11 ms·

I remember the I'm a Mac and I'm a PC ads that mocked this on Vista. And now my Mac is worse than Vista. It's so annoying.

nmgycombinator 1y ago
Out of curiosity, what do you find annoying about it?
- muppetman 1y ago
  Every time I update an app I have to be told I downloaded it from the Internet and do I trust it. Can this app look on the local network? Constantly being nagged to the point I don't even check/care anymore. Exactly what Vista used to do.
  - nmgycombinator 1y ago
    The local network popup thing is too overdone in my opinion. However, I do think it is a good choice (in some respects) for Apple to have the "this is a program downloaded from the Internet", even if it can be annoying. It might also be a push to get developers to publish on the App Store (where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe). It's a double-edged sword in my opinion. I think it's good that the OS is looking out for the user in a lot of cases. I also understand how it can give the users pop-up fatigue.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      > It might also be a push to get developers to publish on the App Store (where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe). This is exploitation of developers, plain and simple. Apple should secure their runtime, not roleplay as a software rent-a-cop that manually (and fallibly) inspects submissions. The App Store is a blatant moneymaking racket, on mobile and desktop alike. "Security" is a fig leaf for the perverse incentive Apple has to corral developers under their thumb.
      - nmgycombinator 1y ago
        Honestly, I think you have a fair point there. I personally don't believe that any system could be 100% secure. But I do think there is a point to be made on the efficacy of securing the runtime compared to individual app inspection.
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        Apple does both. They secure the runtime and review apps.
        bigyabai 1y ago
        And to NSO Group's delight, they don't review SMS messages or Safari contents either. The "curated security" shtick is a lie, it does not protect anyone and doesn't function reliably in the first place. Both targeted malware and generic scams are rampant and unrestrained on iOS. Many of them are promoted as iPhone Search Ads, or suggested Siri results. The knock-on effects it has are even worse. By relying on this game of shuffling private entitlements around, Apple has less incentive to actually review what developers are doing with them. Look at the Uber iPhone app's screenrecord permissions, or when TikTok stole iOS clipboards. Apple uses "secure" review as an excuse to not review apps or secure their runtime.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        But they do secure their runtime. It's not an excuse not to.
        saagarjha 1y ago
        Apple's review sucks but you are very confused about your "takedown" of their security practices. It's not meant to protect against everything. Even well-made security boundaries can fail against sophisticated attackers, or be too onerous against generic malware.
      - p_ing 1y ago
        I think entitlements are the correct direction to move in. I don't like Apple's implementation. But it gives us that fine-grained control of what an app can and cannot do with things outside of the app's "bubble" (or sandbox). We need Discretionary Access Control.
    - trollbridge 1y ago
      I simply run `xattr -d downloaded-app.dmg` on apps I download that I trust to turn off this behaviour.
      - dylan604 1y ago
        yeah, 'cause that's so much easier than just saying yes to the prompt, or right-clicking and selecting open from the context menu
        p_ing 1y ago
        In macOS 15, there is no GUI bypass. Right click -> Open no longer works. xattr is "the way". I'm sure someone has probably created an Automation or something for it.
        nmgycombinator 1y ago
        There's a small section in System Settings that they don't really tell you about that pops up when the OS blocks a file from opening. You can then override the block there. Yes, it's extremely annoying.
        trollbridge 1y ago
        I have an alias set in my shell for `xattr -d ~/Downloads/.{dmg,zip,z}`.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - ben-schaaf 1y ago
      > It might also be a push to get developers to publish on the App Store (where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe). Apps on macOS need to be signed and notarised. Apple has the exact same capability to scan for malicious behaviour and revoke your keys regardless of how you publish. We all know the real reason they want to push apps towards the app store.
    - zakki 1y ago
      Microsoft was right.
    - DecentShoes 1y ago
      *the App Store where apple can be more sure they'll get a 30% cut
    - mike_hearn 1y ago
      "This is a program downloaded from the internet" isn't a push to the app store. It predates the Mac App Store, iirc. It's another quick security hack (as they often are in any OS). Many years ago someone noticed that apps can pick any icon they want. And, therefore, if you could convince a browser to download a file to ~/Downloads (not hard), the user might look inside and find what appears to be a harmless JPEG or Word document, double click it and are immediately pwnd because back then there was no app sandboxing of any kind, no SIP etc. macOS in that era was a conventional desktop UNIX. So the quick hack - make apps that download things mark files with extended attributes, and if the Finder sees that, it pops up the warning and then removes them. Now the user realizes (maybe) that the document-looking-thing was actually an app.
      - nmgycombinator 1y ago
        That's a fair point. But did Mac have the same issue as Windows where file extensions were not shown by default? That feels like it would have been the core issue.
        thewebguyd 1y ago
        There is a "show all file name extensions" option in Finder, but I don't recall if it's on by default or not as I haven't had to set up a fresh macOS install in a while and I've always had it turned on. But, macOS isn't like Windows - the file extension doesn't matter. I can have a "file.txt" but it's actually a .xlsx excel workbook, and Excel will open it just fine (albeit, with a warning that the file extension doesn't match but that's dependent on the application presenting a warning). Windows actually uses the file extension to determine the type, macOS (and other *nixes) don't, they'll use some other file metadata. You can put whatever extension you want on a file, it doesn't matter except for determining what default app will attempt to open it when double clicking it in Finder.
    - jeroenhd 1y ago
      > where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe Ha, they'd love to capture the 30% Apple tax on macOS too, I'm sure. I don't think the mark-of-the-web feature is bad, but I am particularly annoyed that I have to open the system settings app to open an application. Honestly, when I first tried modern macOS, I was surprised how bad the popups and warnings were. This is exactly what Apple (rightfully) made fun of when Vista came around. I've caught myself mindlessly approving prompts because there are so many of them and most of them don't make much sense at all ("do you want to allow iTerm access to your downloads" after I've explicitly dragged the thing to the special "developer tools" setting? what the heck?).
