the Wikipedia source, among others), "Files & Folders" and so on. Or if you search for "Barcelona", it should display the weather, etc. You can also manually select / deseelect categories or sources.<br /><br /><br />Below you can see a search for "pink floyd" without manually selecting any source in the sidebar filter:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://img.netupd8.com/unity-smart-scopes_3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JDLjhqgihRVgup-zhbF_KPlICtS5l4jdNx8-oXRZRlon873Pp_dAaw2ATNWrdHDI-DSH5ToiQTkTCb7gOTcqTuvKUwkQxPM2cegbPSeLX9PX-VfZ2_0_3UoujzGTFNnMCF1bg69aDl7N/s320/unity-smart-scopes_3.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Smart Scopes did figure out this is music-related and displayed my Pink Floyd albums and some online info about Pink Floyd (among others), but it also displayed some applications.<br /><br />And here's the same search again, with some custom sources selected in the filter: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://img.netupd8.com/unity-smart-scopes_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Smart Scopes Ubuntu Unity" border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjREn4pyKRgdBvSXOA5If-ymhqL4lgNQo1niHRUMAgPARZiwL0RmH9IAgfiPP-X-TJC4CCn10_ZyH7jfXX9EHfAonCYuKxQF80WWCHfv3zkJtKsk3gCkcibOMWbYT8cvld5ZC_lC3NSwfFL/s320/unity-smart-scopes_2.png" title="Smart Scopes Ubuntu Unity" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">That looks a lot better and that's pretty much how the default search results should have looked like. The default search results are ok considering the Smart Scopes feature hasn't been officially released and it's still work in progress, but hopefully the scopes will be smart enough in the future so we won't need to manually select any categories.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Smart Scopes video</h2><br />To understand exactly how this works, watch the video below:<br /><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PB3oJga1kLQ" width="560"></iframe><br />(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB3oJga1kLQ">direct video link</a>; for more videos, subscribe to your <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/nilarimogard">YouTube channel</a>)</center><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>Remember, this feature is under development so it may change by the time it's added by default in Ubuntu.</i></b></div><br /><br /><h2>Supported scopes / sources</h2><br />Currently, the PPA provides the following scopes / sources:<br /><ul><li>Audacious</li><li>Banshee </li><li>Calculator</li><li>Chromium Bookmarks</li><li>Clementine</li><li>Colour Lovers</li><li>Dev Help</li><li>DeviantArt</li><li>Facebook </li><li>Files & Folders</li><li>Flickr</li><li>Evolution</li><li>Firefox Bookmarks</li><li>Gallica</li><li>Google Drive</li><li>GitHub</li><li>Gmusicbrowser</li><li>Google News</li><li>Guayadeque</li><li>IMDB</li><li>Launchpad</li><li>Manpages</li><li>Music Store </li><li>Musique</li><li>OpenClipArt</li><li>OpenWeatherMap</li><li>Picasa</li><li>Remote Videos </li><li>Rhythmbox </li><li>SoundCloud</li><li>Shotwell </li><li>SshSearch</li><li>Texdoc</li><li>Videos </li><li>VirtualBox</li><li>Yahoo Stock</li><li>Yelp</li><li>Zotero </li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">These are all the sources used by the Smart Scopes feature for now but more will be available in the future.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>How to install Unity Smart Scopes in Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;"><b>The Smart Scopes feature wasn't added by default in Ubuntu 13.04 because it's not completely ready</b></span> so if you decide to use the Smart Scopes PPA, you must be aware that this feature is currently under development and some things can break, some scopes might not work and also, Unity and Compiz will use more system resources. Also, in my test, after installing the Smart Scopes, the Unity Friends Lens has stopped working!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you're ok with the above warning, let's proceed with the installation:</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1. To add the Unity Smart Scopes PPA and install the new Smart Scopes feature in Ubuntu 13.04, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-unity/experimental-certified<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get dist-upgrade</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Important:</b> for the last command above, make sure no packages are removed except for the <i>unity-lens-shopping</i>. If the command tries to remove more packages, it means something is broken on your system and you need to fix it so do not proceed with the installation!</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> To make sure the packages we've installed from the PPA are not overwritten if newer lenses / scopes land in Ubuntu 13.04 (the PPA will be updated eventually if that happens, but it's better to use this so things don't break), install the following package:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install ubuntu-unity-experimental-certified</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>3.</b> And now run "sudo apt-get upgrade" which will actually downgrade the packages to the version from the PPA, if they are older than the ones available in the official Ubuntu repositories (if any; at the time I'm writing this, the packages that will be downgraded are the Unity Files Lens and Gdocs / Gdrive Scope):</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get upgrade</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>4.</b> Once all the packages are installed / upgraded successfully, restart your system (a simple Unity restart or logout doesn't seem to be enough).</div><br /><b>Report any bugs you may find, <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+filebug?field.tags=100scopes">HERE</a>.</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>Revert the changes</h2><br /><b>If you want to remove the Smart Scopes and go back to the lenses / scopes used by default in Ubuntu 13.04, use the following commands:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install ppa-purge<br />sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntu-unity/experimental-certified</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For me, ppa-purge <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ppa-purge/+bug/1142289">doesn't work</a> in Ubuntu 13.04 if the purged PPA has a package that's not available in another source (like in the official Ubuntu repositories): it segfaults instead of purging the PPA. If that's the case for you too, you can revert the changes manually, using the following commands:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo sed -i 's/^deb/#deb/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-unity-experimental-certified-raring.list<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-unity-experimental-certified<br />sudo apt-get install gir1.2-dee-1.0/raring gir1.2-unity-5.0/raring libdee-1.0-4/raring libdee-dev/raring libunity-common/raring libunity-core-6.0-5/raring libunity-dev/raring libunity-protocol-private0/raring libunity9/raring unity/raring unity-common/raring unity-lens-applications/raring unity-lens-files/raring unity-lens-music/raring unity-lens-photos/raring unity-lens-video/raring unity-lens-friends/raring unity-scope-musicstores/raring unity-scope-video-remote/raring unity-services/raring unity-scope-gdocs/raring unity-scope-gdrive/raring</code></pre><br />The first command above disables the PPA. Then, we update the software sources and remove "ubuntu-unity-experimental-certified" which we've installed to pin the packages from the PPA (under step 3). And finally, the last command above downgrades the packages that were upgraded from the Smart Scopes PPA and automatically removes all the scopes that were installed from the same Smart Scopes PPA.<br /><br />And finally, restart the system.

How To Install Unity Smart Scopes In Ubuntu 13.04 [PPA]

Ubuntu 13.04 was supposed to get a new Unity Smart Scopes feature, which eventually didn't make it , but if you don't want to wait ...

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