Although my partner Diego defends them, he likes them and recommended, at least some of them and at least it does not attack the packet type, I I am not wrong if I say that he has very little support in his position. Canonical made official the availability of the snap packages In 2016 with Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus, it promised us heaven and I only read negative comments from the Linux community. In my specific case, and I know that I am not the only one, I have managed to get rid of them completely.
What does succeed are the flatpack, And in Flatub, the most popular repository, we find practically everything. To give some examples, the Vivaldi browser, Bottles or almost all of the applications in the GNOME circle. They like them more, and they also seem to present fewer problems. In many cases, it is the developers of the different programs that upload them, unlike what happens in Snapcraft, which is often repackaged by Canonical. The same thing happens with the Steam snap package, and Valve advises against its use after the many bug reports it is receiving.
Valve advises against the use of snap packages, at least that of Steam
A long time ago, to be honest I don't remember when or where I read some information, it could have even been here on LXA but I can't find it in the archive, there was talk of the good work that Canonical was doing with the Steam snap package, to the point of that certain criticisms were made of other options. Now, some months or years later, Valve is receiving more and more complaints of users who report bugs with this package, so they recommend using the .deb version that they package themselves or at least using the flatpak package.
It was Timothee Besset who published it on Mastodon (via GamingOnLinux):
“Valve is receiving an increasing number of bug reports for issues caused by Canonical's repackaging of the Steam client via snap.
The best way to install Steam on Debian and derived operating systems is to follow the instructions on http://repo.steampowered.com/steam and use the official .deb.
We are not involved in snap repackaging. He has many problems.
If you don't want the .deb, please consider at least the flatpak version.
La flatpak version It is not verified, but that does not mean that a project is not involved. Neither is Vivaldi Browser, and whoever uploads it is part of the official team. What is certain is that They have nothing to do with the snap repackage, and that it is presenting many problems that are beyond its control.
It's not an attack, but...
What Timothee Besset commented is not a direct and gratuitous attack on snap packages. It is simply telling an event that is happening. If Steam users complain about the program malfunctioning and the program is being edited in some way by third-party developers, there is little or nothing they can do to identify the problem and find a solution.
The best thing for Debian/Ubuntu users is to use the .deb package, which is native and comes straight from Valve's oven. Then the flatpak package. For the rest of the distributions, it will depend. If you have no problems with the snap pack, it is still an option, but should be considered after the flatpak.
And for those who don't want either one or the other, the option it gives you is to see if your Linux distribution offers it in its official repositories. From here the only thing I can do is recommend the same as Valve, and the snap package should be the last thing to try.
Users of a Debain/Ubuntu-based distribution can download the latest version of Steam in .deb format from the official steam website. In this other link There is information to do it manually. Users of other Linux distributions can find the tarball here.