I am curious to know other security experts thoughts on the following question.
For the sake of the argument the assumption is made that there will always be specialized applications that will need a dedicated template. Or to mitigate a specific security concern like the need to connect a template to the cloud there will be a dedicated template.
For everything else[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]...[30] however is there a security issue keeping everything in one template?
Other than less software means a smaller attack base. However, if for example an attacker uses an exploit in Firefox and compromises my appVM, will the fact that there is more code on the appVM equate to an even higher security risk. I don't think it does but i would like to know other opinions regarding this topic as well.
Also, a Firefox appVM wouldn't boot and run slower because it uses a template with 30 software packages install compared to a template that only has Firefox installed.
**A non-exhaustive list:**
[1] Gimp
[2] Firefox
[3] Thunderbird
[4] keepassxc
[5] Libreoffice
[6] Kodi
[7] VLC
[8] nomacs
[9] Krita
...
[30] Evince