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Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. And it's same on all known OSes. The side effec

Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. And it's same on all known OSes. The side effect we see is system size growing in time. IMO running an app in a sandbox should be the default option. On Windows, I used to like sandboxie, which virtualized every write into single directory. Uninstall was easy as removing that dir. This MS sandbox doesn't allow you to continually run an app in the sandbox, as all data get's destroyed on app close, so it's not sandboxie (or similar) replacement.

bfred_it 8y ago
Isn’t macOS doing that? The Mac App Store only allows sandboxed apps and macOS allows almost only apps from the store to be installed (+ certified developers) unless you change the system's settings.
- finchisko 8y ago
  On macOS some protection was added, so apps cannot write to system protected directories. But I was talking about all files that app creates. Like files in home dir (eg. ~/Library). If you remove the app, those files stay there and occupy space. The only way you can partly clean up the mess, is to delete home dir from time to time (but backup important files first). Even then, there might still be files in /usr/local etc.
  - terhechte 8y ago
    A macOS app installed from the app store can only write to ~/Library/Containers/name.of.app.bundle. Those are not automatically trashed (as far as I know), but it is much easier to clean than the whole ~/Library. Actually, if all your apps are in /Applications it would be easy to write a small script that deletes everything in Containers that's a: not from Apple and b: doesn't have a app bundle identifier in /Applications
    - finchisko 8y ago
      TBH I didn't know about that. Probably same situation is with Windows UWP apps installed from store (but there is special permission to grant access to whole fs, which allow app write outside it's sandbox dir). Anyway there are so many apps that are not installed from app stores. IMO having proper sandbox is still a thing in 2018.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      And there are in fact “app cleaners” that do exactly this.
      - cutety 8y ago
        The app I use to do that is literally called AppCleaner, been using it for years it’s one of the first things I install. For example, the other day I moved Word to the trash, 5 seconds later I get the AppCleaner pop up letting me know it found an additional 2GB of shit that Word just littered around my machine that wouldn’t have gotten removed by just deleting the app. And unfortunately, that definitely hasn’t even been the worst offender I’ve run into, and at this point I’m very rarely not surprised by the amount of leftover crap that doesn’t get removed when deleting an app.
laumars 8y ago
> Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. This has always been the case on Windows. In fact if anything, nowadays it’s better than its ever been because thanks to the UAC and other controls Microsoft have put in place, developers aren’t so free to do whatever they like to the host machine. But that’s remember a time before the UAC when it would often be common practice to reinstall the OS on a semi-regular basis (not something I personally engaged in but a great many of my peers used to). > And it’s same on all known OSes It really isn’t. On platforms with a proper package manager you can query what files get installed where. A great many package managers even let you query a file system file and see which package installed it. Of course you still have the problem of the software writing files during its operation but that should be limited to $HOME (on POSIX systems) or any path that is writable by the owner / group of the user that application runs as (which should be limited even if it’s a system service).
- finchisko 8y ago
  It really is. I'm not talking about app binaries only. But about all files that app creates after install. Most of the reside in home dir, but stays there forever. Like various cache files, settings, ... And most of the time they are not confined to single dir.
  - laumars 8y ago
    That has always been the case though. For as long as I've use Linux as a desktop my $HOME directory has been littered with dot-files and folders. And as for Windows, things used to be so much worse. Since the UAC, Windows applications have been limited in where they can write to lest they annoy their users with frequent escalation prompts. Before the UAC developers often used to write files all over the place - it was a complete nightmare! In fact one of the primary purposes of the UAC - as I recall - was to reign developers in. Even the UAC aside, on Windows you now have the application data directory and permissions on the registry which both take some reliance off random files dumped anywhere. Before then Windows was like the wild west. And we're not talking that long ago in terms of the history of Windows - Vista was released 11 years ago and it took a few years after that for developers to catch up. Plus with the trend of moving everything to the web, you're getting fewer native applications which can write those random files in seemingly random locations (that's one of the few good things about the move to web applications in my personal opinion). You'll always have problems with developers having their own opinions - that's inescapable. But things used to be so much worse.
alkonaut 8y ago
> Uninstall was easy as removing that dir. File writes for application files are rarely the problem any more. The problem is that in order to function correctly (For some definition of correct, but say e.g. to associate file extensions, create shortcuts, start automatically, install a dependency such as a C++ runtime patch, whatever) the program needs to write to subsystems of the OS in a non-reversible way. It's also very HARD to do these things (create setups) because systems like Windows Installer aren't trivial to use. Every time a setup author makes a mistake there is a risk of stuff being left behind. Fundamentally, what you are doing is you are in state A when installing the program, creating state B. Then you continue to modify the system simply by using it or installing some more software creating state C. If you now uninstall the first software you don't have anything but a script undoing A->B, which run backwards can only do B->A, but you are in state C and you don't want to first run C->B because you want to keep the other parts of state C. So the uninstall script has to run in unknown territory (a file may have changed, a later dependency version may have been installed globally, a registry entry may not exist because they are NOT isolated per application etc) so the uninstall script just has to do what it can. A sandbox could be a solution to this, where the sandbox contains diff views over some immutable base image. It probably is a lot easier to do (and do efficiently) with OS support.
consto 8y ago
> Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. And it's same on all known OSes. The side effect we see is system size growing in time. Unless I am mistaken, I don't think this is the case for iOS, Android, ChromeOS, FirefoxOS, and many game consoles. This is really just a problem with desktop and server operating systems, not with operating systems as a whole. It's also getting bettwe with package managers, the Windows Store, and UAC.
- finchisko 8y ago
  Yes, I forgot to mention mobile OSes. Specially iOS, doesn't keep any app files on disk when app is uninstalled. Android apps tend to keep files regularly on SD card (virtual or real one). Some apps might benefit from this (eg. you don't have to redownload huge map files for navigation app), but paradoxically Sygic Navigation app isn't storing map files on sdcard, but some crappy apps, where it doesn't make sense are. So in practice it's not very different from what we have on PC.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Frankly, the very concept of "installing" an application is a ridiculous invention. Many systems of the past had self-contained applications that could just be dragged around between disks, copied, and deleted, seamlessly meshing with the files & folders desktop metaphor. Of course none of those systems enforced this behavior, which is something we could do today but, for the most part, don't. At least on Windows I have my pick of thousands of Portable Apps (and most Windows software can act as a portable app if you just extract it without installing it anyway, albeit still leaving junk in the registry). You know what's a great feeling? Being able to reinstall your OS and just pointing a new toolbar at wherever you keep your portable apps and being good to go.
- systoll 8y ago
  You said ‘systems of the past’, but isn’t this how macOS works? If I download an app, I’m anticipating a .dmg to mount, which holds a self-contained .app which runs anywhere, and a link to /Applications, to suggest a sensible place to put it. It’s not enforced, but it is the norm.
ChrisSD 8y ago
UWP and/or the Windows Store has a way of packaging applications so they don't barf all over the system, assuming they're not maliciously designed to subvert this.
UI_at_80x24 8y ago
And this is where/when/why Docker (or other 'container' concept) will win.
enesunal 8y ago
> And it's same on all known OSes. I guess you're missing one. Android allows you to remove everything that app created.
rkagerer 8y ago
Total Uninstall. Basically a system diff tool. I run it before & after every install.

