Linux Mint Will Hide Unverified Flatpaks in Software Manager
Linux Mint Will Hide Unverified Flatpaks in Software Manager
The Software Manager app in Linux Mint 22 will deliver faster start-up times and introduce a significant security safeguard for search results. As you may
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Examples of unverified apps:
- Inkscape
- Blender
- darktable
- Godot Engine
- VLC
- Spotify
- Steam
- RPCS3
- Flameshot
- Snes9x
- SuperTuxKart
- Vim and Neovim
... these would be hidden by default. Is any of these applications dangerous or a security risk to the system / user?
Linux Mint:
Unverified Flatpaks represent a huge security risk.
I personally don't like this. This is not really true and in worse case even misleading and giving a false sense of security. If an app represents a huge security risk, why in the first place is it allowed in the repository? Unverified does not mean its a security risk, this is their interpretation of it. Unverified simply means, it is not verified by the original author.
Create a fork of an app and verify your website with the fork in Flatpak. The system is already broken. Another point is, that lot of unverified apps are just normal apps, as this is the way applications are handled in Linux. We have the right to create alternative versions of the programs and the verification badge will show that. There is no point in hiding alternatives. By doing so, it undermines a reason why we use GPL and Open Source. And what about apps where the original author does not care, but was brought to Flatpak by a community member?
Flathub:
It's similar failure to what Flathub does on their site too, but for another thing.
Potentially unsafe: Full file system read/write access; Can access some specific files
Even though LibreOffice is verified, it is marked as potentially unsafe application on Flathub.
I think it is a stupid change myself, but as far as I (recent Linux convert) can tell, mint is considered the go to distro for people coming freshly over from windows, and decidedly caters to beginners. A default setting for maximum user protection makes sense for that.
Being unable to install 90% of the popular apps without diving into settings does not make sense for a beginner-focused distro whatsoever
Well I agreed that it is an ultimately bad change, but I can see how the beginner mode mentality would lead to this conclusion. Provide the new user with the most stable and bug free experience possible, and after some time they will probably turn that setting off on their own to get all that popular software.
Yes but also these people are coming over from windows and this is their first experience with linux. They should have these apps available to them so they dont think oh linux has no apps.
Especially as many Flatpaks are already working better than Ubuntu apps. I had this with SciDAVis, where the Ubuntu version was just broken and gave me tons of troubles.
Flatpak is a blessing
Or oh linux has only sketchy unverified ones and I need to master the terminal to install official apps
Meanwhile, they have a Spotify Ubuntu repo... and will offer the installation of all these apps as .deb's which are able to do whatever they want
The difference is that those apps are taken charge of by the mint team
These are Ubuntu Packages. The external Spotify repo are binaries shipped by Spotify. I dont think there is any testing before users get that package, it is an external repo.
Oh, alright i was wrong, but it's still direct from Spotify isn't it? So no problem
It is proprierary Software, running as a pretty unrestricted app on your system.
The app could steal your Keys, read your photos, scan for pirated music or whatever.
Yeah, no problem XD
for sure you could do the Microsoft Way and trust random big tech, because otherwise you would just sue them... but no.
The spotify Flatpak has no Filesystem permissions afaik, and it thus pretty okay secure, even if you dont trust the upstream.
Ok yes it is proprietary, but at least it's from the main source and is confirmed to work well, which reduces risk, at the cost of sandboxing.
it's a tradeoff, and I think mint did the right thing.
The Flatpak meanwhile is transparently packaged, using the binary from the official Snap.
Canonical to my knowledge took forever for convincing Spotify to support Linux. Supporting Flatpak should be easy, but whatever.
This isn't about just Spotify, it's about other apps too
Yes but this was just an example of the hypocrisy of this action.
- Apps that are FOSS are possible to trust. Proprietary apps are simply liability, and proprietary software is constantly spying anyways. Flathub has
--subset=flossfor that - "Verification" i.e. upstream support is not the case with a majority of Distro packages. Flathub has
--subset=verifiedfor this very nice ability (but this does not mean that unverified apps are worse than distro packages!) - Flatpaks are isolated using Bubblewrap. Firejail, a common alternative for native app sandboxing, had a root binary and thus you need to trust it a lot. Bubblejail is a predecessor of it, but it is not easy to use at all and in early stages. So Flatpak offers stupid simple app isolation similar to Android, Distro packages dont have this.
Flatpak is really good. You can look at the permissions, any app with the "safe" rating is probably safe, even if it is malware.
Btw the safety rating would be a good filter, once they solve the false negatives of stuff like ProtonPro/pupGui.
