Hacker News Reader

I vaguely recall gnome phoning home, not sure if this happens on debian.

Source please. "Vaguely recall" is not anything you should write on the internet.

I block traffic on new installs and track down all connection attempts.

I had to do: gsettings set org.gnome.software download-updates false

unfortunately I only have evidence ubuntu needed this turned on, not sure about arch and debian.