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Comment by jnwatson | Hacker News Reader

I just don’t use snap. They don’t force you.

https://packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/firefox

https://packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/chromium-browser

Both now depend on snapd. Doing apt install gets you the snap version. It didn't use to, and now it does. I'd call that pretty forceful, you're one apt install away from having it if you're not paying close attention to every dependency.

They kinda do, like if you apt install Firefox it's actually setup to force install the snap version of Firefox (even though you used a apt CLI command). It's getting more and more aggressive about pushing snaps like this with each major Ubuntu release.

I followed some steps to prevent firefox from being installed through snap... it worked (after WAY too long troubleshooting).... and sometime between then and now it re-enabled itself and I'm back to square one. It's so maddening.

Uninstall Firefox snap to end the pain, then d/l Firefox from mozilla.org, unpack to your home directory and launch it from there. It will work just fine and even auto-update itself.

You can use `alacarte` or manually create a .desktop file to add a menu item for your new Firefox instance if you need it.

I'm sorry but that is pretty awful. If I wanted to do all that, I'd run Windows.

Isn't it the other way around? In Windows you'd usually download an installer and run it to install software, whereas Linux would have you download, unzip/untar an archive and then just launch it directly.

On Linux I expect one command to install the app. I don't want to download anything, use a web browser, or anything else.

Thank you. This is the perfect quick work around. I never knew of alacarte. Now I can make shortcuts for all those appimage files too.

I removed the apt version of the Firefox, and installed the snap version. The idea is that the snap is sandboxed and more secure.

The speed is OK (I don’t measure it in mili seconds though).

No, they trick you. You type apt install firefox and it installs the snap. That, the changing of my words, is why I'm seeking a new home.

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