Linux Mint won’t install snaps behind your back

A few weeks ago, we talked about how Ubuntu is forcing snap packages on users, even when using apt. Since various distributions are based on Ubuntu, a lot of users of those distributions are wondering if snaps will infect their systems, too. One of the most popular Ubuntu-based distributions, Linux Mint, has a clear answer.

First, I'm happy to confirm that Linux Mint 20, like previous Mint releases will not ship with any snaps or snapd installed. Second, to address this situation we'll do exactly what we said we would:

In Linux Mint 20, Chromium won't be an empty package which installs snapd behind your back. It will be an empty package which tells you why it's empty and tells you where to look to get Chromium yourself.
In Linux Mint 20, APT will forbid snapd from getting installed.

You'll still be able to install it yourself and we'll document this in the release notes, but by default APT won't allow repository packages from doing this on your behalf.

This is good news, and the right route to take.