I just found this out recently. So this isn’t actually Nautilus itself but it’s the file previewer (Gnome Sushi) that comes with it. If you select a file and press the spacebar, it will automatically preview the file if it supported. If the file is an audio file, it will automatically fetch album art from the web, and if the file is an HTML file, it can make third-party requests. IMHO this is a huge privacy issue. For example if you were browsing the web using Tor Browser and saved a page to view offline, and then later accidentally opened it using the file previewer, any third-party requests will leak out the clearnet.

This is an open issue and I don’t expect it to be fixed anytime soon, so the easiest solution is to simply uninstall Gnome Sushi (on Fedora, it is the sushi package). On atomic distros if Gnome Sushi is installed as a flatpak you might be able to revoke internet permissions for it using Flatseal, though I have not tested this.

Edit: I’m aware that KDE also has file previewers, but I’m not sure if they have the same issue. If anybody else knows please leave a comment letting us know

  • ReakDuck@lemmy.ml
    41·
    1 day ago

    People say Qt sucks. But there is literally no better alternative to the KDE environment. Either Dolphin or tons of other apps just have more features and settings compared to GTK ones.

    Unsure if they have the same issue

  • golden_zealot@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    I went and checked out Thunar because of this post, and regardless of the original intention, I have found a file manager I much prefer as a result. Thank you.

  • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    533·
    3 days ago

    While good for privacy, this sounds like an awful UX change for the average person. Some sort of nice toggle to disable it would be good, but removing it all together would probably annoy more people than it benefits.

    • brax@sh.itjust.works
      141·
      3 days ago

      Agreed. I fucking hate Nautilus - especially the way it fucking tries to filter everything instead of jumping me to where I’m typing. It makes navigation so much slower

      • ReakDuck@lemmy.ml
        2·
        1 day ago

        I hate, when programs like Firefox or anything else uses something like Nautilus to pick the file.

        I can’t even press ctrl+L to change the URL of my filesystem where I want to be. I need a lot of clicky GUI to get to the desination…

  • Leaflet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    3 days ago

    Good thing I use the Flatpak version of Sushi, I’ll just remove the network permission.

  • tasankovasara@sopuli.xyz
    8·
    3 days ago

    Thanks for tipping the previewer’s name. Not concerned with the (valid) sec aspect personally, but I’ve accidentally hit space a couple of times since meta+shift+space is Sway’s default for floating / tiling a window and I don’t use the preview anyway. Let’s uninstall.

  • cmgvd3lw@discuss.tchncs.de
    121·
    3 days ago

    Well its also a simple browser so it will preview the HTML page like any other browser would. But I don’t know about audio files though.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
      20·
      3 days ago

      IMO a “simple browser” of this sort should display literally only the content in the HTML file itself. It shouldn’t even view CSS stored in a separate local CSS file, let alone reach out to the web to download more content.

    • hendrika_gelya@toast.oooOPEnglish
      122·
      3 days ago

      Yes but an HTML file is very different from a website. At the very least I’d like an option to disable all remote requests, or disable previews for certain file formats.

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    It probably downloads remote images in PDFs too, but I don’t know that for sure.

  • darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    31·
    3 days ago

    Thanks for the tip! Despite never actually using sushi, I had it installed so now I’ve uninstalled it to avoid using it by accident.

    • Leaflet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 days ago

      It’s actually pretty nice in some situations.

      One thing that bites me about Loupe / Image Viewer is that it always goes through images in alphabetical order, despite the sort option you have set in nautilus.

      Sushi does go through items using the same sort option set in nautilus.

      Though it can be finicky with videos, so I don’t use it for that.

  • easily3667English
    109·
    3 days ago

    Still not worse than the simple act of having to use gnome for longer than it takes to install something, anything else

    • cujo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      3 days ago

      I have the sneaking suspicion this was supposed to be sarcastic, but the Internet doesn’t carry “tone”… Am I correct? 😂

        • cujo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          1 day ago

          As much as people whine about it as a trend, “/s” goes a long way. 😂

          There’s no winning… I get you, though. And you’re right, they do think they know best… Which is why I won’t use GNOME. I left Windows for the same reason. And I’ll catch a lot of hate for it, but IMO GNOME is far too opinionated about how the end-user “should” interact with their PC for my tastes.

    • Pirata@lemm.ee
      5·
      3 days ago

      What’s good to the user is what the user wants its device to do. Simple as.