ubuntu-core-launcher was automatically installed and is no longer required

Got this after updating all packages in Ubuntu 16.04.

All packages are up to date.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  ubuntu-core-launcher
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove it.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Is it safe to remove ubuntu-core-launcher by using apt-get autoremove ?

Solution 1:

The ubuntu-core-launcher package is used for the new snappy package installer still in the making. Now running sudo dpkg -s ubuntu-core-launcher will show in the priority information that it's optional, meaning you can remove it.

Now there is the issue of vulnerability as stated here that affect Ubuntu 16.04 lts and the need to upgrade to version 1.0.27 or higher with the latest version here.

But putting it back is also quite easy:

sudo apt update && sudo apt-get install ubuntu-core-launcher

To remove it is also quite easy:

sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove ubuntu-core-launcher

So running sudo apt autoremove will do it.

Solution 2:

ubuntu-core-launcher was a dependency of snapd, the backend for the snap packaging format, part of the default image. However, ubuntu-core-launcher a while ago became a transitional package for snap-confine. As of snapd v2.17.1ubuntu1, snapd apparently simply depends directly upon snap-confine instead of ubuntu-core-launcher, making ubuntu-core-launcher not required by anything on your system and not explicitly installed, thus making it a candidate for autoremoval. Since its only purpose was to pull in snap-confine anyway, you're safe to remove it with sudo apt autoremove.