Are You Using Balena Etcher

[Mike-BTU]

After a brief research on the web I went for Ventoy for installation .iso files. Never regretted it or needed to change it. Once used Rufus to install Ubuntu with persistence on a usb and that's it.

There is nothing easier to use than Ventoy! I love it.

 

[bob466]

​

I simply carry around balenaEtcher-1.18.8-x64.AppImage with me from distro to distro, no nags, no info collection.

Wiz

Are you sure...I have etcher 1.18.11 AppImage on Cinnamon 21.1 and it says in settings...

I did turn both off.

 

[wizardfromoz]

It's easy for the eyes to gloss over it, or it was for my eyes.

Well that was certainly the case for me, lol.

Ta, David, I will take a look at both.

If however they also have the extra disclosure warning, I will stick with my existing appimage install. It has served me well.

 

[Condobloke]

balenaEtcher And Privacy

Learn about balenaEtcher’s data collection and privacy practices past, present, and future.

blog.balena.io

Posted

May 9, 2025
in

announcement

Alan Boris

This screenshot refers to the link at the top of this post

 

[Condobloke]

And....there is a brand new balenaEtcher-2.1.3-x64.AppImage

....to be released shortly. It was pre released 3 weeks ago

Release v2.1.3 · balena-io/etcher

c2fc369 (Remove stale secrets, 2025-02-26)

github.com

 

[Condobloke]

EDIT: to the post above this:

balenaEtcher-2.1.3-x64(4).AppImage is available NOW

the 'report errors' appears to be OFF by default

 

[Condobloke]

uh oh.... error withe appimage 2.1.3

The .deb 2.1.3 behaved normally and confirmed the opening of that same file

 

[wizardfromoz]

That was the same error the OP experienced in his OP.

 

[Condobloke]

It appeared (just a quick look) that the particular error in the appimage ...has been around for some considerable time

I will find the page and add a link here

 

[Condobloke]

Error: (0 , h.requestMetadata) is not a function · Issue #4150 · balena-io/etcher

Etcher version: 1.18.13 - 1.19.3 Operating system and architecture: NixOS, x86_64-linux Image flashed: Arbitrary image What do you think should have happened: Image selected successfully, being abl...

github.com

 

[Condobloke]

The .deb release 2.1.2 works like a charm

Validating will take approx another 2 minutes.

And the default setting is'

perfect !

The .iso which I loaded, booted up without a murmur.

 

[wizardfromoz]

My laugh at #30 was at the comment at their website, Brian.

 

[wizardfromoz]

BTW Ta for the work you are putting in, I have always liked Etcher.

 

[Condobloke]

I find Balena quite solid, reliable, and above all trustworthy.

I wouldn't have it on my PC if I didn't.

 

[KGIII]

I will stick with my existing appimage install. It has served me well.

Given what it does, you can probably continue using that AppImage for quite a while. I see no reason for it to quit working all of a sudden.

Given the nature of the beast, if things go south with the company, you can probably even distribute that AppImage without violating copyright. It's open source, but I've not verified the license.

Hmm... I think I'll look that up...

GitHub - balena-io/etcher: Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily.

Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily. - balena-io/etcher

github.com

Yup...

You're perfectly free to distribute that AppImage.

Someone can also just edit the source to remove anything they don't like. I'm not a competent programmer, so I won't be doing that. I'm just remarking on the license and your rights as an interested party.

This seems like a non-problem, really. The application is well known and widely recommended. Anyone can do what they wish (within the terms of the license agreement, which includes keeping the source code open and free) with this software.

So, yup... I'd hold onto that AppImage. Given the nature of an AppImage, it's likely to keep working for quite a while, regardless of what the company owners do.

 

[Iamgeese]

I heard this but I cant get Rufus to work.

I swea to ged, every single f**ing thing recently is just having spywear added to it

 

[Vimmer]

it makes me laugh, just seeing the absolute hostile reaction to any sort of telemetry...i totally understand people not wanting to have their privacy violated, and that's one of the reasons to stop using both microsoft and apple (these systems probably keep track of what you do with your files, as well...and microsoft wanted to take images of your desktop before people got mad about it) but i have no issue with programmers wanting my anonymous usage data. This might help them improve their programs.

To me, these are the troubling kinds of data collection and sharing:

-personal information: name, address, email addresses, SSN, location (google makes no secret of collecting location data constantly...)

-biometric: everytime a computer asks me to enable biometric authentication, i always say "no", even if they claim not to share it. The main reason being that software is rarely perfect, don't make it harder for me to access my machine...

-genetic: despite my curiosity about my ethnicity and ancestry, i will not pay some company to collect my DNA. No thanks. If one of my future ancestors gets away with murder because i didn't give some company my DNA, then good for them!

Part of the way you can keep some of this information from leaking is not to give it out in the first place, however, having a zero tolerance attitude about your personal information probably will do you more harm than good

 

[bob466]

I suppose if people want to use something that collects your data, then they can't complain.

One of the reasons for switching to Linux was..."you know who" collecting my data and selling it to everyone with $$$$...never again.

 

[KGIII]

If one of my future ancestors gets away with murder because i didn't give some company my DNA, then good for them!

One of my relatives did the whole DNA thing. Fortunately, I don't have a past where that's going to matter and, at the end of the day, it probably won't matter much for me. I served and so they surely still have blood samples. I had security clearance so they may well have already decided to use said samples to learn my DNA.

Man, my future serial killer heirs are going to get caught quickly. They're going straight to prison.

As an aside, I'm one of the rare people who can do quite a bit of traveling without ending up on a CCTV. I don't have anything important to do with that information, but it's something I can do. I've even paid attention to the various survielence cameras that could track my vehicle while it's on the road. I can go quite a ways into the nearest areas without being spotted on any of them - that I know of...

Of course, while I do leave home without it, there's always my cell phone to track. Though, if you go about 15 minutes north of where I live there's no cell service and service won't return for about 30 minutes worth of driving - longer if you get off the main road.

I'm not like a crazy prepper or anything. I just pay attention to that stuff. They've already got enough matching DNA (and probably my own DNA), so I'm not getting away with anything serious. It does mean that I can drive in a spirited manner without fear of being caught. So, there's that.

Anyhow, to be on-topic...

There's a complete archive of Etcher versions on YouTube. They all more or less do the same thing. If you don't like the version you've got, just grab a different version. If you want to protect yourself against future versions, hold onto that version. It should continue to be fit for purpose well into the future.

Also,it appears that they removed telemetry. A part of me wishes we had more telemetry with Linux, just so we can settle the issue of which distros are more popular!

 

[Vimmer]

Also,it appears that they removed telemetry. A part of me wishes we had more telemetry with Linux, just so we can settle the issue of which distros are more popular!

when you install debian, it asks you if you want the "popularity contest" telemetry near the end to track which packages get downloaded the most, and i always say "yes" so they have evidence they should keep a package i like to use...

And as far as my other comments go, i'm not going to murder anyone before i die (unless it's pure self-defense), it's normally an incredibly stupid/worthless thing to do, but i still don't care if me failing to submit DNA means someone related to my family gets away with murder.