bfred_it 8y ago

Isn’t macOS doing that? The Mac App Store only allows sandboxed apps and macOS allows almost only apps from the store to be installed (+ certified developers) unless you change the system's settings.

finchisko 8y ago
On macOS some protection was added, so apps cannot write to system protected directories. But I was talking about all files that app creates. Like files in home dir (eg. ~/Library). If you remove the app, those files stay there and occupy space. The only way you can partly clean up the mess, is to delete home dir from time to time (but backup important files first). Even then, there might still be files in /usr/local etc.
- terhechte 8y ago
  A macOS app installed from the app store can only write to ~/Library/Containers/name.of.app.bundle. Those are not automatically trashed (as far as I know), but it is much easier to clean than the whole ~/Library. Actually, if all your apps are in /Applications it would be easy to write a small script that deletes everything in Containers that's a: not from Apple and b: doesn't have a app bundle identifier in /Applications
  - finchisko 8y ago
    TBH I didn't know about that. Probably same situation is with Windows UWP apps installed from store (but there is special permission to grant access to whole fs, which allow app write outside it's sandbox dir). Anyway there are so many apps that are not installed from app stores. IMO having proper sandbox is still a thing in 2018.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    And there are in fact “app cleaners” that do exactly this.
    - cutety 8y ago
      The app I use to do that is literally called AppCleaner, been using it for years it’s one of the first things I install. For example, the other day I moved Word to the trash, 5 seconds later I get the AppCleaner pop up letting me know it found an additional 2GB of shit that Word just littered around my machine that wouldn’t have gotten removed by just deleting the app. And unfortunately, that definitely hasn’t even been the worst offender I’ve run into, and at this point I’m very rarely not surprised by the amount of leftover crap that doesn’t get removed when deleting an app.

laumars 8y ago

> Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. This has always been the case on Windows. In fact if anything, nowadays it’s better than its ever been because thanks to the UAC and other controls Microsoft have put in place, developers aren’t so free to do whatever they like to the host machine. But that’s remember a time before the UAC when it would often be common practice to reinstall the OS on a semi-regular basis (not something I personally engaged in but a great many of my peers used to). > And it’s same on all known OSes It really isn’t. On platforms with a proper package manager you can query what files get installed where. A great many package managers even let you query a file system file and see which package installed it. Of course you still have the problem of the software writing files during its operation but that should be limited to $HOME (on POSIX systems) or any path that is writable by the owner / group of the user that application runs as (which should be limited even if it’s a system service).

