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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 federino 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 (2 children)

You could but where is fails is when you open one html file that then needs to loads the other files that are needed by the first.

You can not allow chain loading like this, it would bypass the sandbox.

One way of working around this would to allow the option of passing a whole folder and sub folders to the program.

The other and much harder option would be a per program portal filter that can read the html file. then workout what files that html file needs and offer that list of files to the user.

The lazy work around is allow read access to $HOME and deny access to some files and folders like .ssh

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

You can choose folders in the portal now.

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

Makes sense, but at least this would generally be out of a normal users usage case (multi-file documents), and so the power user could probably just open flatseal.

For things like bookmarks it'd work fine, and by extension make the sandbox more secure

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Makes sense, but at least this would generally be out of a normal users usage case (multi-file documents), and so the power user could probably just open flatseal.

I would not be so sure. Firefox has a "save web page as..." option which saves the html page and all other files needed into a sub folder.

Without better handling of reading and writing files the sandbox will break that builtin function. another way of working around this. would be to change firefox to save the web page into one file. Maybe something a .html+zip file that firefox would know how to open. However that would lock other browsers out without manualy unziping it first.

Getting sandboxing right with powerful programs is very hard and I feel the tooling is still not here yet.