After creating a fresh installation of Ubuntu 24.04, I installed DEB Firefox from APT by following Mozilla’s instructions from here. But I noticed that it was secretly replaced with Snap Firefox. I was able to verify this by checking the About Firefox page. This is the third time I noticed this.
They have been doing this for a while.
Would recommend you to stick to MX,Mint or if you care only about stability and not Updates debian.
Yeah they’ve been doing that for a while
Have you correctly set your apt preferences? I didn’t have any issues anymore since I’ve done that.
I’m sure that I’ve set the apt preferences according to Mozilla’s article. I’ll have to wait and see until a new update arrives to Firefox.
Not a secret, but annoying as hell. I usually replace it with a Flatpak and uninstall Snap.
Agreed, not a secret, and not wanted. I uninstall Firefox and install Google Chrome from a .deb - disadvantage: you have to update it manually. Advantage: it doesn’t update itself automatically.
Why would you use an inferior product? Firefox via Snap is shit but it’s still better than any version of Chrome
I have used both, back and forth for years.
Chrome serves me better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zone)
Disadvantage: you’re now using a browser from the biggest
spyad-ware company and killed web heterogeneity.Too late, they own my soul already. I have successfully resisted Meta, X, Microsoft, and any number of lesser daemons, but the one true G has shown me their light and I am unable to look away.
Try sunglasses? But maybe other souls can still be saved from evil…
They delivered their promise: they were at least not evil, at first.
I suggest Mint or straight Debian. I prefer Mint for anything graphical, Debian for headless
Why use Mint when Mx exists.
What benifit does Mint have over Debian for anything graphical?
I’ve just found it’s more polished right out of the box. Definitely more new-user-friendly, like Ubuntu, but with Snap gutted out.
I have been using the regular Mint (based on Ubuntu), but I’m probably going to use the Debian edition next time I install a new system
Welcome to 2020, where Debian is once again your trusted distro.
From a security standpoint? Not even close. From a software-release validation requirement, not even in the same galaxy. If they look the same, it’s only due to Clarke’s law.
It’s a joke based of the fact that when you type apt install firefox on ubuntu, it will install the snap instead of the deb package, which is what you would expect when you use apt to install something.
You are missing the attribution. The person you are replying to is making a joke that Canonical says they are the same, not that they are actually the same.
Clearly they’re cosplaying as a Canonical engineer whose internal explanation and pleas for them to not take this approach fell upon deaf ears /j
In Ubuntu they are the same.
firefoxversion1:1snap1-0ubuntu5is a deb that literally runs the commandsnap install firefoxin the preinst script. Check line 77 infirefox-1snap1/debian/firefox.preinstin the source tarball: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/1:1snap1-0ubuntu5There’s no magic there.
This is why i switched to Debian. It’s 99% of Ubuntu, without the crap.
I… I… I don’t know why I haven’t done that myself. (Am now on NixOS btw) but for work maybe I ask for Debian cloud box.
For work, you could also try Fedora Workstation or Linux Mint Debian Edition. Debian is pretty barebones, but if that isnt a bother then do whatever.
It’s not barebones. I use it as my main desktop and barely notice any difference from Ubuntu, it has every package I’ve ever needed. I think that mentality of Debian being “bare” is outdated.
@beeng@discuss.tchncs.de this is for you, too.
I had a friend jump ship from Windows and they said that Debian felt barebones. I personally dont have any problem with it, I use it all the time for VMs, server, and I used to main it. I still think it is missing a lot of user-friendly small things that i never noticed on my own because I am very comfortable with Linux.
They do install less by default, but I’d love to pick their brain to understand what they meant. Oh well ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Linux just isnt transparent about some things. Beginners most have problems when they use a GUI tool and then have to still edit a file. Like dirt example, adding a new drive using GUI disk utility and then sometime in the future disconnecting the drive and being forced into emergency mode.
Uhh, that’s a thing in any modern distro? I plug and unplug SATA drives all the time.
I’d suggest the KDE flavor of Debian, then. Its settings manager is divine, and its software management platform ties every other package management system in (apt/dpkg for Debian, yum for Redhat, pacman for Arch, plus flatpak, nixpkg, and even snaps if you absolutely must). By default starting in Plasma 6.0.
More to @fmstrat’s point, and to suggest a possible cause your friend had that impression: if you install the Minimal flavor of any distro, you’re going to get a minimal experience.
Yeah it’s not really a secret
Yup. They also did this with Docker, and it broke my setup (and was a bitch to debug).
This was a couple of years ago, and I haven’t used Ubuntu unless absolutely necessary (and then usually in a container).
Docker in a snap is too meta for me.
Definitely not you, they absolutely do this with snaps and have for a while. This was the main reason I stopped using Ubuntu.
Yes. That was the last straw for me. I switched to debian stable, and haven’t looked back since
Solve the problem. Drop ubunutu
I battled that for about a year and then ditched Debian based diatros altogether.
OpenSUSE ftw
You could have gone pure Debian. There are no snap shenanigans over there :)
OpenSuse is also a great pick tho!
It is one of the reasons many people turn away from Ubuntu.
