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by nitrogen 2529 days ago
A package manager would typically have removed the web server, too.
3 comments

Sure, the "package managers" on Linux, Windows, and macOS all behavior in pretty similar fashions. A manifest of files that the installer knew at time of install. That doesn't stop a program from installing anything else at run time, or even in the installer (since they can define what to remove in a lot of cases). This wasn't an "accident," it was purposely left behind with the intention of being used to onboard users easily even after they removed the client. This would have pretty much been an issue on every platform (had it been implemented on other platforms). And please, don't tell me "but Docker!" Docker, at present, isn't really usable with GUI applications yet.
And please, don't tell me "but Docker!" Docker, at present, isn't really usable with GUI applications yet.

But Flatpak! Flatpak applications can be sandboxed and you can install/remove applications as one unit.

Is Flatpak still open to the issues outlined at http://flatkill.org/?

If so, it doesn’t seem much better.

A package manager would be designed to remove any non user hostile features. Intentionally hostile behavior would be unaffected. One might hope that the packager, the person that is, might have refused to include software from incompetent or hostile developers.

Something an app store due to volume and default allow pending mostly automated checks has a problem with.

As far as I know most traditional package managers only remove files and folders declared in the package. Not files installed somewhere else during the install script or created by the binary when it runs.
Files installed elsewhere during the install script are treated as config files and can be purged, no?