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.
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??"
pretty standard compared to OSs like Android and iOS. i think the mobile OSs, at least recently, have done better at this; they don’t ask for permission until they need it. want to import bookmarks? i need file system access for that. want to open your webcam? i need device access. doing it all upfront leads to all the problems mentioned in this thread: unclear as to why, easy to forget what access you’ve given, no ability to deny a subset of options, etc.
does Linux have APIs for that? I know macOS does, not sure about either windows or Linux allowing capability security like that
not likely. i think it requires a lot of systems working together