Snap-less browsers?

[verndog]

Yes, the first order of business is remove snapd. I have no need for it. I use FF so Chromium is not needed. I'm running neon, so there's not much else I need to remove, since most are not installed anyway.

[chimak111]

@Schwarzer Kater, thank you very much for the links in your first post

I'm trying out snaps in VMs of Kubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 20.04 and the experience is interesting. I've filed two snap-related bugs, both are the same but the first was at Launchpad before I realised that bugs relating to snaps published by "KDE" should be at https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?p...omponent=Snaps!). With my limited knowledge, I also managed to help out a couple of snap users elsewhere.

I'll soon install snaps for Kate and Okular in Kubuntu 18.04.

[Schwarzer Kater]

[…] I use FF so Chromium is not needed. […]

One of my friends I currently install Kubuntu 20.04 for does need a Chromium-based web browser to test websites for her customers.
But unfortunately Chromium is available as snap only in 20.04 and I couldn't find a trustworthy PPA for it. So I installed Opera and Google Chrome for her instead by adding their official PPAs to avoid snaps.

Personally I don't like Google at all, but I think one has to make compromises one way or the other or otherwise "normal" users will go back to Windows 10 systems…

[oshunluvr]

Just in case anyone cares: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1204...m-without-snap

[Schwarzer Kater]

Thank you for the link, oshunluvr. Could give this "Debian solution" a try later on, but I doubt it will be the current version of Chromium as it isn't in my Debian 10.4 KDE installation on my private desktop (version number there is: 80.0.3987.162-1)…

[oshunluvr]

Yes, Debian is notoriously slower at adopting new packages the Ubuntu. KDEneon is on version 81.0.4044.138 and Buster is definitely on 80.0.3987.162-1. If you must have the latest and greatest, either use the snap or compile it yourself may be your only choices.

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)

[kyonides]

Nah, Brave doesn't convince me. It fails to properly display a search bar inside a toolbar on a website I frequently visit. And I had just installed brave a few minutes ago... Firefox didn't fail me like that.

[Don B. Cilly]

While it's true that Chrome/ium has a 70% share of desk/lap/top use,
I use FF for just about everything, and it works just fine - for just about everything.
(I do "compartmentalise" a bit, so I also use Opera/Chrome/Brave for some limited instances). But Firefox will cut it -for me - on any site).
Brave is sleek and fast, but can be annoying,

Still, if someone "needs a Chromium-based web browser to test websites for her customers"... hmmm, well... Chrome doesn't need snaps anyway...
So, if it's for testing purposes, why not Chrome?

[Bings]

Falkon is a good browser and uses QTWebEngine I actually have it as a second browser to do basic web design with. I use it with kate and it auto refreshes when a local html file is saved.

[sithlord48]

I have removed snapd a have firefox installed from the focal repo
Here is the package for firefox https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/web/firefox
Here is the package for chromium https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/chromium-browser

apt search firefox
.. its a long list
> firefox/focal-updates,focal-security,now 76.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 amd64 [installed]
Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla

doing the same for chromium-browser results an a package with a interesting description
>chromium-browser/focal-updates 81.0.4044.129-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 amd64
Transitional package - chromium-browser -> chromium snap

Looks like chromium-browser will be snap only soon...
Snaps are pointless NIH... Hopefully soon it will join the other NIH projects of canonical.
Stuff like this is why I'm having a much harder time recommending *buntu to people lately.
There are better distros to base neon on .. (arch)

[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.

[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 :·)

[verndog]

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

[Schwarzer Kater]

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

[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?