Nice
Good to see one of the two big packaging hubs do something against malware
Next step, display the "potential unsafe"-badge next to verified or unverified, that can be found on the same page. In example https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.shiiion.primehack is marked as verified, but if you scroll down you can see the application has full system and data access and is marked as potential unsafe.
How does that Help against Malware?
Because if you search Firefox and see a badge that says verified, you can be confident that it was Mozilla that packaged it and added it to FlatHub as opposed to some random scammer.
Apt has done this forever
This is a good step but I still feel like it's pretty obscure where a package is actually coming from. "by Google" or for the Steam package "by Valve" is really confusing and makes it sounds like it's coming directly from the company. Unverified tells the user to pay attention but there is no hover over to say what it actually means.
Wait… so the author displayed in “by ” is the supposed author of the software, not the one that put it on the store? That’s insane! Also sounds like you’d be open to massive liability since the reputation of the software author will be damaged if somebody publishes malware under their name.
It should be:
Also maaany packages direct to issuetrackers of projects not supporting that flatpak.
If someone knows where that flathub metadata is stored I would love to know, as the manifest is not it. I would like to fix those to link to their own bugtrackers
Traditional GNU/Linux distributions (as well as F-Droid) are not "app stores" even though they are superficially similar. Traditional distributions are maintained and curated by the community, and serve the interests of users first and software developers second, whereas an "app store" has minimal curation and serves the needs of software developers first and users second.
I point this out because there's an annoying meme that traditional distributions are obsoleted by the "app store" model. I don't think that's the case. "Verification" is essential for an app store but pointless for a distribution.
So all of them?
Would be nice if FlatHub actually supported cryptographic verification of apps..
great, when appimage hub begin doing this
I still don't understand why a central repository for AppImages exist. The moment you are using a repository (and possibly version management), the format looses its reason to exist.
I don't see how that's true. The main point of AppImage is it 'just works' on any distro. If you have one primary place to distribute them to any distro - it's still meeting AppImage's vision.
To be fair, after some thinking I think you are right and I was a bit in a tunnel vision logic. My previous statement looks a bit foolish now.
No. Appimages are selfcontained and thus useful for archiving software or carrying it around in random ways. Flatpak could do this too but not as easy.
I personally use a few AppImages, but want replace them with Flatpaks. Flatpaks have their own issues, and because I did not want to troubleshoot in case I encounter another issue, just carry on using AppImages for these selected applications. Also I was not able to archive Flatpak easily, its very complicated with keys and not. Compared to it, I just have the AppImages included in my regular backup process with regular files.
My point was not if AppImages are useful (they clearly are and I use them), but was talking bout repositories. However after some other replies I thought about it and indeed such a repository makes sense even for AppImages. I personally just don't have to use them.
Even with such a repo they are highly insecure by design.
Not really. AppImages are as much secure as any other executable you run on your system. If you download it from a trusted source, like you download trusted Flatpaks or your systems repository, then they are not worse. If you say AppImages are highly insecure, because you run executable code, then you have to take that logic to any other executable format. The problem is not the format itself that makes it insecure, it's the source.
No they arent. Please read the linked post.
I read that page and there is nonsense included too. Just because I read that page does not make it correct. If you think that AppImages insecure, then you did not understand my point that its not the format thats insecure, but the source where you get the files. Every packaging system is insecure if you get it from bad source.
That's not even a question. AppImages are fine and not insecure if you download it from a secure place you trust (like your system packages, you trust your distro maintainer fully). Would you trust every distribution maintainer on every distribution? Let's say a Chinese Linux distribution, that maintains Flatpaks and native packages. Let's say they are flaky. See? It's the source you don't trust, not the file format or packaging system.
Read my replies (just like you said I should read the linked post). And understand the issues.
Shit missing internet got my comment deleted...
Appimage is not a neutral packaging format. Of course "an app packaged as .zip is as secure as packages as .tar.gz". But the format causes all the things mentioned in the post.
So it is way less secure than Flatpak, thats a fact. It may not be worse than tarballs, but if those dont include the libraries even less secure than them.
I partly agree. But your tone changed a lot from "highly insecure" to "less secure", which is a complete different statement. An application does not need to be in a sandbox to be secure, so I don't accept that as an argument against trusted applications. I only accept your arguments if we talk about random downloads from random places.
Also the argumentation that AppImages are usually run from random locations doesn't make them unsecure, it's a feature. BTW I have a dedicated folder where I put them, but that's my personal organization. Did you know that you can unpack an AppImage back to its original folder (like an archive)? You need appimagetool for that.
The only thing I fully agree with you and is a weak spot about the AppImage format is, that it can or will include outdated and not updated libraries (or executables). Which is the point of the format on the one hand, but a curse on the other hand. Normally it is recommended to build on the oldest supported LTS Ubuntu, because of older libc. libc is the root of many problems in Linux (for compatibility).
What app is that GUI from?
This screenshot is from the Flathub website. The only good GUI for Flatpaks...
The only good GUI for Flatpaks…
Ain't that the truth. I don't know why KDE Discover is so sluggish when it comes to Flatpak, it takes me like 10+ seconds to load the landing page and see the popular apps.
And several minutes to update a 10MB app...
what? there's something wrong with your internet
Nah, it's Discover that's shit. Flatpak's CLI works fine.
Seriously why does Gnome software feel so much faster!
First time I've heard someone call Gnome Software fast. In my experience that app feels like it's on it's last legs; the Flatpak CLI is far better than any desktop GUI.
Gnome Software has received numerous updates over the last few years which make it considerable faster. Searching and viewing apps is now fast enough to be usable, compared to it taking many seconds to minutes for basic tasks.
I've stopped removing Software on every system, altough I'm not usually using it. I've not tested it, but I feel like Discover is now slower than Software.
COSMIC Appstore ;D
Gnome Software is pretty similar. KDE Discover way worse.
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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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