11 ms·

They are basically solving a self-inflicted problem. The real issue there is the fact that macOS doesn't provide a standarized way to completely uninstall an ap

They are basically solving a self-inflicted problem. The real issue there is the fact that macOS doesn't provide a standarized way to completely uninstall an app.

millstone 7y ago
Neither does Windows or Linux. I don't think you can have such a standardized way on a flexible general-purpose OS.
- fastball 7y ago
  What apple should do though is provide an API that developers can hook into, where in when the user drags the app to the trash, it can also uninstall anything else the app placed elsewhere on the system.
  - dev_tty01 7y ago
    They do! The app developers didn't follow the guidelines.
    - fastball 7y ago
      Oh really? Cool! I've been out of the MacOS app dev scene for too long, it seems.
wwright 7y ago
It does provide a standard way to uninstall an app: drag it to the trash can. I would say that what Zoom did was have their app intentionally install malware that bypassed this normal uninstall. I do think that it would be great to have a more thoroughly sandboxed idea of what an “app” is on the desktop, though.
- krferriter 7y ago
  Snapd, flatpak, appimage all can do this on Linux. Even docker/singularity can sort of do the same for some, if you pass through all the necessary devices and sockets from the host. When you remove the app (or container) all the files it brought with it or created during runtime are now gone. Even the regular Linux package managers like apt, dnf, pacman track which files were installed by which packages, so they can be removed when the package is uninstalled. The downside to these is they don't track files created at runtime so a lot of the config or cache files created can be left over if the package itself doesn't remove them.
  - tomjakubowski 7y ago
    A sandboxed macOS app would offer similar protections as what snapd, flatpak, etc provide on Linux. > Even the regular Linux package managers like apt, dnf, pacman track which files were installed by which packages, so they can be removed when the package is uninstalled. Technically speaking, Zoom could have abused dpkg post-install scripts, or pulled similar tricks, to install their malware server and leave it behind after the package was removed. Linux distributions aren't invincible to these shenanigans.
    - jxcl 7y ago
      > Technically speaking, Zoom could have abused dpkg post-install scripts, or pulled similar tricks, to install their malware server and leave it behind after the package was removed. Linux distributions aren't invincible to these shenanigans. This is correct, but such a package should not make it into the distribution's package repositories.
      - Twisell 7y ago
        And likewise Zoom didn’t make it to the AppStore...
  - hunter2_ 7y ago
    > all the files it brought with it or created during runtime are now gone. How would this work with apps that create things that a user would expect to persist, like downloads (kept after uninstalling a browser) or office documents (kept after uninstalling the office suite), or media production apps, IDEs, etc.? It could have some rule like "let it be if it's in the user home directory" or "only remove stuff in these system directories" but it seems kind of fragile, like what if you use a text editor to create a system config file and then uninstall the text editor?
aphextron 7y ago
>The real issue there is the fact that macOS doesn't provide a standarized way to completely uninstall an app. reply And Windows does? Uninstallers are completely at the behest of application developers. No consumer OS but iOS actually provides any sort of true app level sandboxing.
- pkulak 7y ago
  Flatpak, Appimage, etc. Zoom is even available in Flathub, and that's how I use it.
- javagram 7y ago
  > And Windows does? Control Panel “add and remove programs” usually works? There’s no equivalent on Mac. Yes, dragging the app to the trash is a thing but that leaves behind content in ~/Library/caches, ~/Library/Application Support, and ~/Library/Preferences . It’s been somewhat of an issue with Mac ever since they first put a hard drive on the original ones back in the 80s... Edit: I literally cleared several GB of junk out of my application support folder left behind by just one app today, so it’s fresh on my mind. OmniDiskSweeper is great for finding this stuff.
  - RussianCow 7y ago
    The point is, all of those files are generally still left behind on Windows as well. Uninstalling a program in Windows is roughly equivalent to dragging it into the trash in macOS.
    - ComputerGuru 7y ago
      > all of those files are generally still left behind on Windows as well. Citation needed. That was the case in the 90s, these days most apps (device drivers aside) uninstall fairly cleanly with only settings/configurations stored in the registry still resident afterwards. Startup programs remaining after an uninstall is straight-up a bug.
