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Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

forum.snapcraft.io

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Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#101

Post by daitangio »

My two cents: ubuntu snap daemon is not a good idea at all.

"Snap is a magnificent idea with a still immature realization.[...] The overall user experience with Snaps on Ubuntu is frustrating: several apps won’t start when installed as snaps, others run weird, others take really long time to start. As an example: Telegram as snap takes around 51 sec to be operative, Telegram installed as binary starts in 1,5 sec."

see https://cialu.net/how-to-disable-and-remove-completely-snaps...

Also I was never happy with snap because unable to full control when software will be upgraded (and why). It was the main reason I stopped to use it, after Ubuntu20 make snap a default install complex to remove: https://gioorgi.com/2021/ubuntu-20-failed-me/

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#103

Post by runlevel1 »

sschueller wrote: post #10

To any app dev. If your app is only available via snap I will not be using it. Also certbot, shame on you for removing the Debian repository in favor of snap.

I was wondering why they'd stop shipping a deb package for certbot. This has some info: https://github.com/certbot/certbot/issues/6770#issuecomment-...

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#104

Post by treis »

syntaxing wrote: post #41
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's updates... I don't want popups telling me to update software every few days, and then opening a webpage, downloading a snap/deb/whatever, installing it again, with sudo passwords and all that,... and then open another app, another popup, another site, another .deb... It feels like windows. I want a centralized "update" feature, that will do all that for me. This can be done by signal adding its own repo,…

Not sure if your post was satire, but isn’t everything you mentioned doable with apt already? Signal already has an official apt repo so all you need to do is the standard apt upgrade and everything including signal would be updated.

The problem with that is now you've given a 3rd party power to update your system in any way that they want. Which is fine when it's just signal but less ideal when it's 20-30 randomish companies of varying degrees of trustworthiness. The point behind flatpaks et. al. is sandboxing applications so that they can be safely updated automatically.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#105

Post by smallerfish »

boudin wrote: post #93
smallerfish wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this incident isn't good, I still think the setup is a ton better than Flathub, where you have flatpaks being maintained by third parties with no relationship to the software vendors. For example, all of the Jetbrains snaps are managed by a volunteer, as is Zoom (!) Compromise one of those devs' personal computers, and you've now got a path to getting a backdoor out to everybody using those. I trust Canonical's…

Most of what runs on any computer is built by volunteers. Most open source softwares relies on volunteers.

Yes, but distributions provide a security layer, as well as source repositories. With flathub, binaries with no source code are being packaged up (albeit with scripts), and the process of pushing updates is quite easy.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#106

Post by Asooka »

edent wrote: post #6
turblety wrote: post #2

I really despise the idea/existence of app stores. Why can't a publishers website be their store front, then from that site, you can run (or "download"/"install" if you must) the app? Technically it looks like that would actually work [1]. They could host the `.snap` file. Although I'm sure snap will add friction to this (as in, not simple let you open and click "Install") from a downloaded snap file, as they probabl…

Because that doesn't solve the discovery problem. People want an easy way to find new things. Whether that's `apt search` or Google Play.

That's a different problem to where the packages are hosted. You can host your own packages and get added to an official aggregator. Said aggregator can function as an automatic verification system to assure people that your software is not compromised, has been updated recently, etc.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#107

Post by hackerbrother »

akvadrako wrote: post #45
cmeacham98 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a Signal flatpak ( https://github.com/flathub/org.signal.Signal ), I'm unsure if the Signal devs are involved in it or not.

I've been using it for about a year - seems fine.

Me too. Would appreciate it being first-party though.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#108

Post by smallerfish »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #88
smallerfish wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this incident isn't good, I still think the setup is a ton better than Flathub, where you have flatpaks being maintained by third parties with no relationship to the software vendors. For example, all of the Jetbrains snaps are managed by a volunteer, as is Zoom (!) Compromise one of those devs' personal computers, and you've now got a path to getting a backdoor out to everybody using those. I trust Canonical's…

The problem here is that JetBrains and Zoom have chosen not to package their apps as Flatpaks. There is nothing stopping Canonical from offering a Flatpak based App Store that only contains approved and vetted apps.

> There is nothing stopping Canonical from offering a Flatpak based App Store that only contains approved and vetted apps.

I agree consolidation on a single format would be great. They have no incentive to make this switch though - most of the flak they're taking is about them being in control of their app store, rather than snap as a technology.

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#109

Post by artificialLimbs »

sschueller wrote: post #89
award_ wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your others? I use signal alot personally and haven't had too many issues.

- Still need a phone number - They refuse to post the app on f-droid (directly) - No 3rd party clients allowed on their servers. - Crypto thing they attempted - I don't trust Moxie, he rubs me the wrong way.

- Backups? lol...

Re: Snap Store administrators removed signal-desktop from Ubuntu Snap

#110

Post by hamburglar »

voakbasda wrote: post #92
sarnowski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And last time I checked, they refused to let you use your own signing keys. Means you do not get end to end trust for your own bits but need to rely on Canonical that they don’t screw up - with the obvious effect of strong vendor lock-in as I cannot sign and run my own bits.

Couldn't you just double sign your bits? Sign your payload with your key, then wrap that in a snap with their key; snap verifies the outer sig, then an "inner" installer verifies the sig of the payload. That said, I would run screaming from an ecosystem with such insanity. In fact, I am poised at the starting line of that sprint, but I'm still trying to decide what my next distribution will be that provides similar q…

What gives you any assurance that your inner sig check isn’t tampered?
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