To give an example of where this is needed, the package microsoft-edge-beta
available from the non-debian repo $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-edge-beta.list deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/edge/ stable main installs an alternative: $ update-alternatives --display x-www-browser x-www-browser - auto mode link best version is /usr/bin/microsoft-edge-beta link currently points to /usr/bin/microsoft-edge-beta link x-www-browser is /usr/bin/x-www-browser slave x-www-browser.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/x-www-browser.1.gz /usr/bin/epiphany-browser - priority 85 slave x-www-browser.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/epiphany-browser.1.gz /usr/bin/firefox - priority 70 slave x-www-browser.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/firefox.1.gz /usr/bin/microsoft-edge-beta - priority 150 and another $ update-alternatives --display gnome-www-browser gnome-www-browser - auto mode link best version is /usr/bin/microsoft-edge-beta link currently points to /usr/bin/microsoft-edge-beta link gnome-www-browser is /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser slave gnome-www-browser.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/gnome-www-browser.1.gz /usr/bin/epiphany-browser - priority 85 slave gnome-www-browser.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/epiphany-browser.1.gz /usr/bin/firefox - priority 70 slave gnome-www-browser.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/firefox.1.gz /usr/bin/microsoft-edge-beta - priority 150 It is using priority 150 (!) while firefox/sid is using priority 70. The epiphany-browser has priority 85, which I think is a little bit of overreach, but whatever. And at least there's a place to discuss it: https://bugs.debian.org/824613 I would classify this as more a deliberate attack than a bug. But the MS Edge package is not distributed by Debian, so there's not really anything we can do about it. Ideally, we'd have a mechanism to override priorities from random out-of-line packages. (And maybe pre-populate it with offenders like this particular one. In this case, I'd override to -100 like the update-alternatives(1) example for /bin/ed.) (Why do I have MS Edge installed? Other obnoxious systems I need to use require it.)
