I know there have been a couple of other threads on related topics (Bogus apps in store, Please revoke telegram-latest). I’m wondering more generally where things stand with respect to providing users some sort of indication of the quality of a given snap—for example with respect to upstream.
Apart from developer verification, I feel like some combination of user ratings or reviews, and/or download counts (or some other kind of popularity indicator) would be useful.
I was reminded of this desire after downloading the wireguard-fenriswolf snap, as part of my exploration of whether putting WireGuard in a snap would be feasible. It looks like this is essentially a bogus (experimental?) snap that does not even contain an executable.
It would have been nice to not waste my time installing something which is non-functional. So I feel like it would be nice for users to be able to flag to others, by e.g. leaving a review, whether a certain snap works well or not.
The latest releases of GNOME Software now support ODRS. I’m not sure exactly which release this came, in, but there’s a snap-only version of it (inceptionally) in the snap store. Install Snap Store on Linux | Snap Store
This is what you see when you scroll down on an application which has reviews. I wrote the review below to test the process (but I stand by what I said)
Yes that’s the kind of thing I have in mind. Given its integration with the snap store GUI, I take it that ODRS framework could/would be extended to cover all snaps?
It would be great if something like this was also available in the snap store’s web interface - and maybe the command line, though I know that’s a longer shot. FWIW, I actually only use Linux in headless environments, so don’t have access to the proper store GUI.
@svet I do think that it is genuinely an issue that being a snap developer, you can’t view the reviews and ratings right in the web interface. I primarily am a Windows user and launching a Virtual Machine just for the sake of viewing reviews and ratings is not much convenient. Also, you are not notified of anything of that sort, which is kind of a bummer. Similarly, a CUI could also be a better option in a headless environment, like WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).
Hello everyone,
I’m new to Linux/Ubuntu so I’m on “discovery mode”. I went to snapcraft.io and couldn’t see any comments/reviews, total downloads, etc. like we see on all the other download platforms on the Web. So I was wondering if Canonical/Ubuntu is completely off track or if it’s me who missed something. I just found the answer thanks to this thread and to another one where a developer complained (and was right to do it) that the developers can’t reply to comments and we all know that’s important because the users are not always right… And this thread also mention the fact of the bad snaps.
So, bottom line, this is how I feel about all this.
Reviews, etc.
I just found out that there’s absolutely no review, downloads, etc. showing if you go through snapcraft’s web site. All the stuff can only be seen through the “Ubuntu software”. This is weird and a non-sense. Why it shows there and not there when it’s all there??? That should be fixed ASAP.
Bad snaps
I’m new to this so I’m very far from the stage of “exploration-with-risks”. Therefore I never had one. However, I agree with svet because what he experienced could be preventable and it’s certainly frustrating.
Comments on the reviews
Allowing developers to reply to reviews/comments is MANDATORY, Not only it’s a question of fairness but also a question of RESPECT. If one says something, the concerned person should be able to reply. There are good and bad snaps. But there’s also users who cross-read the instruction and/or make a mistake then always blame someone else… Allowing a developer to reply is important and his reply could also help others who had the same issue, thus, saving time and frustration for everyone.
Bottom line, thanks to all of you in this thread, I now know where to find the reviews and other stuff.
I would also like to chime in that it is an annoyance not to be able to see the reviews on Snapcraft. I am primarily a Kubuntu user but I don’t want to have to fire up Discover every time just to see reviews. I’d also like to see the reviews on my phone. I should think this is not too difficult to fix - if Discover or the Snap Store app can pull the reviews, why can’t the Snapcraft backend?
