Software help in Bazzite (Host) and Fedora (Distrobox)

Questions
1

Hi. I’m currently on bazzite-dx, and using the Brave Browser (flatpak). After browsing a few posts here, I’ve observed that a lot of people are against using software, especially browsers, in flatpaks.

I did make a Fedora container using DistroBox - mainly for my dev dependencies. Keeping that in mind, I have a few questions.

  1. If I install .rpm for a software manually (like for the ProtonMail native app), how do I keep it updated? Do I manually check the websites for updates - and if an update is there, manually download the .rpm file?
  2. Browser. Right now I just use Brave (flatpak) - for anonymous browsing as well as logging into some websites (I plan on changing the log-in supporting browser to Firefox due to Multi-Account containers). Do I keep using Brave, or should I try installing Trivalent on the fedora distrobox?
  3. Additionally, I also have the option to choose another distro besides Fedora - should I stick to Fedora or will Ubuntu be better? Asking mainly because I have used Ubuntu heavily, so more familiar with that, but a lot of stuff in apt was outdated at the time of using (like the default adb binary) - so I used homebrew and mise for most of the stuff instead of apt.

Any help is appreciated. Cheers!

EDIT: I mean non-logged in browsing, not anonymous browsing.

2

You usually add the repo and install/update it from there.

Example for Mullvad Browser 
# Fedora 41 and newer
# Add the Mullvad repository server to dnf
sudo dnf config-manager addrepo --from-repofile=https://repository.mullvad.net/rpm/stable/mullvad.repo

# Fedora 40 and earlier
# Add the Mullvad repository server to dnf
sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo https://repository.mullvad.net/rpm/stable/mullvad.repo

# Install the package
sudo dnf install mullvad-browser
# For atomic
sudo rpm-ostree install mullvad-browser

Brave does not make you anonymous. I think you mean non logged in browsing? You could also layer Brave/Trivalent instead of using the flatpak or distrobox.

This is mostly a preference, but I tend to recommend Fedora over Ubuntu.

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3

Brave has install instructions for various Linux distributions here, including for rpm-ostree distributions (Bazzite).

Like you said there is a repo for brave on these distributions

run0 curl -fsSLo /etc/yum.repos.d/brave-browser.repo https://brave-browser-rpm-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser.repo

run0 rpm-ostree install brave-browser

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4

I couldn’t find Proton Mail’s repo, only the .rpm package. The only options I have, if I wish to use the native client are: a webapp, the .rpm with manually updating (can probably automate it though), and the flatpak. Would you mind sharing what would you recommend amongst these three?

(Proton bridge is an option yes, but it doesn’t fit my usage).

Yes sorry, I meant non-logged in browsing. Also layering is sort of the last resort no? I’ve heard it’s really not recommended on bazzite, including by the devs themselves, don’t know about other atomic fedora distros. Plus I’m going to be using distrobox anyway, so does it make much of a difference if I install these apps inside it also?

Thanks for your help.

5

Thanks, I did come across that. The issue is whether to use Brave or try trivalent - might be I don’t like the UI of it or something (just as an example), but I wanted to check if I’m actually shooting myself in the foot installing it since it’s officially supported only on secureblue, or will it offer tangible gains in security and/or privacy.

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6

Your best option would be to use the web app, since the desktop/Flatpak both use Electron, which is worse security-wise.

Usually yes, but browsers are an exception. Flatpak, which is usually recommended, breaks their sandbox.

It shouldn’t make much difference if you want to.

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7

Alright, thanks for the help @any1 .

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