In October 2012, Canonical decided to add a feature to their operating system that I honestly don't know if anyone has ever cared about it. This is the web application of Amazon, which is simply a webapp that allows us to access the famous store just as we do with other web applications or PWA. In addition, the icon is in the dock after the zero installation of the operating system, so it is clear that there is a commercial background behind this inclusion.
The Amazon webapp is something that has bothered me since I first saw it. If I remember correctly, in its first versions you had to uninstall a package that we might miss, but in the most recent versions it can be easily uninstalled from the software center. This is something that I have done whenever I could, but it will no longer be necessary from Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa.
Goodbye, Amazon. It wasn't pretty while it lasted
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa has removed the dependency ubuntu-web-launchers of the package ubuntu-meta in the latest Daily Build of the operating system. The Amazon webapp is nothing more than a direct access that depends on this dependency, worth the redundancy, so will not be available by default in Focal Fossa. Logically, if we miss this web application or the dependency, we can install it at any time.
The Amazon app available in Ubuntu as of 12.10 is basically a direct access to the store including a code so that Amazon knows that we have accessed your website from the Canonical operating system. If it were useful, the idea is for Canonical to make sponsorship income, but it has probably been so rare in the last 8 years that they have decided that their users are not worth annoying. It will be a very welcome change for me. And for you?
As is, I share your feelings. I use Ubuntu 18.04 and I don't know how to remove it. I read "there" that if I uninstalled it could corrupt the system.
I did like it, when I think about buying online Amazon is the first thing I think about and that direct access was fine, it is not that it is a critical app either.
It never bothered me because years ago it did not install from a complete bear and I always start from the mini.iso, installing what I want and when I want.