More scam apps on Canonical's Snap Store who?
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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Canonical's Snap up your credit cards because they've been maxed by very naughty people, yo
I tried to figure out a funny reply to this, but it's already too funny. Well played.
Just like Apple and Google with their appstores. They claim to have proprietary stores because it's safer, but don't actually do the legwork to back that up.
You can throw the Windows store in there too.
You're saying it like anyone's using it.
Hahaha good one!
Yeah, its one of the first things that gets nuked from orbit on a fresh Windows install.
I wish no one was using it lol
Winget unfortunately is very convenient
Is it just me, or is this happening more on the snap store than on Flathub? Or is it just down to reporting.
Seems weird considering there's, at least on paper, more checks on uploads to the Snap store than to FlatHub (although their checks are evidently not very comprehensive!)
I'm not going to shit on Canonical too much (for once) here, because any app distribution platform with a low barrier to entry will invariably get bad actors trying to abuse it from time to time — we see it even on much more locked-down and better funded app stores, like Apple's App Store and on Google Play.
This will be a growing problem for both Snap and FlatHub. Moderating them will take resources, and there's already a shortage of that in the FOSS world.
Flathub is actually fairly strict with its submissions, probably too much work for most fake submissions to follow the PR guidelines.
https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/requirements
https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pulls?page=2&q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed
Flathub is pretty awesome imo
We can probably get pretty far with user reviews and reports. Moderation also doesn't require development skills, so there could be a push for community moderation by people who want to contribute but don't know how, and it can be as easy as reviewing user reports, leaving feedback about packages, etc.
This is a good thought. FOSS has been historically not very good at utilizing the time and skills of potential non-coder volunteers, but community management is a great place for that.