Why is there a .var directory in my home

General system Newbie
1

In my home directory there is .var directory with a single app subdirectory. Its contents are given below

$  ll $HOME/.var/app/
Permissions Size User  Group Date Modified Name
drwxr-xr-x  2.2k usera usera 26 Jan 23:12  com.google.Chrome
drwxr-xr-x  2.2k usera usera 26 Jan 23:12  com.google.ChromeDev
drwxr-xr-x  2.2k usera usera 26 Jan 23:12  io.github.ungoogled_software.ungoogled_chromium
drwxr-xr-x  2.1k usera usera 26 Jan 23:12  io.gitlab.librewolf-community
drwxr-xr-x  2.1k usera usera 28 Feb 10:33  net.waterfox.waterfox
drwxr-xr-x  2.2k usera usera 26 Jan 23:12  org.chromium.Chromium
drwxr-xr-x  2.1k usera usera 26 Jan 23:12  org.mozilla.firefox

I only have firefox installed. I do not have Chrome. Nor do I have ChromeDev nor librewolf, nor waterfox nor ungoogled_chromium. I have not used any of these nor installed any of these.

What is the purpose of this .var directory ? How and why was it created? Can I delete all of its content and the the directory itself too? i.e. can I delete $HOME/.var directory?

2

The .var directory is where Flatpak apps store their configs.

If you are not using any of those apps listed under .var/app you can remove the whole directory.

If you are planning to use them again and want to keep the config, keep the directory.

3

I do not use Flatpak. Nor have I used FlatPak in the past. Nor AppImage. Nor Snap or anything similar. I depend only on Arch Repos.

4

It is what it is.

These are typical Flatpak IDs.

5

The folders are created by plasma-browser-integration so that it can integrate with any Flatpak browsers that one might have installed. You can delete any of the folders for browsers that you do not have installed, or the whole .var directory if you do not have any Flatpaks installed. It may appear again however when plasma-browser-integration updates.

6

Thanks @r0ckhopper

7

That’s a… weird solution to the problem, in my humble opinion, but I guess it’s also the easiest and most elegant solution to have the layer work with Flatpak browsers OOTB, without issues.

8

I’ve always blamed 1Password for that. Good to know that it comes from the package plasma-browser-integration. :+1:

9

Yeah after the inputs from @cactux and @r0ckhopper I checked. It is browser integration from KDE Plasma that is stored in the .var directory. Considering that all the flatpaks are stored in the $HOME/.var/ directory it makes sense for the KDE Plasma integration to be also present inside $HOME/.var/.
Having said that, it would have been so much better if this integration configuration had been stored in the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME directory. But well that is a good to have.

10

You mean that my word wasn’t good enough for you eh? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

:clown_face:

11

:sweat_smile:

No it was enough. @cactux did give some insights which were not known to me. I had to thank him for that.

:clinking_beer_mugs: