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Technically you can, but if you do, Apple will lie to everyone who tries to use your app by telling them that it's dangerous and probably contains malware, and
by josephcsible 3y ago
Technically you can, but if you do, Apple will lie to everyone who tries to use your app by telling them that it's dangerous and probably contains malware, and will make them jump through a bunch of hoops and try to talk them out of it at every step before they can actually run it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vachina 3y agoSounds like a racket. MSFT does the same with SmartScreen, regardless whether your executables are benign or not, unless you pay them (or a third party) for a signing cert.
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoYep, AAPL has a $2.8 trillion market cap because of all the $99 fees they charge developers.
- TeaDude 3y agoOh goodness. I get this crap all the time at work. Apparently Adobe Acrobat isn't a commonly downloaded application. Somehow I fail to believe that...
- Alupis 3y agoThe result? Everybody ignores SmartScreen warnings now...
- seba_dos1 3y agoThe last time I've seen it SmartScreen did not make the option to continue completely undiscoverable though.
- pivo 3y agoI don't like the $99 fee either, but to be fair, Apple will tell you that they can't tell if the app is dangerous. Not that it is dangerous. Specifically, they will tell you that the app Cannot Be Opened Because the Developer Cannot be Verified You can of course open it the app anyway by disregarding this protection for the specific app in settings.
- josephcsible 3y ago> Apple will tell you that they can't tell if the app is dangerous. Not that it is dangerous. Specifically, they will tell you that the app Cannot Be Opened Because the Developer Cannot be Verified Okay, how about this? They're trying their hardest to give everyone the impression that it's dangerous without explicitly saying so.
- ris58h 3y agoBut it is dangerous by definition. Run unknown binary is dangerous. I wish macos had an easy way to sandbox apps.
- josephcsible 3y ago> But it is dangerous by definition. Run unknown binary is dangerous. Making Apple $99 richer doesn't make your app any less dangerous.
- TylerE 3y agoIt makes random apps much less likely to be dangerous. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36086537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36086537 is an analogous case. When the primary provider of free domains names went away, there was a HUGE reduction in phishing websites. Those types would spin up thouands of sites on xyz, vip and similar TLDs faster than the white hats could whackamole them. A domain going from $0 to $10 vastly curtailed that activity. You don't have to make something impossible, you just have to make it not cost effective to shot gun it.
- Domenic_S 3y ago> make them jump through a bunch of hoops and try to talk them out of it at every step before they can actually run it. Right click --> open --> open. 3 clicks is not "a bunch of hoops".
- josephcsible 3y agoIt's 3 clicks if you know how to do it, which they go out of their way to not tell you in the error you get when you try to run it like any other program.
- derefr 3y agoIf they told you how to do it, then what would even be the point? The whole idea is to add a stumbling block in the path of malware authors getting users to run a trojan. Anything the user learns to do by rote without first understanding the security implications provides zero security. Like the Windows Vista elevation prompt — users just learned to hit "Yes" and got infected anyway.
- ris58h 3y ago> If they told you how to do it, then what would even be the point? To warn a user.
- derefr 3y agoAnd what would be the point of doing that? You have to have some behavioral outcome you expect. Do you expect people to react by not running the program? Why? If you find out that they are in fact still running the program just as much with the warning in place, because they aren't reading the warning... then have you actually "warned the user"?
- heavyset_go 3y agoUsers don't know that, though. macOS treats the app that they want to use like they're radioactive and don't work, and doesn't give them the explicit option of running what they want anyway. They have to know some magic ritual to open it.
- jmull 3y agoThe message (before first run only) just says the software "can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software." and "This software needs to be updated. Contact the developer for more information." Anyway, it's only hard to run if you have no idea what you're doing... pretty much the same people who should not be running executables randomly downloaded from the internet are the ones blocked by hurdles like this.
- howinteresting 3y ago"This software needs to be updated" is an outright lie.
- throw74775 3y agoNo it’s not. It needs to be updated in order for it to run without that warning. If the user has permission to disable the warning, they can, otherwise the app needs to be updated.
- howinteresting 3y agoWell, no, because the latest version of a lot of software will still produce the warning since the developer refuses to pay the Apple extortion fee.
- nojonestownpls 3y agoYeah, all Apple users know that "this software needs to be updated" means "the software itself is fine, the developer just needs to pay us money". It's obvious, not misleading or an attempt to create FUD at all.
- howinteresting 3y agoWhy doesn't Apple say what you said? "The software itself might or might not be fine, the developer just needs to pay us money"? Because then their extortion racket would be laid bare to consumers. Open source and not-for-profit software has been put at a disadvantage here, which I think is very bad for several reasons.