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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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I was looking at the firefox flatpak on flathub. Won't this warning make a non tech-savy user anxious? This might make them think they'll get a virus or something like that. (programming.dev)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Imagine your friend that does not know anything about linux, don't you think this would make them not install the firefox flatpak and potentially think that linux is unsafe?

I ask this because I believe we must be careful and make small changes to welcome new users in the future, we have to make them as much comfortable as possible when experimenting with a new O.S

I believe this warning could have a less alarming design, saying something like "This app can use elevated permissions. What does this mean?" with the "What does this mean?" text as a clickable URL that shows the user that this may cause security risks. I mean, is kind of a contradiction to have "verified" on the app and a red warning saying "Potentially unsafe", the user will think "well, should I trust this or not??"

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean by "improving"? This alarming warning appears because Firefox requires permissions. Let us look at the permissions listed there:

"User device access". From the docs, I'd say the browser needs it for rendering?
"Download folder read/write access". This one is obvious - the files you download with your browser go there.
"Can access some specific files". This one, I'll admit, is a bit cryptic - what files does it need to access? But this one is on Flatpak for making the permission so general.

App permissions should not be about "this app cannot be trusted because it asks for scary scary permissions". They should be about "take a look at the list of permissions the app requests and determine whether or not it make sense for such an app to need such permissions".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

To 1.: dri instead of all would handle hardware-accelerated rendering. Then some webcams or controllers won't be accessible though. This one's a bit complicated, since the necessary portals for e.g. generic USB device access aren't yet there.

To 2.: portals should be used instead of that. Using them doesn't require these permissions.

To 3.: click on details and see. This is Flathub making it easy to understand for users.

Permissions should make clear whatever dangerous things an app can do. If not, why do all this effort of isolation? Firefox could delete everything in downloads, either by accident on Mozilla's side, or a privilege escalation. If the app used portals instead, it couldn't, at least without user interaction. Or a browser security vulnerability could open up any USB devices to webpages. It's all about what could happen with granted permissions. And these can 100 % be fixed in at least some way.