Imagine your friend that does not know anything about linux, don’t you think this would make them not install the firefox flatpak and potentially think that linux is unsafe?
I ask this because I believe we must be careful and make small changes to welcome new users in the future, we have to make them as much comfortable as possible when experimenting with a new O.S
I believe this warning could have a less alarming design, saying something like “This app can use elevated permissions. What does this mean?” with the “What does this mean?” text as a clickable URL that shows the user that this may cause security risks. I mean, is kind of a contradiction to have “verified” on the app and a red warning saying “Potentially unsafe”, the user will think “well, should I trust this or not??”
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I like flatpaks and flathub, but this is just something they do badly. I think as well they also have “probably safe” which is just as unhelpful… And what does “access certain files and folders” even mean!?
I think they should just follow the example of every other app store; list the permissions in an easily understandable list and let the user decide whether or not they are comfortable with it.
I think they should just follow the example of every other app store; list the permissions in an easily understandable list and let the user decide whether or not they are comfortable with it.
Totally agree. The “verified” label will give new users enough comfort, and the ones who wish to know more will read the permissions.
When I look at Firefox in Discover, it only shows the list of permissions the flatpak will be given out of the box, with no warning of it being “potentially unsafe.” This certainly does seem like the better way to handle it.
Also, the warning on the Flathub website is clickable - it expands into the full permissions list. Why it defaults to “no information except maybe dangerous” is beyond me.
Yes but surely you’re aware that even the most new-user-friendly distros and their tools aren’t necessarily aimed at new users.
That warning is a perfect example of how Linux developers choose which hill to die on. They post a warning for an app that everyone knows can deliver bad times to two camps of users; those that know and don’t care and those that don’t understand the warning. If we could quantify the helpfulness of that warning, odds are that it saved 0 users from malicious action from that avenue of attack.
Never expect Linux as a whole to be “helpful” to the new crowd.
Isn’t this why we’d expect new users to use a built-in package manager? Because it avoids this exact problem?
Which is why I said “linux as a whole”. Many distros will try to undo the nerdery and neckbeardism that is built into the parent distros but as a whole, linux is going to always be less welcoming to a new user than someone that’s used to useless warnings and repeated password entries for elevated privileges. Being safer and being new-user-friendly rarely go hand in hand.
Not all user friendly distros have a parent distro. Checkout Solus.
There are sometimes things upstream causing problems. The Linux kernel itself isn’t one of them though as Linus is pretty adamant that Linux distributions should be easy to setup and use. KDE is also designed to be pretty friendly while being customizable still. The main issues seem to come from apps and distributions.
In defense of this warning, when I first put my application on Flathub, I had it because of how file i/o worked (didn’t support XDG portals, so needed home folder access to save properly). It did actually motivate me to get things working with portals to not request the extra permissions and get the green “safe” marker.
A lot of apps will always be “unsafe” because they do things that requires hardware access, though, so I could see them wanting something more nuanced.
To be fair, if a naive user is going to get a virus, there’s a very high chance a browser will be involved.
those warnings on mint and flathub are so ridiculous, there’s no difference between those and official ones, somebody could just as easily put something nefarious in any flatpak
This should have been much more well thought out The wording, image, buttons, specific wording for each page.
They really screwed the pooch.
Another 4-6 months minimum before release. But quarterly numbers must be met.
If you use Debian-based linux (Ubuntu, Minut, others), Mozilla recommends getting the package directly from their respository rather than flatpak or other repos.
Personally, I saw a major performance increase on my low-powered laptop when I switched from flatpak to the Mozilla package.
I’ve tried both on my low powered HTPC and came to the same conclusion - especially noticeable where video acceleration is concerned
That’s nice, I think I’ll switch from Firefox ESR on Debian!
They should be worried. We don’t want them comfortable.
So many negative things have entered our culture bc people don’t care about dangers. Nearly every app should have a warning
They should not be worried, they should be educated.
If you worry a new user enough they’ll go back to Windows or Apple because there’s less scary warnings there.
We need to make the transition as pain free as possible. Learning about the joys of kernel compilation and SELinux can come later.
The first step is "Hey, this is as usable as Windows, without stupid ads in the start menu.Nearly every app should have a warning
So it would be how in the US half of all products have a warning saying they cause cancer thanks to California proposition 65? No thanks.
If “nearly every app” that people already use suddenly has a big warning on it, people will quickly decide the warnings are meaningless and start ignoring them, like Prop 65 warnings. Congratulations, we’ve moved the needle backwards.
You have to meet people where they’re at. I finally switched to Linux when MS introduced a feature I wanted no part in (Recall AI), but I would have given up within a day or two if the transition hadn’t been basically seamless. I was able to pick up right where I left off, using all the same apps I did on Windows
except MusicBee RIP, but now I’m in a better position than before, on an open-source OS instead of closed-source. Now there’s a little less friction between me and better, freer software.- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) 2•3 months ago
prop 65 warnings are indeed useless
Yes, but also… It’s true. Browsers are the number one way folks get viruses.
- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) 11•3 months ago
Which is hilarious because desktop apps have always had the capability to spy on all other apps and steal all your data.
On bad operating systems like Linux, yes. ;)
It’s not specific to browsers, but to every flatpak that is verified and has the potentially unsafe warning.
“Verified” doesn’t mean too much to privacy advocates. There have been incidents. I indeed want to check what my app is going to access before installing it.
I think it’s okay to check what the app is going to access in your system. I’m just talking about the warning design, this comment suggests a different approach for a less alarming design.
Ah, very good point! If we all had the dedication for UX like you do, Linux would be so so so perfect.
Good.
People need to view out of channel software with a hairy eyeball.
Hell, I run Debian all over and it’s absurd that the main repositories don’t do checksums on downloaded packages!
WAIT THEY DON’T ???
yeah apt just trusts the server if it properly identifies itself
the barrier to entry for attacking that seems pretty high though
if that freaks you out, switch to a rhel derivative, they got a shiny progress bar
Interesting, but switching will be difficult, unfortunately…
Thanks for the info
- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) 2•3 months ago
I think it’s absurd that most distros have no tools whatsoever for doing regular checksums of their own files. Windows certainly got that part right IMO.
I’m double checking this myself now, but there are plenty of tools (debsum) they’re just not part of the default implementation as of last time I looked.
- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) 2•3 months ago
Right, I’m talking about like periodic or real-time scanning and alerting, which DISM/SFC on windows does.
i’m almost 100% that debsums on apt stuff and the --verify flag in rpm distros do what sfc did. (kinda, debsums and --verify check against a list of checksums from the repo, i’m pretty sure sfc cracks open an actual known version of the files and compares em with whats on disk)
idk what dism does.
Just reminding folks that just because it’s flatpak’d, doesn’t mean it’s sandboxed. But they probably should add some general click here for more info.
To be fair, the fact that browsers are allowed to do so much that this warning has to be shown is more an indictment on the current state of browsers (which at this point are almost like installing VMWare and a virtual machine on your computer!) than on something something Firefox or something something Flatpak.
I mean yes, how exactly would you want the web to work? In order for it to be secure we need website code to run in an isolated environment. Modern web browsers have gotten pretty good at this.
Though we say it’s a JavaScript Virtual Machine it’s not the kind of virtual machine you are thinking of. It just means it’s being interpreted in a certain environment rather than compiles code running natively. It’s not like a whole OS. Running a web browser in a Virtual Machine is unironically a method to improve security; checkout Qubes OS for an example.
Also the permissions it’s asking for aren’t that serious. Basically GPU access and download folder access.
I mean yes, how exactly would you want the web to work?
Text and images and hyperlinks; maybe audio and video if you’re lucky and you can prove you can be trusted. No such thing as scripting, or if it’s allowed, only in a limited manner with no such thing as “eval” and obfuscation and no ability to add or delete nodes from the DOM (or if it’s allowed, those nodes must reflect under View Source / CTRL+U). No such things as loading a javascript audioplayer that tries to mix 123456 weird sources, just link me the .m3u direct to the audio stream’s .mp3 file, or even better an .opus.
Definitively no DRM.
If any such thing as GPU access is provided it should be to deposit data, not to run code.
Text and images and hyperlinks; maybe audio and video if you’re lucky and you can prove you can be trusted.
Those things still require a GPU to render efficiently.
All the other stuff you talk about don’t need a GPU or really any systems permissions at all. So even if the web changes to your twisted view the flatpak would still require the same permissions. All you’ve just proven is that you don’t understand technology.
If any such thing as GPU access is provided it should be to deposit data, not to run code.
You don’t know what a GPU is apparently. Regardless the same access is needed for both.
Also you use Lemmy, which requires scripting. Pretty much every online game, shopping website, calculator, and so on require scripting of some kind. Scripting isn’t just for bad things like tracking. It makes a lot of cool stuff possible, that you doubtlessly use everyday. As a plus it’s generally more secure to use a web app than have a myriad of different programs or applets replace all these different things, as websites are sandboxed. There is a reason JavaScript replaced Flash and Java applets.
You’re confusing a technology problem with a society/capitalism problem.
I’m a firm believer that regardless of operating system that a warning message saying that installing something could cause harm to your device definitely makes people think twice about installation if they’re not tech savvy (AKA know more than the bare minimum anymore). It’s definitely intentional that the large companies responsible scare you away from doing the things you want because they want you locked into doing things the way they want.
I just typed “xdg-download:𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲” into flatseal, my browser is safe af now.
Pushing someone new to Linux to use Flatpak? Shame on you.
Flatpak is one extra step. If apt or rpm already has what you want, which is true for many new users, why would we push them towards scary click thru action?