For years, many Ubuntu users have felt that traditional .deb packages were being gradually sidelined in favor of the Snap ecosystem.
It started quietly. Double-clicking a downloaded .deb file would open it in Archive Manager instead of the installer. Then came controversial changes. Apps like Chromium, Thunderbolt and Firefox began defaulting to Snap packages, even when users tried installing them via the apt command in the terminal.
It continued further as Ubuntu introduced its new Snap Store. In Ubuntu 24.04, it ignored .deb packages completely. Double-clicking a .deb file would open the App Center, but wouldn’t actually install the package and just hang there. That behavior was later reverted after I highlighted it through It’s FOSS.
App sandboxing is stupid, those that need it need something more refined than snap or flatpack, and all others don’t actually need it, but think they do due to inexperience and end up having problems and asking for support online.
The amount of times i lost time helping someone that pinkie promised that no, i did not installed it via flatpack, but then it turns out they did and their permissions are messed up is not acceptable.
I freaking hate snap, flatpack annd sometimes noobs even attempt some docker bullshit for something that is an apt-get away smh.
These things are used as a crutch for unstable or badly supported programs. Sandboxing often creates more problems that it solves because you actually need to support the instance to do it correctly, the very problem that is attempted to solve.
Except for when sandboxing is better, like for server-type things that need to “just work” and won’t directly interface with anything else on the system.
Like, a WiFi mesh network controller has no need to access anything on the system at all and users will only interact with it by a web portal. Docker (or an alternative) is perfect for that.