- Apps that are FOSS are possible to trust. Proprietary apps are simply liability, and proprietary software is constantly spying anyways. Flathub has
Who thinks that? Mint users?
I've seen many articles, comments and videos praising mint for being friendly to users coming from windows. It looks nice and I've been impressed by the friendliness and helpfulness of their forums - if I switched on my laptop I would try mint first.
I like Mint so far after about 2 months. Ubuntu was seriously lacking.
I dont know, it is just the general consensus on every "I want to drop windows but i am scared of Linux" post ever made, and from my personal experience I found it actually too much like windows (made a live boot before I chose another distro).
The Flathub security rating is useful but too cautious (so many "false alarms" that people ignore it). It is completely independent from the verification though.
Mixing these up makes no sense.
But for sure, officially supported Libreoffice may be more secure than distro-packaged Libreoffice.
Is any of these applications dangerous or a security risk to the system / user?
Likely not more than Distro packages. They pull in dependencies, and code, just like any other app.
Flatpaks are too pain tolerant regarding EOL runtimes. These may have security risks, and many badly maintained apps are using them, and at least KDE Discover doesnt show a warning here.
Create a fork of an app and verify your website with the fork in Flatpak. The system is already broken
True
By doing so, it undermines a reason why we use GPL and Open Source.
Very good points. It is a good security practice to stay close to a trusted upstream though. Browsers for example may have delayed security patches.
And what about apps where the original author does not care, but was brought to Flatpak by a community member?
Same here, if the upstream tests the Flatpak BEFORE shipping the release, it will work and be fast. If they dont, they ship the update, the flatpak is updated some time after that, it may have an issue, the packagers may need to patch something, solve the issue upstream etc.
The thing is that packagers should join upstream, as only integrated packaging gives this inherent stability and speed.
This is not relevant in many scenarios though. Flatpaks allow to securely sandbox random apps, so they are very often more secure.
The Flathub security rating is useful but too cautious (so many “false alarms” that people ignore it). It is completely independent from the verification though.
Mixing these up makes no sense.
That's right, but I had a point there. My point is, that even verified applications can be marked as insecure on Flathub. That means, unverified applications can be secure based on the standards the Flathub sets. This was my point that its independent and why the verification of source has nothing to do with security. If Linux Mint does hide unverified apps, because it thinks these are unsecure, then it should hide all the applications that are marked as a potential unsecure app; just like the unverified apps are potentially unsecure (just like any other verified app).
Hopefully this was not too confusing to read.
Yes, verification is very different from the security rating.
Poorly you can sort by subsets but not by the security rating.
There are legacy apps that are always insecure with huge static filesystem permissions AND they are sometimes not well maintained i.e. they dont support the Flatpak.
It's similar failure to what Flathub does on their site too
My understanding is that Mint is just following Flathub's classification, so it would be identical...?
And (would need to verify when this version is released) some of those apps are available without Flatpacks anyway... (ie VLC for example), so I'd expect those to still be available
I don't see this as a big issue...
This assumes that distro packages would be more secure. Which are not "verified" most of the time, by design. And which are installed to the system, can do whatever they want.
A system package can edit /etc, autostart itself, write to all your devices and /home.
Flatpaks MAY do that, but these will have an "insecure" rating on Flathub. And they can still not write a lot of areas, for example other Flatpaks internal storage, even if they have home permission.
A system package can edit /etc, autostart itself, write to all your devices and /home.
Distro packages are not inherently more secure, but they are all controlled and packaged by the team who manages your operating system. So you trust them fully. Which you cant for arbitrary packages from Flatpak, similar to arbitrary packages from Google playstore on Android. That's why those "unmanaged" Flatpaks need such a rights system. I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that you can't limit the security value by just what the app is allowed to do (in my opinion).
Linux mint and Ubuntu both add the "universe" repo by default. That repo is basically community grade, and even used for official flavors which tells a lot about their reliability.
Same with Fedora. Everything outside of Workstation or the KDE Spin needs to be checked for maintenance carefully. There is lots of abandonware.
With Flatpak on the other hand too, and you can still use it as it can just use EOL runtimes even on a rolling distro...
I've heard you don't want the flat pack Steam, so....
But that's a personal decision. It's not like Steam Flatpak would be a huge security risk, as the Mint devs say. Just because its not officially verified. Even Valve themselves recommended to use the Flatpak version of Steam, as an alternative to Snap package. You think such a package would be good enough if Valve itself sanction it. I would like to provide a link for this, but cannot find it right now.