The Top 100 Linux Distros & Which of Their Websites Track You

My first Linux install, in high school, was MkLinux on a Macintosh Performa 6116CD. 'Mk' indicated it used the Mach microkernel, and it was the only Linux that could run on PowerPC NUBUS Macs. It came as a book and CD-ROM. Next was Slackware on a 486, where I had a perl script that searched eBay hourly for old computers. Not long after, I bought a Power Computing PowerTower Pro and set it up to triple-boot Mac OS, Yellow Dog Linux, and BeOS. In college, my dorm room server was a Motorola PowerStack running Debian PowerPC, and I've rarely strayed from Debian and its derivatives since.

Recently, I've been playing with Arch on an Orange Pi 5, and it has me itching to experiment with new distros again. Browsing DistroWatch, the distros and their descriptions blur together, but I realized you can infer a lot about a community's values by looking at what external content they embed in their website. Do they respect your privacy? Or are they willing to sell you out for nothing more than a couple of free fonts?

The table below lists the top 100 distributions on DistroWatch, at the time of this writing. Those in green do not embed any external content. Those in red embed content from Google or Cloudflare. This includes Google fonts, because "By using our APIs, Google may use submitted information in accordance with our privacy policies." Google's privacy policies allow them to track you.

If the distribution is not colored, you should look at it on a case-by-case basis. Some are embedding a pretty innocuous-looking CDN or using a local piwik server. Others are not.

I didn't include multiple subdomains from the same site, if they weren't interesting. For example, for MX Linux I listed stripe.com, even though there are embeds for js.stripe.com, m.stripe.com, and q.stripe.com. Any embeds from cloudflare.nsa.gov are just listed as cloudflare.

 

