9 ms·

I still don't understand why Google needs to have something more than the basic update functionality that other Mac Apps have via libraries like Sparkle?

kevingadd 7y ago
Google runs a system-level update service on Windows too. The crash handler for it is also running all the time, at least on my machine (and is running with root-equivalent permissions). If you disable it, the next time you launch Chrome they just turn it back on. It's bizarre. Few vendors do this.
- mcny 7y ago
  > Google runs a system-level update service on Windows too. The crash handler for it is also running all the time, at least on my machine (and is running with root-equivalent permissions). If you disable it, the next time you launch Chrome they just turn it back on. > It's bizarre. Few vendors do this. Please correct me if I am wrong but Adobe Reader has something like this on Windows, right? And so does iTunes?
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    Even Apple and Adobe don't actively turn their update services back on when you run their applications if you have explicitly disabled them, though, at least not in any version of any of their software that I've come across. In contrast, it appears that Google installs whatever updates it wants on your system and does turn the related services back on again if you turn them off. It really shouldn't be possible for software to leave that sort of access open without the user's/administrator's explicit consent, but unfortunately the worst offender on this issue is now Microsoft with Windows 10, so I don't hold out much hope that anything will be done about it on Windows platforms any time soon. Sadly, this just seems to be the price of admission to the modern software world. You have what is effectively a permanent rootkit installed if you want to use the software at all, and even though that is self-evidently incompatible with a robust security and privacy model, when big enough players do it, people just accept it because they don't see that they have any choice.
    - Andrex 7y ago
      > Even Apple and Adobe don't actively turn their update services back on when you run their applications if you have explicitly disabled them, though, at least not in any version of any of their software that I've come across. You can explicitly disable their auto-update mechanisms in the UI, I'm not sure if that's the case for Chrome, but force-closing the GoogleCrashHandler process isn't really comparable to an explicit UI toggle.
- rodgerd 7y ago
  Once you've got a culture where it's not your machine, it's just another sensor in Google's panopticon, the idea that Google should do this makes perfect sense.
moduspol 7y ago
I think Chrome supports allowing an administrator to enable updates by all users, including those who are not administrators. I've used Sparkle before (as a dev) and it's great, but I'm not sure it does that.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Sparkle works with sandboxed applications, and it doesn't muck around with /var.
  - moduspol 7y ago
    But can you put an application in /Applications (requires administrator privileges), then have a non-administrator user run the app and complete an update?
    - kccqzy 7y ago
      Nope, of course not. You will get an admin password prompt.
      - moduspol 7y ago
        Right. But Chrome allows you to do that if the administrator has enabled it. To handle that securely, though, would likely require a specifically restricted daemon or setuid process that is well beyond most normal update use cases. And that might explain why they couldn't just use Sparkle.
        kccqzy 7y ago
        The point is this shouldn't need to be done. If an administrator has installed an app, then it's the administrator's responsibility to update it. If I want to update an app myself, I'd install it in ~/Applications instead.
    - protomyth 7y ago
      Why is my non-Admin user doing an update? If they are locked down then they are locked down. Other means are probably being used. Plus, thinking about it, how does Google deal with Carbon Freeze?
gargravarr 7y ago
Agreed, I do and don't want to know what on earth Google was doing with /var that led to this situation in the first place...
- Gaelan 7y ago
  My best guess is some sort of botched mkdir -p implementation.
londons_explore 7y ago
I think they are very keen to have the ability to give updates very fast in case of a major exploit used in the wild. They want to be able to do all updates worldwide in a few hours, rather than the days or weeks that OS updaters take. They also want the ability to do rolling updates incase an update is bad. For example, roll this update to up to 1% of users, wait 10 minutes, then roll it out to all users if those 1% don't have worse crash statistics. It also does diff-based updates, so security patches can be delivered in just a few kilobytes, which is important for all the users on GPRS connections. Other updaters also don't have the ability to downgrade, either based on the new version failing to start, or based on a message from Google, which might be necessary if an update is bad. Other update platforms don't let them have fine-grained control and a fast feedback system like that.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  There's no reason you can't do all of that with basic user level permissions. A browser shouldn't be screwing with OS files in any significant way (i.e. other than user level settings) to begin with.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  They don't do this on Linux, right? Why?
  - petre 7y ago
    Thankfully they don't. It's the package manager's job to update packages and the vendor's job to repackage upstream.
  - ben0x539 7y ago
    Having to wait for a security update to make it through the various update pipelines of all the different linux distros isn't a great situation for users either. Installing browsers by hand in your homedir specifically so they can update themselves and you don't rely on the system package manager seems like a fairly widespread recommendation, but maybe I'm talking to a biased set of people.
crushingcrash 7y ago
To be honest, because they're arrogant. It's the same reason they don't adhere to each OS's UX/UI guidelines (including on Windows!) It's an absolute arrogance that they are "above" these platforms.
- 8ytecoder 7y ago
  Also, it's the same arrogance that makes them push AMP so much. What AMP does is awesome just not how they do it. The wrapper, the URL hijacking, the janky scrolling, no reader view ...etc. It completely breaks my normal flow on my phone that I end up making DDG the primary search provider and Apple News (which is not good at all) as the news aggregator.
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Brutally honest but very true.
  - crushingcrash 7y ago
    I try... but living in the valley, and knowing the people at these companies and on these teams... it's just the truth.
    - noir_lord 7y ago
      I'm a long way from the valley and regard googles behaviour as arrogant in the extreme, they are 1990's era microsoft with better PR, I don't trust them at all and that they seem to have taken control of the web via soft means is worrying as hell.
- jamesgeck0 7y ago
  > It's the same reason they don't adhere to each OS's UX/UI guidelines (including on Windows!) To be fair, not even Microsoft does that.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Microsoft does a much better job than Google does.
someguydave 7y ago
Does Chrome ask for your admin password on install? How does Chrome even get permission to modify that /var symlink?
- cj 7y ago
  Yes, installing Chrome requires an admin password.
  - someguydave 7y ago
    Thanks for directly answering my question. I think it is fraud to coerce a password out of a user under the pretense of installation and then retain and use admin privileges for other purposes without further user acknowledgement.
- magicalist 7y ago
  > How does Chrome even get permission to modify that /var symlink? >> The specific conditions required for the Chrome update to make this change are: >> SIP must be disabled (or not present, as is the case pre-OS X 10.11) >> The root directory, /, must be writable by the logged-in user >> ...

