rm ~/.local/share/zeitgeist/activity.sqlite zeitgeist-daemon --replaceThe long used file in your home folder
.recently-used.xbel
is not used any more since starting with Gnome 2.32 all the user actions are recorded and collected in a database by Gnome Zeitgeist.
Zeitgeist is a service which logs the user's activities and events (files opened, websites visited, conversations hold with other people, etc.) and makes the relevant information available to other applications.
It serves as a comprehensive activity log and also makes it possible to determine relationships between items based on usage patterns.
The workaround is removing the Unity files plug in
sudo apt-get install unity-place-files
This will however only prevent files from appearing in the Unity panel and does not prevent Zeitgeist from keeping track of them.
You may also provide some blacklisted paths using a front-end
sudo apt-get install ?gnome-activity-journal
/home/user/secret/
folder. Then open Activity Journal. On top right Zeitgeist Icon, click it and
Preferences. Check "Blacklist Manager" plugin Then goto "BlackList Manager"
tab. Click on New button, and then edit the new entry which comes as
file:///home/user/secret/* This is especially useful if you just
want to balcklist *all* your files by entering this pattern
file:///home/Your_Username_Here/*The privacy issue still remains though, given that you keep a logger in your computer and just have to rely on the fact that it does follows your policies and do not collect your data.
You can of course completely remove this passive logger by typing
sudo apt-get remove zeitgeistHowever this will prevent you form searching for applications in Unity menu, thus making unity itself pretty useless. A more privacy aware Zeitgeist release would be the 0.9 scheduled to be released later this summer.