Merge to snap breaks Belgian electronic ID

[PhilippeSeidel]

I installed the new .deb of ubuntu 22.04 during the upgrade, which empties the firefox deb and merely lets it install via snap.

I heavily rely on the Belgian eID software to identify myself in government and other websites (health providers, banks, ...). The software is distributed by the Belgian government and allows to read the SmartCard eID. Hence, the snap-sandbox in which firefox is running cannot reach out to the middleware and hardware.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Install firefox via the default deb/snap package
2. Install eID middleware from eid.belgium.be (https://eid.belgium.be/sites/default/files/software/eid-archive_2022.3_all.deb sets up the archive, the package concerned is eid-mw)
3. Plug a USB card reader in your PC and insert the Belgian eID
4. Launch firefox and install the eid plugin (https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/belgium-eid/)
5. Restart Firefox (it usually needs to have the card connected upon starting the application to recognise the reader and the card)
6. Error message about the eid middleware not being found, no eID found when connecting to government website such as test.eid.belgium.be

This is an essential feature for literally all users in Belgium, so there should at least be a full deb package made available (and informed about) for Belgian users, rather than just leaving no alternative to non-initiated users.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: firefox 1:1snap1-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.13.0-41.46-generic 5.13.19
Uname: Linux 5.13.0-41-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed May 4 15:45:29 2022
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_BE:de
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=de_BE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RebootRequiredPkgs: Error: path contained symlinks.
Snap.Changes:
 ID Status Spawn Bereit Zusammenfassung
 186 Done 2022-05-04T15:39:23+02:00 2022-05-04T15:40:10+02:00 Installiere "firefox" Snap
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to jammy on 2022-05-04 (0 days ago)

[lotuspsychje (lotuspsychje)]

looks like there is a proposal for sandboxed browsing:

https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/native-messaging-support-in-strictly-confined-browser-snaps/26849/4

and the belgian FAQ about snaps/flatpaks:

https://eid.belgium.be/nl/faq/waarom-het-gebruik-van-de-eid-niet-mogelijk-met-software-snap-enof-flatpak#7636

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. That's a known issue and being actively worked on and should be fixed before the LTS .1, see bug #1741074. If you need a deb browser meanwhile there is epiphany-browser in the archive

[PhilippeSeidel (pagin)]

Thanks @lotuspsychje for the info, still, as this is essential for some users, Ubuntu should not have moved to snap before this has been fixed!

@seb128: thanks for the reference to a different issue linked to the same underlying problem. Bug #1741074 is about gnome-extensions for which a workaround exists as a separate app. Here, I rely on firefox. Epiphany is not an option, as I build heavily on the firefox ecosystem for my behaviour and don't think it can integrate firefox plugins (needed to reach the eID middleware)