kevingadd 7y ago

Google runs a system-level update service on Windows too. The crash handler for it is also running all the time, at least on my machine (and is running with root-equivalent permissions). If you disable it, the next time you launch Chrome they just turn it back on. It's bizarre. Few vendors do this.

mcny 7y ago
> Google runs a system-level update service on Windows too. The crash handler for it is also running all the time, at least on my machine (and is running with root-equivalent permissions). If you disable it, the next time you launch Chrome they just turn it back on. > It's bizarre. Few vendors do this. Please correct me if I am wrong but Adobe Reader has something like this on Windows, right? And so does iTunes?
- Silhouette 7y ago
  Even Apple and Adobe don't actively turn their update services back on when you run their applications if you have explicitly disabled them, though, at least not in any version of any of their software that I've come across. In contrast, it appears that Google installs whatever updates it wants on your system and does turn the related services back on again if you turn them off. It really shouldn't be possible for software to leave that sort of access open without the user's/administrator's explicit consent, but unfortunately the worst offender on this issue is now Microsoft with Windows 10, so I don't hold out much hope that anything will be done about it on Windows platforms any time soon. Sadly, this just seems to be the price of admission to the modern software world. You have what is effectively a permanent rootkit installed if you want to use the software at all, and even though that is self-evidently incompatible with a robust security and privacy model, when big enough players do it, people just accept it because they don't see that they have any choice.
  - Andrex 7y ago
    > Even Apple and Adobe don't actively turn their update services back on when you run their applications if you have explicitly disabled them, though, at least not in any version of any of their software that I've come across. You can explicitly disable their auto-update mechanisms in the UI, I'm not sure if that's the case for Chrome, but force-closing the GoogleCrashHandler process isn't really comparable to an explicit UI toggle.
rodgerd 7y ago
Once you've got a culture where it's not your machine, it's just another sensor in Google's panopticon, the idea that Google should do this makes perfect sense.

moduspol 7y ago

I think Chrome supports allowing an administrator to enable updates by all users, including those who are not administrators. I've used Sparkle before (as a dev) and it's great, but I'm not sure it does that.

