Meet Dash Privacy Interface, handy dialog to enable/disable online search results (Ubuntu 12.10)
Ubuntu 12.10 ships (by default) Unity Shopping lens, lens that exposes (when the user types a word in Dash home's search area) commercial search results from various online services, including Amazon.
Furthermore, the developers implemented a dedicated panel (under System Settings-->Privacy-->Include online search results), allowing users to 1-click away enable/disable (enabled by default) online search results (appearing in the Dash).
The mentioned online-based ON/OFF switch is applicable to both default and non-default lenses, while covering multiple default lenses, in the sense of disabling all of the online-based results (excepting Unity Applications lens that continues, after the switch is ON, to display Ubuntu Software Center-powered results), such as online videos (under Unity Videos lens, Ubuntu One Music Store-generated music albums, under Unity Music lens, etc).
The mentioned switch is 1-click away, yet, especially for newcomers, may seem rather difficult to disable the results (for persons not passionate about shopping and/or focused only on local results), due to various situations (such as the lack of up-to-date Ubuntu knowledge, etc).
Dash Privacy Interface is an interesting utility, presenting the user a clean clear intuitive GUI, GUI packed with two buttons and relevant informations.
Launching the application, summons a window, featuring two big-sized orange-enabled buttons, Include online search result and Include local search result, furthermore, strengthening the buttons with appropriate text descriptions (that concisely explain their functionalities).
According to the launchpad page, Dash Privacy Interface has been designed to "alert users on their first login that they can change the setting about enable/disable online search into the dash", basically, being oriented after startup and acting as an attention-like message.
The utility (at the moment) is functional, meaning, clicking on Include online search result, allows online search results to be displayed in the Dash, clicking Include local search result, exposes only locally-based results in the Dash.
Dash Privacy Interface has been created by Ubuntu-fr LoCo team, yet, judging by Dash Privacy Interface Team's members (including Ubuntu's Didier Roche), one can easily speculate about a possible default inclusion into Ubuntu 13.04.
How do we install (test) Dash Privacy Interface 12.10?
Add the following official PPA (Quantal)
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dash-privacy-interface-t/dash-privacy-interface
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dash-privacy-interface
Launch Dash Privacy Interface via the Dash by typing dash privacy interface into the search area.
