this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Those are just app distribution formats. Since there's just 1 snap store which can deliver snaps, they're not comparable.
What Flatpak stores are there in widespread use other than flathub? (Additional servers that depend on the runtimes flathub distributes don't count.)
Elementary has their own for their stuff
People download and run completely opaque AppImages from god knows where and that's better than Snap Store which is hit with malicious apps so rarely it's actual news
Flatpak also has a system where any scammer and malicious developer can just roll their own flatpak repo and voila, nobody can stop them. If it ever becomes mainstream, it'll be a shit show worse than Google Play
You’re pretty much just rehashing a possible apt repo “vulnerability,” but at least with flatpak they remember where each package was installed from.
What?
Anyone can create an apt repo and the override your system packages with new versions.
At least with flatpak only the applications you installed from the bad actor’s repo would be affected, though obviously they can still have a ton of malicious dependencies
This does not invalidate anything I've said
I wasn’t trying to, just pointing out that it was nothing new
Text files could theoretically contain malicious content. Why doesn't the format have a built-in virus scanner??? Is this what you're suggesting?
No, but root-of-trust isn't really established unless you ONLY take packages that the distro's security maintainers actually maintain, Flatpak, Appimage and Snap are a bit of a no man's land. You have to trust the developers to be cool, independent of the tool, unless you as mentioned before use only FOSS software from the distro's main repositories. And yes, specifically main repos because any random dick can go and upload a PKGBUILD or make a PPA.
Most people get their flatpaks from the same handful of places though, right? Flathub and ??
This isn't a snap specific issue is what he is saying. It could happen to other stores.
Also, my snap nextcloud is amazing and was the easiest to set up and maintain.
Flathub has manual submission verification though, which includes the steps to build flatpaks. Reviewers (currently) would definitely catch fishy looking apps.
They've also implemented manual reviews in case of metainfo or flatpak permission changes, another thing for additional safety.