      - 7y ago
outworlder 7y ago
Nor does Windows for that matter. Running installshield with some command line parameter doesn't count. Linux package managers come close, but not all third party apps are installed like that.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  Having a standard installer toolkit that comes with the os and used by many os updates along with a centralized uninstall UI is nothing?
  - outworlder 7y ago
    > Having a standard installer toolkit that comes with the os and used by many os updates along with a centralized uninstall UI is nothing? If we are talking about OS updates, OSX has the same thing. You are not required to use Windows Installer. And even if you do, you are not guaranteed that everything will be removed, be it due to malice or incompetence. Not even Linux can guarantee that. Something like the Nix package manager would be closer to what's required. Plus a sandbox.
bin0 7y ago
Zoom deliberately circumvented Apple's standard package format, contrary to security interests. Zoom is basically behaving like a virus here.
evv 7y ago
Funny, it is also self-inflicted because Safari inspired Zoom to do this hack by breaking the correct behavior of protocol links. > This is a workaround to a change introduced in Safari 12 that requires a user to confirm that they want to start the Zoom client prior to joining every meeting. The local web server enables users to avoid this extra click before joining every meeting. https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2019/07/08/response-to-video-on-concern/ https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2019/07/08/response-to-video-...
- awinder 7y ago
  I don’t understand how a “you’re about to jump out of the app” confirm panel is breaking protocol links. I actually want this behavior for zoom and any other app...
  - megablast 7y ago
    It adds an extra, confusing step, that is not necessary most of the time.
  - evv 7y ago
    The first time you use that protocol, of course a warning is appropriate. To prompt the user on _every_ external protocol click seems.. hostile to the concept of linking
    - scarface74 7y ago
      So then you have a protocol link to a .vbs file and you tell all of your contacts how much you love them.....
    - AlexandrB 7y ago
      It needs to happen at least for every combination of source domain and protocol. Otherwise websites can drive-by open zoom, reminders, or whatever other app you have installed to achieve some marketing or malware goal (or just DoS your computer). Edit: Once you consider social sites with user-submitted content, like reddit, it might be best if you’re prompted every time.
bandushrew 7y ago
it really does provide a very nice and effective standard way to bundle components needed by an app altogether and to manage them appropriately. The developers in this case didn't bother trying to use it.
taftster 7y ago
Which is completely frustrating, because Mac is totally in the position of using its built-in capabilities to deal with this. The Mac Bundle (.app) format could solve this entirely. All application specific data should be written inside of the bundle folder, so that when you delete the app, you delete the thing entirely. I mean, maybe you need a "user data" bundle of sorts tied to the specific application. If you delete the app, it deletes all the user data bundles as well. The default installer and bundle runners should be controlling the process. "XYZ App is attempting to write data files outside of its bundle location. These may not be cleaned up if you delete the application. Do you want to continue?" The unix permissions system and the Mac bundle format should completely solve this problem. I honestly just don't get why this still happens. Doesn't iOS at least get this right?
- maxsilver 7y ago
  > The default installer and bundle runners should be controlling the process. "XYZ App is attempting to write data files outside of its bundle location. These may not be cleaned up if you delete the application. Do you want to continue?" If you do that, the entire system stops working. Everyone will just click "ok" and then still gets mad when uninstalling doesn't fully clean things up.
  - taftster 7y ago
    Well, that's fair. But hopefully in the process of getting mad, it starts to reflect negatively on the application vendors and/or Apple directly. Maybe that will be enough for them to change. Maybe the app bundle runner should be logging files written outside of the bundle folder? Then the uninstall process will wipe those out?
    - hunter2_ 7y ago
      Wipe out all the things that you create with the app? All the text you created when you uninstall a text editor, the photos you touched up and saved under a new name, the audio recordings you made?
  - 7y ago

