Tails no longer recommending balenaEtcher

[xela@lemmy.ml]

I am shocked by this - the quote in below is very concerning:

"However, in 2024, the situation changed: balenaEtcher started sharing the file name of the image and the model of the USB stick with the Balena company and possibly with third parties."

Can't see myself using this software anymore...

[n0x0n@lemmy.ml]

I tried belenaEtcher once on my Mac... And it seemed to me more like a spyware than an actual software, I was a bit confused and never used it again.

[brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

That's interesting, apparently it was mentioned on github but nothing seems to have changed in the end

https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3784

Haven't used that software in a long time but maybe there's an opt-out somewhere during runtime? Although I don't see why a user needs to be required to opt out of nonsense like this when just writing firmware to a USB disk.

Only ever touched balenaEtcher when some project or distro recommended. Overall prefer Rufus for this sort of thing when working on Windows.

[privatenoob@sopuli.xyz]

Ahh too bad because balenaEtcher just werks for me.

[filister@lemmy.world]

Happy user of Ventoy here

[warmaster@lemmy.world]

...and that's how I met your mother fork

[carbonbasednpu@lemm.ee]

My luck with Ventoy has been very poor. The isos will work a few times and then something breaks and I need to re download all my isos and format and try again.

[warmaster@lemmy.world]

Good luck with the binary blob!

[wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

I've used Sardu on Windows for making multi-iso bootable USB sticks a long time ago in the past, but I'd admittedly never looked at their ToS or Privacy Policy. My use case was making some basic antivirus and data recovery toolkit USBs.

When I'm making anything else from Windows, I've always stuck with Rufus. Had never heard of BalenaEtcher before now.

[some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org]

Glad I saw this. I downloaded the tool on recommendation from a forum post when I was reviving my homelab. I’ll nuke it for sure.

[davel@lemmy.ml]

♬ Hello dd my old friend
I’ve come sudo with you again ♬

[blastboomstrice@mander.xyz]

For some more context:

https://lemmy.one/post/19193506

seems like dd commands and gnome's MultiWriter might be the only ways to flash stuff on linux

[davel@lemmy.ml]

Last I heard it was also suspect: Ventoy source code contains some unknown BLOBs, still no word on the issue from the dev after months

[theimpressivex@lemm.ee]

Doesn't the official guide recommend using GNOME Disk Utility anyway?

[telorand@reddthat.com]

Fedora Writer is another one (also works on Windows and maybe Mac), and there's also GLIM for multiboot, similar to Ventoy.

[telorand@reddthat.com]

This has been my experience as well. Some people love it, but I'm not gonna rely on it for critical backup or recovery tools (also, there's that whole binary blob thing, besides).

[fartsparkles@lemmy.world]

dd

[rvgamer06@sh.itjust.works]

Gonna look into GLIM, thanks

[lime@feddit.nu]

i still don't understand why anyone would use etcher. it's an electron wrapper over dd. it's 80MB where rufus is 1.5. when it appeared there were already other programs that did its job better.

[obsidianzed@lemmy.world]

I have had no complaints about it, but with that said, I absolutely would not use it for any vital backup your recovery tools.

It was fantastic however, to use to load up with handfuls of different live distro ISOs to play around with.