5 ms·

I think this is kinda misleading. Sure Safari is free, but is ONLY available on OSX/iOS which can only be obtained by purchasing apple devices. This is unlike C

by pm90 9y ago

I think this is kinda misleading. Sure Safari is free, but is ONLY available on OSX/iOS which can only be obtained by purchasing apple devices. This is unlike Chrome, which is free for anyone, across any platform. One of my coworkers once told me he preferred Apple products over any other vendor if only because he believes that by paying higher for apple products, he is paying for the privacy/security aspects of having his data secure and personal. I'm not sure how much this is true, but this datapoint does seem to confirm that theory.

ex3ndr 9y ago
Isn't Safari is available on Windows as well?
- panopticon 9y ago
  It was discontinued many years ago, but an old version is still available for download.
  - dazmax 9y ago
    Though they didn't discontinue it to drive Mac sales, but because not enough Windows users were using it.
    - astrodust 9y ago
      Firefox, Chrome and Microsoft's relentless pushing of Internet Explorer/Edge makes it hard to survive on that OS.
    - saurik 9y ago
      Well, they only made it in the first place so web developers could test their websites on Windows in a way that would verify compatibility with iOS and Mac. As Chrome (which is very similar to Safari, of course) and iOS came to be a very critical web deployment target, it was no longer needed. Safari for Windows wasn't built purely to have those users use Safari, nor was it discontinued to make people use Mac OS X: it existed so iOS and Mac OS X users would not be ignored by web developers running Windows.
- carc1n0gen 9y ago
  Not for about 4 years I believe
vetinari 9y ago
Maybe your coworker should try installing Little Snitch and watch the attempted connections to apple servers.
- dmd 9y ago
  I have Little Snitch, and there aren't any. Do you just assume this to be the case?
  - vetinari 9y ago
    Some people assume, some have look into the logs. Maybe you should have a look what LS logs for you too. For example: http://imgur.com/a/tBDrt http://imgur.com/a/tBDrt These are pre-login connections, and with the exception of Flux and Citrix Receiver, all the processes belongs to Apple. Why do they have to connect at all?
    - sedev 9y ago
      • akd is the AuthKit daemon, which among other things authenticates you to the App Store and to iCloud. • captiveagent detects when you're on a captive-portal network, it does this by checking for known-content domains apple controls • helpd is the daemon that connects to Apple's online help docs • locationd powers location services And so on. These are all easy to google. Come _on._ >:[
      - vetinari 9y ago
        Really, easy to google? With "quality" answers, like these, full of guesses? > Does anyone know what the nbagent process is? > ... > It appears to be something related to Software Update and/or the Mac App Store, so allowing it seems safe. I'd speculate that it showed up in the latest OS X update since I'd never seen it before today either, and the first google hits seem to appear only very recently. Sorry, while honest good effort, that's not acceptable answer. And that's before we start investigating processes that do connect AFTER login - what the heck is "systemmigrationd"? (try googling that). Sorry, but macOS regarding privacy is almost as bad, as Windows. It has many processes that connect somewhere, it is uncertain what these processes do, etc. How can someone even audit that? Compare to CentOS/Fedora, where the only hit to internet during pre-login is either DNS or your configuration and all the other hits are user-initiated (except browsers, which do update their certification revocation list, unsafe-urls list, etc).
aral 9y ago
Your coworker gets it :) It’s simply a matter of business models – you don’t even have to like Apple or think they’re lovely people (everyone I’ve met there has been). Google’s business model is to digitise you and own that digital copy. They use this proxy of you to manipulate and exploit your behaviour for profit and to indirectly rent access to aspects of you to their customers (currently, advertisers). Apple’s business model, on the other hand, is to make great tools and sell them to you at a price that makes them happy. (So if you were to buy an Android phone and never use it, Google would be very unhappy. If you buy an Apple phone and never use it, Apple’s still made their profit.) To cut a long story short, privacy is an absolute competitive advantage for Apple. It is a thing that they can compete on without breaking a sweat (as it doesn’t impact their bottom line negatively) whereas, if Google was to try, they would go bankrupt (as their business model depends on profiling you and violating your privacy). All you need to understand to grok why Apple is protecting your privacy is that multibillion-dollar corporations don’t get an absolute competitive advantage over their main rivals everyday and – if you do find one – you’d have to be an absolute idiot to squander it. (And I don’t believe the folks at Apple are idiots.) So yes, Apple’s systems are proprietary and closed, and no, you don’t have to love everything they do, but when it comes to protecting your privacy, all you need to do is trust that under our current system of capitalism, a publicly-traded corporation won’t act against the interests of its bottom line/the interests of their shareholders to squander an absolute competitive advantage against its main rival. (PS. Longer term, I hope that we will radically alter the topology of technology so that we are not reliant on a handful of kings – benevolent or otherwise – to safeguard our rights. That’s what the Internet of People initiative we just launched with DiEM25 in Europe is all about: https://ar.al/notes/towards-an-internet-of-people-with-diem25/ https://ar.al/notes/towards-an-internet-of-people-with-diem2...)

