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Comment by tych0 | Hacker News Reader

for deb packages I guess?

https://snapcraft.io/docs/snap-store-metrics

> the store assigns an anonymous identifier, the device-serial, to every new snapd client it sees. This exchange usually happens when a new installation contacts the store, and the identifier persists for the lifespan of the machine.

> Systems running snapd will periodically make a refresh request to the store, checking the for the most recent release of each installed snap. At that moment, they inform the store of their device-serial along with a list of the currently installed snaps.

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Lol another reason for me to hate snaps. I didn't yet know that.

PS: My other reasons: - Much more resource wasteful - Single store operated by canonical only - No simple updating a library with a vulnerability and having all apps that use that library automatically fixed. - Makes really messy virtual mountpoints everywhere.

Have you tried opening the calculator in Ubuntu? On my laptop it takes a full 3 seconds for the GUI to come up, assuming I have nothing else running. 3 full wall clock seconds. It's actually faster to pull out my phone and open the calculator on it than my laptop. Which is what I do now, every time. So, if you want people to look for alternatives to your application, only provide it as a Snap.

You can take your hands off the keyboard and mouse, dig your phone out of your pocket, unlock it, open the app drawer, scroll and find calculator, tap it and open it, under 3 seconds? I doubt that.

Most people have their phones on the table. And on iOS (not sure about Android) you can swipe from the top-right corner to get to the calculator.

I just picked my iPhone up off the desk (where I keep it charging when using a computer) pulled down the shortcut screen and opened the pinned calculator app. Was roughly 2 seconds from thought to screen. Windows calculator just took me about that- press Windows button, type 'cal' press return, actual launch basically instantaneous. Mac would be analogous to Windows.

Seems more likely that you just don't notice time passing whilst active (getting your phone out) that you do notice whilst passive (waiting for app launch).

KDE/Plasma does calculations in the launcher - which comes up immediately. Or you could open your console (I use Yakuake) and use bash/python/bc -i/whatever.

You're pointing to instances where snaps aren't involved- kinda missing the point. Just because there are other ways to get the desired result, the optimal path used by most people is seriously impaired for no benefit.

The pocket and app drawer step are optional. In brief testing it took around 4 seconds to turn on the phone unlock it and open the calculator. It's likely harder to notice as this is actively engaged time vs staring at a screen.

Timing with a script with a warm cache speedcrunch, kcalc, and emacsclient full-calc all take about half a second for the window to appear and are instantly usable. The quickest app I can find xterm appears in 200-250ms.

Chromium takes about 800ms. incidentally Chromium shows a big difference after dropping caches taking almost 2.5 seconds after dropping caches while others mostly lose 20%.

Firefox is the worst taking about a second warm but taking around 6 seconds after start to become usable. Some of this may be due to addons but firefox has never started quickly its only tolerable because you start it once at login.

How is this system GDPR and cookie compliant? It's not mentioned under the data they collect, and no attempt is made to ask permission to collect this data -- at least, not the way I've used recently. (A clean Kubuntu install, then installing Intellij's Snap through the CLI.)

https://ubuntu.com/legal/data-privacy/snap-store

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