They are basically solving a self-inflicted problem. The real issue there is the fact that macOS doesn't provide a standarized way to completely uninstall an app.

millstone 7y ago

Neither does Windows or Linux. I don't think you can have such a standardized way on a flexible general-purpose OS.

fastball 7y ago
What apple should do though is provide an API that developers can hook into, where in when the user drags the app to the trash, it can also uninstall anything else the app placed elsewhere on the system.
- dev_tty01 7y ago
  They do! The app developers didn't follow the guidelines.
  - fastball 7y ago
    Oh really? Cool! I've been out of the MacOS app dev scene for too long, it seems.

wwright 7y ago

It does provide a standard way to uninstall an app: drag it to the trash can. I would say that what Zoom did was have their app intentionally install malware that bypassed this normal uninstall. I do think that it would be great to have a more thoroughly sandboxed idea of what an “app” is on the desktop, though.

krferriter 7y ago
Snapd, flatpak, appimage all can do this on Linux. Even docker/singularity can sort of do the same for some, if you pass through all the necessary devices and sockets from the host. When you remove the app (or container) all the files it brought with it or created during runtime are now gone. Even the regular Linux package managers like apt, dnf, pacman track which files were installed by which packages, so they can be removed when the package is uninstalled. The downside to these is they don't track files created at runtime so a lot of the config or cache files created can be left over if the package itself doesn't remove them.
- tomjakubowski 7y ago
  A sandboxed macOS app would offer similar protections as what snapd, flatpak, etc provide on Linux. > Even the regular Linux package managers like apt, dnf, pacman track which files were installed by which packages, so they can be removed when the package is uninstalled. Technically speaking, Zoom could have abused dpkg post-install scripts, or pulled similar tricks, to install their malware server and leave it behind after the package was removed. Linux distributions aren't invincible to these shenanigans.
  - jxcl 7y ago
    > Technically speaking, Zoom could have abused dpkg post-install scripts, or pulled similar tricks, to install their malware server and leave it behind after the package was removed. Linux distributions aren't invincible to these shenanigans. This is correct, but such a package should not make it into the distribution's package repositories.
    - Twisell 7y ago
      And likewise Zoom didn’t make it to the AppStore...
- hunter2_ 7y ago
  > all the files it brought with it or created during runtime are now gone. How would this work with apps that create things that a user would expect to persist, like downloads (kept after uninstalling a browser) or office documents (kept after uninstalling the office suite), or media production apps, IDEs, etc.? It could have some rule like "let it be if it's in the user home directory" or "only remove stuff in these system directories" but it seems kind of fragile, like what if you use a text editor to create a system config file and then uninstall the text editor?

aphextron 7y ago

>The real issue there is the fact that macOS doesn't provide a standarized way to completely uninstall an app. reply And Windows does? Uninstallers are completely at the behest of application developers. No consumer OS but iOS actually provides any sort of true app level sandboxing.

pkulak 7y ago
Flatpak, Appimage, etc. Zoom is even available in Flathub, and that's how I use it.
javagram 7y ago
> And Windows does? Control Panel “add and remove programs” usually works? There’s no equivalent on Mac. Yes, dragging the app to the trash is a thing but that leaves behind content in ~/Library/caches, ~/Library/Application Support, and ~/Library/Preferences . It’s been somewhat of an issue with Mac ever since they first put a hard drive on the original ones back in the 80s... Edit: I literally cleared several GB of junk out of my application support folder left behind by just one app today, so it’s fresh on my mind. OmniDiskSweeper is great for finding this stuff.
- RussianCow 7y ago
  The point is, all of those files are generally still left behind on Windows as well. Uninstalling a program in Windows is roughly equivalent to dragging it into the trash in macOS.
  - ComputerGuru 7y ago
    > all of those files are generally still left behind on Windows as well. Citation needed. That was the case in the 90s, these days most apps (device drivers aside) uninstall fairly cleanly with only settings/configurations stored in the registry still resident afterwards. Startup programs remaining after an uninstall is straight-up a bug.
    - 7y ago

outworlder 7y ago

Nor does Windows for that matter. Running installshield with some command line parameter doesn't count. Linux package managers come close, but not all third party apps are installed like that.

