Hi,

I just wanted to leave a comment, before I move back to another DE. Maybe someone is interested in my criticism, at least I voiced it.

The reason for me being unhappy with KDE are missing privacy options in Plasma 5.20 or now 5.21.

E.g. when I search the System Settings for 'Privacy' or 'History' I get either no result or only an unrelated result, but KDE has quite a few options where the system is collecting data or handling data in a way that is not exactly privacy friendly.

Examples:

- I would regard the default Klipper-config as a privacy risk. I use KeepassXC and when I copy passwords or usernames, I definitely don't want them to be stored in cleartext in Klippers history.
- the system was configured to enable CDDB retrieval as default.
- Nightcolour used geolocation services without asking permission.
- The KRunner default settings include plugins that search the Web, bookmarks, the browser history, etc.
- a component related to 'Activities' stores the last accessed files and applications. The System Settings (in Workspace behaviour->Activities->Privacy) do feature an option "Do not remember" for opened documents, but that doesn't seem to have an effect. The settings for "Keep history" don't include an option to just keep no history at all. And when I try to clear the history there, the System Settings crash.
- In the System Settings->'Search'-section, I disabled file search and Krunners History, but my StartMenu->Places->'History' and 'FrequentlyUsed'-Menus are still filled with the last used files and applications. I have no idea how I can disable this behaviour. The System settings are no help.

Now, I'm not saying that these defaults aren't useful, I'm sure many people think this is ok.

But I think the settings for these privacy options shouldn't be hidden and scattered among the system, and it should be easier for privacy-minded people to disable services that collect and monitor data in *whatever* way. I've been using KDE for a few months now, and it feels like I have to 'fight' the DE to actually get the behaviour I want from it.

I mean, I could probably find the service that still monitors which files I access, and I'm sure I could disable it via commandline, but seriously: that would feel like using Windows again. I'm tired of jumping through hoops, because software wants me to. I'd like to be sure that my system doesn't collect or share data (unless I want it to), and I think KDE isn't implemented with that in mind at all.

---

Two other things: when I initially configured KDE, the only way to get rid of notifications was to remove the notification widget completely. I would have expected an option "Disable notifications (completely)" as the first thing in the settings.
And lastly, getting rid of system sounds (except the sounds for Volume changes) was also pretty annoying, because I had to disable each sound individually.

Other than that KDE was very customizable, and it worked mostly fine for me.

Thanks for reading!

Which distribution did you use actually? I just checked for your claims on my own system (Archlinux), but most privacy settings are "private" by default as it seems to me. Did you file a bug report on bugs.kde.org? Thanks for your help!