Snap-less browsers?

[GreyGeek]

I had tried Brave a couple years ago and found that it wasn't complete, and the pay feature got in the way. I just installed it and imported my FF links and login data and WOWZER! What a totally different browser!

It's now my main browser! Thanks for the heads up. I would have taken someone of your caliber to cause me to retry it.

I'll have to retract my approval of the Brave browser. While it imported my FF links and passwords perfectly, and was fast, I noticed that during the course of the day it would slow down considerably. I also use the Ctl key and the mouse wheel to zoom in on web pages to make them easier for my old eyes to read. Brave became VERY slow at zooming in or back out. Painstakingly slow. I'd roll the wheel and nothing would happen for 5 or 10 seconds, then it would jump too far and I'd have to roll it back out, which was equally delayed. Zooming to the right size was a pain. I finally had enough of it and returned to FF.

[sithlord48]

Yeah Neon could be using all snaps there. But it doesn't mean anything about kde and snaps. KDE software is distributed many ways. It could be the members making the neon stuff wanted to try snaps out since its based on ubuntu snaps work oob where you need to add more for flatpak (another way kde stuff is distributed) I wouldn't dig to deeply into it.

[Don B. Cilly]

There's a (nine months old, but newer than the one above) mini-review of Brave by the esteemed Don B. Cilly ;·) on KFN.

[Bings]

https://www.netsparker.com/blog/web-...ices-security/ Brave has always struck me as a slightly dodgy sounding gimmick.

[TWPonKubuntu]

I use the Pale Moon browser on all my systems, 64 and 32 bit. I'm satisfied with how it works and I feel safer than with Mozilla's Firefox (Pale Moon is a fork).

[Schwarzer Kater]

Nearly forgot about it, but I had used it a lot on 32-bit machines some time ago: Pale Moon.
https://www.palemoon.org/

Just installed it in 20.04 and I still like it somehow. :-)
PPA: https://software.opensuse.org/downlo...ckage=palemoon

[chimak111]

Given the current confinements, I doubt whether key applications such as file managers will ever be "snapped".

As for the "thousands" of snaps, at least two of the snaps published by KDE didn't work for me: falkon and palapeli.

[Don B. Cilly]

What will happen if every application becomes tied to snapd and the apt package will ONLY install apps that have snaps store gpg keys? What IF systemd and snap get linked together, attempting to remove snapd removed systemd?

If that happens (it won't :·) most people will either stop using *buntus (or anything that depends on snaps) or snaps will have a better implementation.
Imagine having all your packages as snaps. How long would it take your system to boot? Half an hour? Not... feasible... :·)

[GreyGeek]

...
On the other hand, I just started using Brave browser and I think I'm sticking with it! Lots of features and way faster than Chromium has been lately. Current Brave release is based on Version 1.8.96 Chromium: 81.0.4044.138 (Official Build) (64-bit)

I had tried Brave a couple years ago and found that it wasn't complete, and the pay feature got in the way. I just installed it and imported my FF links and login data and WOWZER! What a totally different browser!

It's now my main browser! Thanks for the heads up. I would have taken someone of your caliber to cause me to retry it.

[verndog]

My favourite snap-less browser (apart from Firefox): Falkon. :-)

I use to like it years ago. I just downloaded to try again. One thing I prefer is ublock over adblock. It defaults to adblock. It took a while to remove ads from msn.
Interesting points I read on reddit.

[GreyGeek]

IMO, snap and flatpak have a common motivation: the creation of the "store" concept similar to the Apple Store, or Android's Play store, for the purposes of monetizing Linux. Monetizing Ubuntu is something Shuttlesworth has been trying to do since he started the distro. With snap or flatpak applications can be sold/installed, tracked and even pulled back from the user.Coded into the apps will be, eventually, ads and upgrade$ notices, with the key and most powerful features being in the upgrade$. Just like apps in the Android and Apple stores. All this while their daemons reside in the ps stack constantly monitoring what the user is doing. What could possibly go wrong with that?

What's driving this motivation? RedHat is now owned by IBM. Microsoft sits on the Linux Foundation Board, etc... Microsoft has installed Linux inside Win10. Eventually, with "app stores" as the only source of Linux applications, Windows will just be a DE of Linux, but one fed by application$ sold in snap store. Right now there are "thousands" of snap applications in the snap store. Android has 2.8 million. Apple has 2.2 million. AppImage has around 800. Flatpak has less than 200. In affect, flatpak has disappeared, Appimage will soon do the same, leaving only snap. Android application developers who sell apps on the "Play Store" already are developing apps on a Linux foundation. It wouldn't take much for them to reconfigure those apps to run on a Linux distro in a larger form factor.

The flood of former Windows programmers, seeing Microsoft's massive move toward Linux in both server and DE space, is causing causing them to look for other markets. Not that I blame them. I spent most of my adult life writing software for money. I can sympathize with them. Microsoft cut me off at the knees when it purchased, and then buried, Visual FoxPro 6.0, attempting to get the 240,000 VFP developers to move to .NET. Because of that I vowed never to be dependent on MS tools again. I moved to the Qt API in 2004 so that my income would never depended on using Microsoft dev tools again.

My biggest concern is that eventually the repositories and PPA's will fade away and ALL packages/applications will be available ONLY through the snap store. The connection between snapd and Chromium, and libsnapd-glib.so.1 being tied to plasma audio, signals the future. What will happen if every application becomes tied to snapd and the apt package will ONLY install apps that have snaps store gpg keys? What IF systemd and snap get linked together, attempting to remove snapd removed systemd?

[Schwarzer Kater]

My favourite snap-less browser (apart from Firefox): Falkon. :-)

[verndog]

@sithloard48 , Yes, I totally agree. snadp is for lazy developers. I have been thinking also arch if it comes to that.

[Don B. Cilly]

The deb package for chromium says (if you try to install it):
Transitional package - chromium-browser -> chromium snap
This is a transitional dummy package. It can safely be removed.
chromium-browser is now replaced by the chromium snap.


And pops up a window that says: A newer version is available, you are strongly recommended to install that one, it has to be snap or snap, you wannabe clever boy(/girl), you dummy, getting dummy packages, ha ha ha, snaps are snapping at your heels, resistance is fut... or something to that extent :·)

[chimak111]

...
There are better distros to base neon on .. (arch)

But KDE neon seems pretty much involved with snaps. If you run snap info on any snap published by KDE, you'll see "neon" in the "contact" line:

$ snap info kate
name:      kate
summary:   KDE Advanced Text Editor
publisher: KDE✓
store-url: https://snapcraft.io/kate
contact:   https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=neon&component=Snaps
license:   GPL-2.0+

Plus, the KDE neon site has this:

So it seems like the relationship between snaps and KDE neon is not trivial.