an app launcher. Literally every other desktop on the planet has one, how this isn’t considered basic functionality is beyond me. Give your grandparents a vanilla GNOME computer and tell them to get to Facebook and you will see how necessary this is. Default should be dash-to-dock with intelligent autohide so you only see it when you need it. This would fulfill GNOME’s hangups about it while also improving usability, so I fail to see a downside.

GNOME does have a launcher, which works just like the launcher on Mac and Android. You can even select whether to see all your apps or only the most-used ones. I do agree that a taskbar/dock with intelligent auto-hide is a must, though (at least for my usability). That’s also not to say that some folks would rather have a Windows style launcher, and there are several DEs that provide that.

A qualified yes. I love the overview, which is, IMO, the most elegant way to launch applications and manage workspaces of any OS or DE. I also love the general look and fluidity of the environment and how it gets out out of your way when you don’t need it. But I preferred the pre-GNOME 40 vertical workflow to the new horizontal workflow.

There are also three must-have extensions that make GNOME usable for me:

• AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support. GNOME can wish away tray icons if they want to, but the tray hasn’t gone away and is still necessary for some applications.
• DashToDock. Makes app switching more accessible and adds right-click to close.
• Gnome 4x UI Improvements. Increases the size of the workspace thumbnails so you can actually see what’s in them (like it was before GNOME 40).

I still favor native packages, but I don’t have a problem with Flatpaks. I’ll use them when a program isn’t available in the repo or there’s a compelling reason to have a never version of an application. I’m on Debian Stable, so I’m obviously not obsessed with having the newest, shiniest version of everything.

What about running the Flatpak version of Brave? Flatpaks are containerized and should contain compatible libraries.

To add to what @lordnikon said, the program is called Software & Updates and I’m pretty sure it’s installed by default in GNOME (don’t know about other DEs).