finchisko 8y ago
It really is. I'm not talking about app binaries only. But about all files that app creates after install. Most of the reside in home dir, but stays there forever. Like various cache files, settings, ... And most of the time they are not confined to single dir.
- laumars 8y ago
  That has always been the case though. For as long as I've use Linux as a desktop my $HOME directory has been littered with dot-files and folders. And as for Windows, things used to be so much worse. Since the UAC, Windows applications have been limited in where they can write to lest they annoy their users with frequent escalation prompts. Before the UAC developers often used to write files all over the place - it was a complete nightmare! In fact one of the primary purposes of the UAC - as I recall - was to reign developers in. Even the UAC aside, on Windows you now have the application data directory and permissions on the registry which both take some reliance off random files dumped anywhere. Before then Windows was like the wild west. And we're not talking that long ago in terms of the history of Windows - Vista was released 11 years ago and it took a few years after that for developers to catch up. Plus with the trend of moving everything to the web, you're getting fewer native applications which can write those random files in seemingly random locations (that's one of the few good things about the move to web applications in my personal opinion). You'll always have problems with developers having their own opinions - that's inescapable. But things used to be so much worse.

alkonaut 8y ago

> Uninstall was easy as removing that dir. File writes for application files are rarely the problem any more. The problem is that in order to function correctly (For some definition of correct, but say e.g. to associate file extensions, create shortcuts, start automatically, install a dependency such as a C++ runtime patch, whatever) the program needs to write to subsystems of the OS in a non-reversible way. It's also very HARD to do these things (create setups) because systems like Windows Installer aren't trivial to use. Every time a setup author makes a mistake there is a risk of stuff being left behind. Fundamentally, what you are doing is you are in state A when installing the program, creating state B. Then you continue to modify the system simply by using it or installing some more software creating state C. If you now uninstall the first software you don't have anything but a script undoing A->B, which run backwards can only do B->A, but you are in state C and you don't want to first run C->B because you want to keep the other parts of state C. So the uninstall script has to run in unknown territory (a file may have changed, a later dependency version may have been installed globally, a registry entry may not exist because they are NOT isolated per application etc) so the uninstall script just has to do what it can. A sandbox could be a solution to this, where the sandbox contains diff views over some immutable base image. It probably is a lot easier to do (and do efficiently) with OS support.

consto 8y ago

> Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. And it's same on all known OSes. The side effect we see is system size growing in time. Unless I am mistaken, I don't think this is the case for iOS, Android, ChromeOS, FirefoxOS, and many game consoles. This is really just a problem with desktop and server operating systems, not with operating systems as a whole. It's also getting bettwe with package managers, the Windows Store, and UAC.

finchisko 8y ago
Yes, I forgot to mention mobile OSes. Specially iOS, doesn't keep any app files on disk when app is uninstalled. Android apps tend to keep files regularly on SD card (virtual or real one). Some apps might benefit from this (eg. you don't have to redownload huge map files for navigation app), but paradoxically Sygic Navigation app isn't storing map files on sdcard, but some crappy apps, where it doesn't make sense are. So in practice it's not very different from what we have on PC.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

Frankly, the very concept of "installing" an application is a ridiculous invention. Many systems of the past had self-contained applications that could just be dragged around between disks, copied, and deleted, seamlessly meshing with the files & folders desktop metaphor. Of course none of those systems enforced this behavior, which is something we could do today but, for the most part, don't. At least on Windows I have my pick of thousands of Portable Apps (and most Windows software can act as a portable app if you just extract it without installing it anyway, albeit still leaving junk in the registry). You know what's a great feeling? Being able to reinstall your OS and just pointing a new toolbar at wherever you keep your portable apps and being good to go.

systoll 8y ago
You said ‘systems of the past’, but isn’t this how macOS works? If I download an app, I’m anticipating a .dmg to mount, which holds a self-contained .app which runs anywhere, and a link to /Applications, to suggest a sensible place to put it. It’s not enforced, but it is the norm.

ChrisSD 8y ago

UWP and/or the Windows Store has a way of packaging applications so they don't barf all over the system, assuming they're not maliciously designed to subvert this.

UI_at_80x24 8y ago

And this is where/when/why Docker (or other 'container' concept) will win.

enesunal 8y ago

> And it's same on all known OSes. I guess you're missing one. Android allows you to remove everything that app created.

rkagerer 8y ago

Total Uninstall. Basically a system diff tool. I run it before & after every install.