Mozilla and Canonical packaging Firefox with Snap

TangoEchoAlpha · 19 Sep 2021 at 11:48

Latest news for Ubuntu users, many Linux websites reporting on it but here's FOSS' take:

https://news.itsfoss.com/ubuntu-firefox-snap-default/

What's your view? Seems a very strange decision given how it went down with Chromium, I personally am not a fan of Snap packages and not particularly impressed with many of the activities of Mozilla lately. I would rather have an open source browser, but lately been considering a move to Vivaldi.

I'm definitely not a fan of trying to install the packaged versions from the repositories using apt to only find that under the hood, Ubuntu is giving you the Snap version.

I wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg and moving forward, Canonical want as many applications as possible to be available as Snap packages?

Ice Tea · 20 Sep 2021 at 10:41

TangoEchoAlpha said:
I wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg and moving forward, Canonical want as many applications as possible to be available as Snap packages?

There's a thread somewhere on Ubuntu discourse where the devs are experimenting with an entire snap desktop bolted onto ubuntu core so users can run the long term version of core but always have all the latest desktop applications.

TangoEchoAlpha · 20 Sep 2021 at 11:45

Ice Tea said:
There's a thread somewhere on Ubuntu discourse where the devs are experimenting with an entire snap desktop bolted onto ubuntu core so users can run the long term version of core but always have all the latest desktop applications.

Not sure I like the idea of that, I'd prefer more control over my system.

opethdisciple · 20 Sep 2021 at 19:39

I think they've done it so that Ubuntu users get Firefox updates sooner rather than having to wait 5-7 days to get the latest update.

My only problem is that snaps generally take a little while to open.

pete910 · 21 Sep 2021 at 17:51

Arch FTW

In all seriousness, a week later is no biggy is it if that's the reason.

TangoEchoAlpha · 21 Sep 2021 at 18:24

pete910 said:
Arch FTW

I actually installed Arch for the first time ever today

(on a spare computer in case I messed it up)

pete910 · 21 Sep 2021 at 21:15

TangoEchoAlpha said:
I actually installed Arch for the first time ever today

(on a spare computer in case I messed it up)

I cheated and used Manjaro

Silicon Si · 22 Sep 2021 at 16:00

pete910 said:
I cheated and used Manjaro

I use Garuda linux dragonized version based on Arch with LibreWolf.

Ice Tea · 25 Sep 2021 at 11:34

Firefox Snap has just turned up in Impish...

It saved and moved over all the previous firefox settings apart from the tab bar was using the dark theme and there is now a firefox.tmp folder in the download folder and bleachbit now needs to be fixed.

jrwagh333 · 25 Sep 2021 at 12:14

I actually like Snaps. I'm not sure why they're hated on so bad

TangoEchoAlpha · 25 Sep 2021 at 12:16

So I was watching Distro Tube on YouTube the other day and he said that the move was apparently driven by Mozilla, as opposed to Canonical. I'm all for people having the choice of using a Snap package if they want to - personally I prefer a package manager but I am probably stuck in my ways - but what I do object to is the apparent "you install Firefox via Apt but actually get a Snap install in the background".

Ice Tea · 2 Oct 2021 at 12:13

Apparently the Snap Devs are looking into ways that App developers can monetize their products through snap , things should kickoff when that goes public.

TangoEchoAlpha · 2 Oct 2021 at 13:04

Ice Tea said:
Apparently the Snap Devs are looking into ways that App developers can monetize their products through snap , things should kickoff when that goes public.

Pass the popcorn please Sire....

Monkeynut · 18 Oct 2021 at 23:38

jrwagh333 said:
I actually like Snaps. I'm not sure why they're hated on so bad

Bloatware - multiple copies of everything, slow to load, the whole thing is a disaster.

jrwagh333 · 19 Oct 2021 at 07:08

Monkeynut said:
Bloatware - multiple copies of everything, slow to load, the whole thing is a disaster.

Maybe on a HDD it's slow to load? But I didn't notice any difference in my SSD

TangoEchoAlpha · 19 Oct 2021 at 15:56

Monkeynut said:
Bloatware - multiple copies of everything, slow to load, the whole thing is a disaster.

I agree with MonkeyNut. Rather than having libraries in one place, you end up having multiple copies of the same libraries all over the place, as each Snap package contains everything needed to run it.

I'm not against people having the option to use Snap if they want, but what does grind my gears is getting a Snap package when I request the repository version via apt or Synaptic. Totally removes the control I have over the OS, what is installed and how.