by pm90 9y ago

ex3ndr 9y ago

Isn't Safari is available on Windows as well?

panopticon 9y ago
It was discontinued many years ago, but an old version is still available for download.
- dazmax 9y ago
  Though they didn't discontinue it to drive Mac sales, but because not enough Windows users were using it.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    Firefox, Chrome and Microsoft's relentless pushing of Internet Explorer/Edge makes it hard to survive on that OS.
  - saurik 9y ago
    Well, they only made it in the first place so web developers could test their websites on Windows in a way that would verify compatibility with iOS and Mac. As Chrome (which is very similar to Safari, of course) and iOS came to be a very critical web deployment target, it was no longer needed. Safari for Windows wasn't built purely to have those users use Safari, nor was it discontinued to make people use Mac OS X: it existed so iOS and Mac OS X users would not be ignored by web developers running Windows.
carc1n0gen 9y ago
Not for about 4 years I believe

vetinari 9y ago

Maybe your coworker should try installing Little Snitch and watch the attempted connections to apple servers.

dmd 9y ago
I have Little Snitch, and there aren't any. Do you just assume this to be the case?
- vetinari 9y ago
  Some people assume, some have look into the logs. Maybe you should have a look what LS logs for you too. For example: http://imgur.com/a/tBDrt http://imgur.com/a/tBDrt These are pre-login connections, and with the exception of Flux and Citrix Receiver, all the processes belongs to Apple. Why do they have to connect at all?
  - sedev 9y ago
    • akd is the AuthKit daemon, which among other things authenticates you to the App Store and to iCloud. • captiveagent detects when you're on a captive-portal network, it does this by checking for known-content domains apple controls • helpd is the daemon that connects to Apple's online help docs • locationd powers location services And so on. These are all easy to google. Come _on._ >:[
    - vetinari 9y ago
      Really, easy to google? With "quality" answers, like these, full of guesses? > Does anyone know what the nbagent process is? > ... > It appears to be something related to Software Update and/or the Mac App Store, so allowing it seems safe. I'd speculate that it showed up in the latest OS X update since I'd never seen it before today either, and the first google hits seem to appear only very recently. Sorry, while honest good effort, that's not acceptable answer. And that's before we start investigating processes that do connect AFTER login - what the heck is "systemmigrationd"? (try googling that). Sorry, but macOS regarding privacy is almost as bad, as Windows. It has many processes that connect somewhere, it is uncertain what these processes do, etc. How can someone even audit that? Compare to CentOS/Fedora, where the only hit to internet during pre-login is either DNS or your configuration and all the other hits are user-initiated (except browsers, which do update their certification revocation list, unsafe-urls list, etc).

aral 9y ago

Your coworker gets it :) It’s simply a matter of business models – you don’t even have to like Apple or think they’re lovely people (everyone I’ve met there has been). Google’s business model is to digitise you and own that digital copy. They use this proxy of you to manipulate and exploit your behaviour for profit and to indirectly rent access to aspects of you to their customers (currently, advertisers). Apple’s business model, on the other hand, is to make great tools and sell them to you at a price that makes them happy. (So if you were to buy an Android phone and never use it, Google would be very unhappy. If you buy an Apple phone and never use it, Apple’s still made their profit.) To cut a long story short, privacy is an absolute competitive advantage for Apple. It is a thing that they can compete on without breaking a sweat (as it doesn’t impact their bottom line negatively) whereas, if Google was to try, they would go bankrupt (as their business model depends on profiling you and violating your privacy). All you need to understand to grok why Apple is protecting your privacy is that multibillion-dollar corporations don’t get an absolute competitive advantage over their main rivals everyday and – if you do find one – you’d have to be an absolute idiot to squander it. (And I don’t believe the folks at Apple are idiots.) So yes, Apple’s systems are proprietary and closed, and no, you don’t have to love everything they do, but when it comes to protecting your privacy, all you need to do is trust that under our current system of capitalism, a publicly-traded corporation won’t act against the interests of its bottom line/the interests of their shareholders to squander an absolute competitive advantage against its main rival. (PS. Longer term, I hope that we will radically alter the topology of technology so that we are not reliant on a handful of kings – benevolent or otherwise – to safeguard our rights. That’s what the Internet of People initiative we just launched with DiEM25 in Europe is all about: https://ar.al/notes/towards-an-internet-of-people-with-diem25/ https://ar.al/notes/towards-an-internet-of-people-with-diem2...)