3 ms·

> You trusted the app developers as soon as you installed that app on your computer with full privileges. No, I don't. First, most apps' code won't run as roo

> You trusted the app developers as soon as you installed that app on your computer with full privileges. No, I don't. First, most apps' code won't run as root. Only install scripts, written my distribution's maintainers, run as root (except for core applications, of course). And secondly, I trust app developers to write their app properly (to a certain extent), but not to write install scripts that won't mess with my system, because it's outside their domain of expertise.

takluyver 6y ago
On a personal computer, you are giving a whole lot of trust to anything you run un-sandboxed as your normal user - it will likely have access to your most interesting files, browser cookies, maybe saved passwords. XKCD covered it years back: https://xkcd.com/1200/ https://xkcd.com/1200/ This brings up another drawback of deb/rpm packaging, though: you need root access to install anything. I'm not sure about Snap, but Flatpaks can be installed and used by an individual user.
- simosx 6y ago
  If you first run snap login then you can install snaps without "sudo". I suppose it is the same process with flatpaks.
  - takluyver 6y ago
    Good to know. Flatpak doesn't have a separate step, but there's a --user option for the install command.
- dTal 6y ago
  Not to mention that 99% of desktop Linux installs are trivially pwnable with: echo 'alias sudo="sudo touch /evil && sudo' >> ~/.bashrc
rlpb 6y ago
> Only install scripts, written my distribution's maintainers, run as root (except for core applications, of course). Install Chromium on Linux Mint and you'll have code run as root that is not written by your distribution's maintainers. Because Mint won't ship the snap, and nor are they shipping a deb that they maintain. You'll have to install a third party deb or equivalent.

3 ms·

> You trusted the app developers as soon as you installed that app on your computer with full privileges. No, I don't. First, most apps' code won't run as roo

by progval 6y ago

takluyver 6y ago
On a personal computer, you are giving a whole lot of trust to anything you run un-sandboxed as your normal user - it will likely have access to your most interesting files, browser cookies, maybe saved passwords. XKCD covered it years back: https://xkcd.com/1200/ https://xkcd.com/1200/ This brings up another drawback of deb/rpm packaging, though: you need root access to install anything. I'm not sure about Snap, but Flatpaks can be installed and used by an individual user.
- simosx 6y ago
  If you first run snap login then you can install snaps without "sudo". I suppose it is the same process with flatpaks.
  - takluyver 6y ago
    Good to know. Flatpak doesn't have a separate step, but there's a --user option for the install command.
- dTal 6y ago
  Not to mention that 99% of desktop Linux installs are trivially pwnable with: echo 'alias sudo="sudo touch /evil && sudo' >> ~/.bashrc
rlpb 6y ago
> Only install scripts, written my distribution's maintainers, run as root (except for core applications, of course). Install Chromium on Linux Mint and you'll have code run as root that is not written by your distribution's maintainers. Because Mint won't ship the snap, and nor are they shipping a deb that they maintain. You'll have to install a third party deb or equivalent.