com.bitwarden.desktop VS unsnap

> One thing I don't know about (which maybe somebody can inform me/us about): the wiki states that PRs are reviewed by Flathub reviewers, but I see no sign of human review on e.g. https://github.com/flathub/com.bitwarden.desktop/pull/167 (or others in that repo). What's the actual process?

In this case, I think the lack of human involvement is mostly a good thing. Flathub was criticised for having outdated packages[1]. Using automation to automatically update packages is mostly a good thing.

Obviously, we want to see thorough review of new packages, but that's a separate issue.

[1] I thought I read this in an LWN article, but I can't find it. But see e.g. https://github.com/flathub/org.qutebrowser.qutebrowser/issue...

for example, bitwarden's flatpak on github shows basically just repackages the official debian build into a flatpak build. in this case i think it's pretty safe (in fact i use the flatpak).

You might also be interested in learning a little about Flatpaks and downloading/installing programs from Flathub. I'll give you the basic background: It's an alternative (in some ways, honestly, modern) way of installing programs that can be sandboxed/permissioned. It's a way of releasing software that also helps ensure compatibility across a wide variety of systems. It's also a way of releasing software that can update independently from the base installation. You can think of it sort of like an app store on a phone where the programs are a bit self-contained and can update independently from the phone's operating system. https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.bitwarden.desktop

See https://github.com/flathub/com.bitwarden.desktop/issues/63

Example of an application but with Electron: https://github.com/flathub/com.bitwarden.desktop

Since we're on the subject, you can also host your own BitWarden if you wanted. Bitwarden also has a desktop client for Linux as well. Alternatively if enabled 3rd Party Repositories or just manually enabled Flathub, you can install the Bitwarden flatpak.

It's not really that much of a risk. If you look at the yaml file you can see exactly what permissions it requests and what happens when the package is built.

Luckily, Flathub is transparent in what manifests are used in the production of the Flatpaks they host. For example, this is the one for Bitwarden. You can take some time to learn how Flatpaks are built, but this one seems pretty straight forward. They are taking the .deb file from Bitwarden's github release page and extracting the executable from there. Then it adds a couple extra files, which are viewable within the manifest file, to make it into a Flatpak app.

Might I suggest unsnap?

This seems very similar to Alan Pope's unsnap project - Is there anything you're doing differently? https://github.com/popey/unsnap

If you are referring to this project, then I'm sorry to tell you that you got it wrong.

Reminder that if you don't like snaps, it's pretty easy to migrate away using: https://github.com/popey/unsnap

Might check out https://github.com/popey/unsnap

You can just use this to remove snap tho: https://github.com/popey/unsnap

How? Should I follow these instructions? https://github.com/popey/unsnap

The best Debian/Ubuntu-based distro that uses Plasma would probably be Kubuntu with unsnap if you're not a snap fan.

If snaps are your only issue, don't leave Ubuntu. Look into unsnap (https://github.com/popey/unsnap). Determine if your lag is snap related.

Snaps are so bad that one of Canonical's star employees left and tweeted about snap issues saying that "They get ignored or dismissed. The CTO flat doesn't believe there's a problem. The team is understanffed and there is no motivation from IoT and enterprise focused people to fix desktop problems. Been trying from the inside for years. I gave up hope and left.". Same guy later went on to create the unsnap repo on github which helps users find replacements for their snap packages among flatpaks etc - and this wasn't a "jaded employee" thing so much as him trying to look out for users' best interests. Good on him.