Linux reviews notes that
The popular Linux Mint operating system has decided to purge the snap package manager from its repositories and forbid installation of it. The motivation for this drastic move is that the upstream Ubuntu Linux distribution Linux Mint is based on will stealthily install snapd and use that to install Chromium from the Canonical-controlled SnapCraft instead of installing a regular Chromium package like most users expect.
The Linux Mint blog has this to say about Ubuntu's use of snap to use their chromium package to subvert apt:
You've as much empowerment with this as if you were using proprietary software, i.e. none. This is in effect similar to a commercial proprietary solution, but with two major differences: It runs as root, and it installs itself without asking you.
Is Ubuntu turning evil?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2020, @01:39AM
Slackware DOES have a package manager... It WILL tell you what updates are available.
There are also multiple 3rd party Slackware package managers.