diff --git a/distroless/private/flatten.bzl b/distroless/private/flatten.bzl
index 80096b5..fdc3ebc 100644
--- a/distroless/private/flatten.bzl
+++ b/distroless/private/flatten.bzl
@@ -42,17 +42,12 @@ flatten = rule(
             doc = "List of tars to flatten",
         ),
         "deduplicate": attr.bool(doc = """\
-EXPERIMENTAL: Remove duplicate entries from the archives after flattening.
-        
-This requires `awk`, `sort` and `tar` to be available in the PATH.
+EXPERIMENTAL: We may change or remove it without a notice.
 
-To support macOS, presence of `gtar` is checked, and `tar` if it does not exist, 
-and ensured if supports the `--delete` mode.
+Remove duplicate entries from the archives after flattening.
+Deduplication is performed only for directories.
 
-On macOS: `brew install gnu-tar` can be run to install gnutar.
-See: https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/gnu-tar
-
-NOTE: You may also need to run `sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/bin/gtar /usr/local/bin/gtar` to make it available to Bazel.
+This requires `awk` to be available in the PATH.
         """, default = False),
         "compress": attr.string(
             doc = "Compress the archive file with a supported algorithm.",
diff --git a/distroless/private/flatten.sh b/distroless/private/flatten.sh
index 71f0fa6..49ba33c 100755
--- a/distroless/private/flatten.sh
+++ b/distroless/private/flatten.sh
@@ -5,46 +5,46 @@ bsdtar="$1";
 output="$2";
 shift 2;
 
-function run_gtar() {
-    local TAR=
-    if [[ "$(command -v gtar)" ]]; then
-        TAR="gtar";
-    elif [[ "$(command -v tar)" ]]; then
-        TAR="tar";
-    else
-        echo "Neither 'tar' nor 'gtar' command is available.";
-        exit 1;
-    fi
-    "$TAR" "$@";
-}
-
-
 # Deduplication requested, use this complex pipeline to deduplicate.
 if [[ "$output" != "-" ]]; then
 
     mtree=$(mktemp)
-    duplicates=$(mktemp)
 
+    # List files in all archives and append to single column mtree. 
     for arg in "$@"; do    
         if [[ "$arg" == "@"* ]]; then
-            "$bsdtar" -cf - --format=mtree --options "mtree:!all,mtree:type" "$arg" >> "$mtree"
+            "$bsdtar" -tf "${arg:1}" >> "$mtree"
         fi
     done
 
-    awk '{
+    
+    # There not a lot happening here but there is still too many implicit knowledge.
+    # 
+    # When we run bsdtar, we ask for it to prompt every entry, in the same order we created above, the mtree.
+    # See: https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/blob/f745a848d7a81758cd9fcd49d7fd45caeebe1c3d/tar/write.c#L683
+    # 
+    # For every prompt, therefore entry, we have write 31 bytes of data, one of which has to be either 'Y' or 'N'.
+    # And the reason for it is that since we are not TTY and pretending to be one, we can't interleave write calls
+    # so we have to interleave it by filling up the buffer with 31 bytes of 'Y' or 'N'.
+    # See: https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/blob/f745a848d7a81758cd9fcd49d7fd45caeebe1c3d/tar/util.c#L240
+    # See: https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/blob/f745a848d7a81758cd9fcd49d7fd45caeebe1c3d/tar/util.c#L216
+    # 
+    # And finally we iterate over all the entries generating 31 bytes of interleaved 'Y' or 'N' date based on if 
+    # we came across the entry before, for directories the first occurrence is kept, and for files copies are 
+    # preserved.
+    $bsdtar --confirmation "$@" > $output 2< <(awk '{
         if (substr($0,0,1) == "#") {
             next;
         }
-        line_count[$1]++;
-        if (line_count[$1] > 1) {
-            if ($1 == "/.") {
-                next
-            }
-            print $1
+        count[$1]++;
+        ORS=""
+        keep="n"
+        if (count[$1] == 1 || $1 !~ "/$") {
+            keep="y"
         }
-    }' "$mtree" | sort | uniq | sort -r  > "$duplicates"
-
-    $bsdtar --exclude "^./$" $@  | run_gtar --delete --file - --occurrence=1 --files-from="$duplicates" > "$output"
+        for (i=0;i<31;i++) print keep
+        fflush() 
+    }' "$mtree")
     rm "$mtree"
 else 
     # No deduplication, business as usual