saagarjha 7y ago
Sparkle works with sandboxed applications, and it doesn't muck around with /var.
- moduspol 7y ago
  But can you put an application in /Applications (requires administrator privileges), then have a non-administrator user run the app and complete an update?
  - kccqzy 7y ago
    Nope, of course not. You will get an admin password prompt.
    - moduspol 7y ago
      Right. But Chrome allows you to do that if the administrator has enabled it. To handle that securely, though, would likely require a specifically restricted daemon or setuid process that is well beyond most normal update use cases. And that might explain why they couldn't just use Sparkle.
      - kccqzy 7y ago
        The point is this shouldn't need to be done. If an administrator has installed an app, then it's the administrator's responsibility to update it. If I want to update an app myself, I'd install it in ~/Applications instead.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    Why is my non-Admin user doing an update? If they are locked down then they are locked down. Other means are probably being used. Plus, thinking about it, how does Google deal with Carbon Freeze?

gargravarr 7y ago

Agreed, I do and don't want to know what on earth Google was doing with /var that led to this situation in the first place...

Gaelan 7y ago
My best guess is some sort of botched mkdir -p implementation.

londons_explore 7y ago

I think they are very keen to have the ability to give updates very fast in case of a major exploit used in the wild. They want to be able to do all updates worldwide in a few hours, rather than the days or weeks that OS updaters take. They also want the ability to do rolling updates incase an update is bad. For example, roll this update to up to 1% of users, wait 10 minutes, then roll it out to all users if those 1% don't have worse crash statistics. It also does diff-based updates, so security patches can be delivered in just a few kilobytes, which is important for all the users on GPRS connections. Other updaters also don't have the ability to downgrade, either based on the new version failing to start, or based on a message from Google, which might be necessary if an update is bad. Other update platforms don't let them have fine-grained control and a fast feedback system like that.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
There's no reason you can't do all of that with basic user level permissions. A browser shouldn't be screwing with OS files in any significant way (i.e. other than user level settings) to begin with.
mehrdadn 7y ago
They don't do this on Linux, right? Why?
- petre 7y ago
  Thankfully they don't. It's the package manager's job to update packages and the vendor's job to repackage upstream.
- ben0x539 7y ago
  Having to wait for a security update to make it through the various update pipelines of all the different linux distros isn't a great situation for users either. Installing browsers by hand in your homedir specifically so they can update themselves and you don't rely on the system package manager seems like a fairly widespread recommendation, but maybe I'm talking to a biased set of people.

crushingcrash 7y ago

To be honest, because they're arrogant. It's the same reason they don't adhere to each OS's UX/UI guidelines (including on Windows!) It's an absolute arrogance that they are "above" these platforms.

8ytecoder 7y ago
Also, it's the same arrogance that makes them push AMP so much. What AMP does is awesome just not how they do it. The wrapper, the URL hijacking, the janky scrolling, no reader view ...etc. It completely breaks my normal flow on my phone that I end up making DDG the primary search provider and Apple News (which is not good at all) as the news aggregator.
mehrdadn 7y ago
Brutally honest but very true.
- crushingcrash 7y ago
  I try... but living in the valley, and knowing the people at these companies and on these teams... it's just the truth.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    I'm a long way from the valley and regard googles behaviour as arrogant in the extreme, they are 1990's era microsoft with better PR, I don't trust them at all and that they seem to have taken control of the web via soft means is worrying as hell.
jamesgeck0 7y ago
> It's the same reason they don't adhere to each OS's UX/UI guidelines (including on Windows!) To be fair, not even Microsoft does that.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Microsoft does a much better job than Google does.

someguydave 7y ago

Does Chrome ask for your admin password on install? How does Chrome even get permission to modify that /var symlink?

cj 7y ago
Yes, installing Chrome requires an admin password.
- someguydave 7y ago
  Thanks for directly answering my question. I think it is fraud to coerce a password out of a user under the pretense of installation and then retain and use admin privileges for other purposes without further user acknowledgement.
magicalist 7y ago
> How does Chrome even get permission to modify that /var symlink? >> The specific conditions required for the Chrome update to make this change are: >> SIP must be disabled (or not present, as is the case pre-OS X 10.11) >> The root directory, /, must be writable by the logged-in user >> ...