kevingadd 7y ago
Having a standard installer toolkit that comes with the os and used by many os updates along with a centralized uninstall UI is nothing?
- outworlder 7y ago
  > Having a standard installer toolkit that comes with the os and used by many os updates along with a centralized uninstall UI is nothing? If we are talking about OS updates, OSX has the same thing. You are not required to use Windows Installer. And even if you do, you are not guaranteed that everything will be removed, be it due to malice or incompetence. Not even Linux can guarantee that. Something like the Nix package manager would be closer to what's required. Plus a sandbox.

bin0 7y ago

Zoom deliberately circumvented Apple's standard package format, contrary to security interests. Zoom is basically behaving like a virus here.

evv 7y ago

Funny, it is also self-inflicted because Safari inspired Zoom to do this hack by breaking the correct behavior of protocol links. > This is a workaround to a change introduced in Safari 12 that requires a user to confirm that they want to start the Zoom client prior to joining every meeting. The local web server enables users to avoid this extra click before joining every meeting. https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2019/07/08/response-to-video-on-concern/ https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2019/07/08/response-to-video-...

awinder 7y ago
I don’t understand how a “you’re about to jump out of the app” confirm panel is breaking protocol links. I actually want this behavior for zoom and any other app...
- megablast 7y ago
  It adds an extra, confusing step, that is not necessary most of the time.
- evv 7y ago
  The first time you use that protocol, of course a warning is appropriate. To prompt the user on _every_ external protocol click seems.. hostile to the concept of linking
  - scarface74 7y ago
    So then you have a protocol link to a .vbs file and you tell all of your contacts how much you love them.....
  - AlexandrB 7y ago
    It needs to happen at least for every combination of source domain and protocol. Otherwise websites can drive-by open zoom, reminders, or whatever other app you have installed to achieve some marketing or malware goal (or just DoS your computer). Edit: Once you consider social sites with user-submitted content, like reddit, it might be best if you’re prompted every time.

bandushrew 7y ago

it really does provide a very nice and effective standard way to bundle components needed by an app altogether and to manage them appropriately. The developers in this case didn't bother trying to use it.

taftster 7y ago

Which is completely frustrating, because Mac is totally in the position of using its built-in capabilities to deal with this. The Mac Bundle (.app) format could solve this entirely. All application specific data should be written inside of the bundle folder, so that when you delete the app, you delete the thing entirely. I mean, maybe you need a "user data" bundle of sorts tied to the specific application. If you delete the app, it deletes all the user data bundles as well. The default installer and bundle runners should be controlling the process. "XYZ App is attempting to write data files outside of its bundle location. These may not be cleaned up if you delete the application. Do you want to continue?" The unix permissions system and the Mac bundle format should completely solve this problem. I honestly just don't get why this still happens. Doesn't iOS at least get this right?

maxsilver 7y ago
> The default installer and bundle runners should be controlling the process. "XYZ App is attempting to write data files outside of its bundle location. These may not be cleaned up if you delete the application. Do you want to continue?" If you do that, the entire system stops working. Everyone will just click "ok" and then still gets mad when uninstalling doesn't fully clean things up.
- taftster 7y ago
  Well, that's fair. But hopefully in the process of getting mad, it starts to reflect negatively on the application vendors and/or Apple directly. Maybe that will be enough for them to change. Maybe the app bundle runner should be logging files written outside of the bundle folder? Then the uninstall process will wipe those out?
  - hunter2_ 7y ago
    Wipe out all the things that you create with the app? All the text you created when you uninstall a text editor, the photos you touched up and saved under a new name, the audio recordings you made?
- 7y ago