MX Linuxstripe.com, fastly.net
EndeavourOSbootstrapcdn.com, stats.wp.com
Mintcloudflare.net, fontawesome.com
Manjarocloudflare.net, fastly.net, spreadshirtmedia.net, twitter.com, unpkg.com
Fedora0
Pop! OSplausible.io
Ubuntugoogle-analytics.com, googletagmanager.com, plausible.io
Debian0
Litediscordapp.com, fonts.googleapis.com, clients1.google.com, cse.google.com, fundingchoicesmessages.google.com, googlesyndication.com, googletagmanager.com, gstatic.com, www.googleapis.com
openSUSEbeans.opensuse.org (piwik)
Garudacloudflare.net, fontawesome.com, fonts.googleapis.com, translate.google.com, gstatic.com
Zorinzorin-hjonk.netlify.app, hwcdn.net
elementarycloudflare.net, elementary-inc.github.io, fontawesome.com, gravatar.com, fastly.net, jsdelivr.net
KDE neon1088045785.rsc.cdn77.org
antiXfonts.googleapis.com, youtube-ui.l.google.com, fastly.net, youtube.com
Kalifonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com
Puppyfonts.googleapis.com, github.com, gstatic.com
AlmaLinuxcloudflare.com, fonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com, jquery.com, fastly.net, jsdelivr.net
PCLinuxOSgoogle-analytics.com, ibb.co
EasyOS0
ArcoLinuxyoutube-ui.l.google.com, googletagmanager.com, googlevideo.com, gstatic.com, youtube.com
FreeBSD0
SparkyLinuxgooglesyndication.com, googletagmanager.com, kxcdn.com, twitcount.com
Alpine0
Mageia0
Q4OS0
Bluestaradnxs.com, btloader.com, cloudflare.net, cloudflareinsights.com, crsspxl.com, doubleclick.net, fsdn.com, google-analytics.com, googletagmanager.com, licdn.com, lijit.com
Gnoppixcloudflareinsights.com, fonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com
Peppermint/koko-analytics
Kubuntuconnect.facebook.net, fbcdn.net, apis.google.com, youtube-ui.l.google.com, googlevideo.com, youtube.com
NixOS0
SmartOSajax.googleapis.com, cloudfront.net, fonts.googleapis.com, getclicky.com, gstatic.com, webflow.com
Lubuntufonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com
Archcraftfonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com
Parrotakamai.net, typekit.net
Vanillacloudflare.com, fonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com, unpkg.com
Tails0
Nobara0
Linuxfxyoutube-ui.l.google.com, googlevideo.com, s3.amazonaws.com, youtube.com
Slackware0
Nitruxfonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com
Maboxcdn-cookieyes.com, cloudflare.com, fonts.googleapis.com, youtube-ui.l.google.com, googlevideo.com, gstatic.com, youtube.com
OpenMandrivafonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com, liberapay.com
Rockyfonts.googleapis.com, gstatic.com, resf.workers.dev
Bodhiajax.googleapis.com, fonts.googleapis.com, googletagmanager.com, gstatic.com, stats.wp.com
CentOS0
Regatablogblog.com, blogger.com, blogspot.com, cloudflare.net, fontawesome.com, fonts.googleapis.com, gammacdn.net, googlesyndication.com, googletagmanager.com, googleusercontent.com, gstatic.com, jquery.com, uol.com.br
Devuan0
ALTfonts.googleapis.com, youtube-ui.l.google.com, googletagmanager.com, gstatic.com, mail.ru, yandex.ru, youtube.com
Xubuntu0
siductionopencollective.com
Gentoocdn77.org
KaOScloudflare.net, edgecastcdn.net, fastly.net, fontawesome.com, fonts.googleapis.com, google-analytics.com, gstatic.com, jquery.com, transifex.com, twitter.com
PureOS0
Voyagertranslate.google.com, gstatic.com, stats.wp.com
CachyOS0
deepingoogletagmanager.com, ovscdns.com, qlogo.cn, uniontech.com
Haikufonts.googleapis.com, github.com, gstatic.com, netlify.com, wasabisys.com
Qubes0
Red Hatadobedtm.com, ansible.com, cloudfront.net, drift.com, akamaiedge.net, amazonaws.com, hscoscdn40.net, fastly.net, imgix.net, trustarc.com
wattOSfonts.googleapis.com, stats.wp.com
Arch0
AV Linuxfonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com, stats.wp.com
BunsenLabs 
TrueNAScloudflare.net, akamai.net, googletagmanager.com, hs-analytics.net, hubspot.com, ixsystems.com, kxcdn.com, typekit.net, usemessages.com, fastly.net, vimeo.com
Tiny Core0
EuroLinuxclearbitscripts.com, google-analytics.com, fonts.gstatic.com
RebornOSfonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com, stats.wp.com
Peropesis0
4MLinuxajax.googleapis.com, googlesyndication.com, revolvermaps.com, twitter.com, fastly.net
ArchLabscloudfront.net, fonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com, ibb.co, paypalobjects.com
Salix0
TUXEDO0
ReactOS0
NuTyXwtfpl.net, zoy.org
Endlessfacebook.net, googletagmanager.com, parastorage.com, wix.com
Slaxfonts.googleapis.com, googletagmanager.com, fonts.gstatic.com
Kodachiajax.googleapis.com, fonts.googleapis.com, google-analytics.com, youtube-ui.l.google.com, googlevideo.com, fonts.gstatic.com, fastly.net, paypalobjects.com, w.org, youtube.com
Ubuntu MATE0
DragonFlyfacebook.com
XeroLinuxyoutube-ui.l.google.com, hygraph.com, imgur.com, fastly.net, youtube.com
Clearcloudflare.net, fontawesome.com, youtube-ui.l.google.com, googletagmanager.com, googlevideo.com, youtube.com
MakuluLinuxcleantalk.org, discordapp.com, dropbox-dns.com, dropboxusercontent.com, facebook.net, fastly.net, fbcdn.net, fonts.googleapis.com, googlesyndication.com, googletagmanager.com, gravatar.com, fonts.gstatic.com, www.gstatic.com, oneall.com, stats.wp.com
Calculatejsdelivr.net
LXLEajax.googleapis.com, fonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com
Neptunegoogle-analytics.com, liberapay.com, fastly.net, paypal.com
ExTiXgooglesyndication.com, paypalobjects.com
GhostBSDjquery.com, fastly.net, jsdelivr.net
Murenacloudflare.net, datatables.net, ecloud.global, fontawesome.com
Absolutecloudflare.com, fonts.googleapis.com, googlesyndication.com, fonts.gstatic.com
Archmanfonts.googleapis.com, translate.google.com, gravatar.com, fonts.gstatic.com, www.gstatic.com, translate.googleapis.com, stats.wp.com
ROSAfonts.googleapis.com, translate.google.com, www.google.com, googletagmanager.com, fonts.gstatic.com, www.gstatic.com, translate.googleapis.com, yandex.ru
Ubuntu Studiofonts.googleapis.com, patreon.com, fastly.net, paypalobjects.com
OpenBSD0
Spiralfonts.googleapis.com, github.com, fonts.gstatic.com
Oraclecloudfront.net, go-mpulse.net, greylabeldelivery.com, tiqcdn.com, trustarc.com
Ferenaddthis.com, editmysite.com, google-analytics.com, fastly.net
Kaisenfonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com
Geckogeckolinux.github.io, githubusercontent.com, fonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com
Ubuntu Budgiefonts.googleapis.com, googletagmanager.com, fonts.gstatic.com
  

 

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