How many PPAs do you have enabled ?

[Max Blyss]

I add a couple for some themes and icons, Google Chrome, etc... Prob 5 or so currently. Have used others / more in the past with no problems.

[Moose]

As many as I require..?

This is a strange question. ahaha

[rrich1974]

i only have PPAs for google chrome (the best browser ever), wine and caffeine (i dont understand why such a useful piece of software is missing from the software center)....
and now, i am thinking about adding a smplayer PPA because i am not pleased by my actual smplayer.

[Perfect Storm]

Moved from ubuntu 12.10 to testing Ubuntu 13.04 beta, so I don't have many PPAs available (yet).
Got;
Google chrome
Steam
medibuntu
and private ppas for stuff I bought in Ubuntu Software Center.

[ka55o5]

How many PPAs do have have in your Sources ?

Besides using sources, imo it's better to use add-apt-repository - where everything will go into separate files @ /etc/apt/sources.list.d

.. just neater that way. :-d

I ignore them [..]

The system can *easily* be compromised, by using teh wrong repo. ;$ Sometimes, though, there'll be a warning.

PS.

I'm not against PPAs at all, but when I see random PPAs that aren't entirely necessary [..]

+1

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

None. Unless Medibuntu counts.

[pinballwizard]

Hi,


Many people say that a Linux user should avoid adding PPAs if possible.

Then I'd contend that there's a huge gap between Ubuntu users and Linux users.

[monkeybrain2012]

The system can *easily* be compromised, by using teh wrong repo. ;$ Sometimes, though, there'll be a warning.

How easy is "easily"? I think you exaggerated. It would be risky if you install from random repositories, but it is as safe as it can be if you install from reputable ppas such as those hosted on Launchpad or the google-chrome (google-earth) ppa Your link is from AVG, I wouldn't install such thing on Linux in the first place.

Edited: Also you can minimize risk of breakage if you only use ppas for end user software without a lot of external dependencies (as opposed to system components) and install ppa-purge just in case (I only have to purge some "high risk" ppas such as xorg-edgers or Unity on a few occasions but even then there was no irreparable damage, purged and rebooted I was back in business)

[evilsoup]

I ignore them, usually fear mongerings by ultra conservative users (the kind who tell you to only use LTS and hope that 10.04 will be supported for 100 years ). I have lots of ppas especially for multimedia stuffs for which the repo versions are not only outdated, but sometimes broken or otherwise crippled. I want new features and bug fixes rather than "stability" in the sense of predictability crippled or broken. IMO the risk is vastly exaggerated provided you use ppa only for end user applications but not system components (I have had issues with xorg-edgers in some machines but ppa-purge fixed it.

The main point is that you should be careful which PPAs you enable - those linked from the official websites of projects are probably safe, but do bear in mind that anyone can set one up, and there is no vetting process at launchpad to stop them from disguising malware or spyware as something benign. You are essentially trusting the owner of the PPA with root access to your computer.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Cinnamon, E17, and MATE are the major ones, I also have a few theme PPAs as well.