I remember the time and I could just fix the driver in some cases at least. And people did and provided solutions. Windows also introduced software signing for

I remember the time and I could just fix the driver in some cases at least. And people did and provided solutions. Windows also introduced software signing for drivers and user software, so yes, prevalence does increase while no benefits are provided. What is the advantage of an nvidia binary blob for Linux if it is signed or not. Was downloading from a trusted source a problem? We had hashes if you really wanted them. With signing you make yourself dependent on the manufacturer of the OS. The console argument was a hint that the application gained traction as a DRM utility, not for user security. Because signing here included properties of the medium the software was deployed on, so you couldn't just copy it to another CD/DVD.