  - TylerE 1y ago
    The one that I find really obnoxious is granting permission to read from a “removable” drive. Like the one my steam library lives on.
    - nmgycombinator 1y ago
      How often do you face that? I would think the OS would save your response in a way it could refer back to.
      - TylerE 1y ago
        Frequently. The problem is it’s per app not per drive. I had my entire homedir on there for a while but the prompts just got to be too obnoxious.
        nmgycombinator 1y ago
        Damn, that sucks.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    This isn't what Vista "used to do". Vista had a single elevation popup dialog / shatter attack prevention screen. Any request that required elevation required this popup. macOS has not only elevation requests but entitlements. Using the local network is an entitlement. What macOS gets very wrong is any denied entitlements will re-prompt next time you perform that action with the app, which may simply be starting the app. It also does one entitlement at a time, i.e. if you have an app that requires screen sharing and camera, you'll get the first entitlement, restart app, go to do action you wanted again, second entitlement. Both OSes have MoTW, but Apple goes beyond with the notarization warning/block. macOS users are going to suffer from prompt fatigue. And the /r/macos "secure cus UNIX!" will be wrong on two points.
    - nmgycombinator 1y ago
      Quick clarification on terminology. From a developer perspective, entitlements a static dictionary (or a collection of key-value pairs) attached to the app at code-signing time. The entitlements you mentioned don't "entitle" the app to access resources, as user consent is still required. An app with [the com.apple.security.device.usb entitlement](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/entitlements/com.apple.security.device.usb https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/en...) is technically always going to have that entitlement attached to the app regardless of user consent.
    - sureIy 1y ago
      Technically you're right. From an end-user standpoint, it's irrelevant. Apple's mock vista ad applies just as well to Ventura: they're all annoying and a security theater if the user is just told to input admin password into any random popup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY
    - jeroenhd 1y ago
      FWIW, Vista's level of prompts is the only way to run UAC in any kind of secure fashion. The configuration that has been the default since Windows 7 makes it trivial for a low-privilege application to gain UAC privileges. Microsoft doesn't regard UAC as a security boundary if you're logged in as an admin (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/tn-archive/cc751383(v=technet.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/tn-archi...). You can use UAC as one as part of a defence-in-depth approach by logging in as a non-administrator user (like everyone tells you to do but nobody wants to do) and entering a password for every prompt, but for that to work well you'd need to make sure to turn UAC prompts back to max (read: Vista level or worse). I don't think I'd set up a system like that without a fingerprint reader or Windows Hello facial recognition camera, because typing out the password that often is just a massive pain. Windows, as configured by default, barely runs any downloaded files. You can pay hundreds of euros for a certificate, sign your installer, and still have users get told off by SmartScreen for daring to open an executable file. I don't think Apple's notarization has done anything useful so far, but their security prompts are a lot less scary than Windows'. I think it's a matter of time before unsigned Windows executables with the MotW simply won't open by default like those on macOS.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Oh god, don't get me started... 1. iCloud nags never go away if you don't log into iCloud 2. Apple Music is just an advertisement by default and "conveniently" opens every sound file mimetype 3. Functionally useless subscription slopware like AppleTV+ comes installed by-default for no reason 4. Package management is a colossal clusterfuck that can't even enforce package parity across system architectures 5. Apple still doesn't trust their users enough to have modern amenities like a native Vulkan runtime or Nvidia GPU drivers Vista was terrible, but it didn't suffer from this level of identity crisis.
  - nmgycombinator 1y ago
    I agree that it's weird that Apple TV comes pre-installed. The others I have less experience with so I can't really comment on them.
  - tough 1y ago
    you might like https://github.com/philocalyst/infat https://github.com/philocalyst/infat to change the mimetypes associations
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      I might prefer respectful default apps that delight the user and don't cost anything more than what I paid for at checkout. MacOS isn't for me, I guess.
      - tough 1y ago
        I hear you, but 10y of MacOS usage habit will make that to you, it's easier for me to work around MacOS quirks and Apple's authoritarianism than it is to try and get a Linux distro I like to work perfectly for me for more than 6 months, or worse, go back to win
  - louthy 1y ago
    Slight tangent: Apple TV constantly has MLS (major league soccer) and Apple TV+ in the left-side pop up Home menu, taking up real-estate for something I will never access. So annoying. Why, as someone from England — with arguably the best football league in the world — would I want to watch American Soccer? I don’t even watch the English league. The menu is: ——————— * Search * Home * Apple TV+ * MLS * Store * Library ——————— Title: Channels & Apps * This is where all the channels I have actually opted for live — separate from the Apple products that I don’t want ——————— Both Apple TV+ and MLS should not be on that menu permanently. And it should be possible to turn them off.
nixpulvis 1y ago
The tradeoff between security and extensibility is something which seems to be unavoidable. But the goalposts have moved a bit. At least macOS is not plagued with malicious processes like was common on windows. Or maybe I'm just careful?
- skinkestek 1y ago
  Neither was Windows if you knew what you were doing. I ran Windows XP for years without antivirus back in the early 2000s and so did others.
pjmlp 1y ago
Yes, Windows has had quite a few years to improve the experience of UAC, on the other hand there are plenty of other stuff to complain about.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  At least Windows now makes the UAC dialog distinct from the rest of the OS and any other Window. macOS (and most linux DEs too) just look like any other application dialog, easily spoofed. UAC on Windows opens up on the secure desktop, which is isolated in protected memory and not accessible to other processes. It's also visually distinct, hiding all other UI elements, and nothing else can present the actual secure desktop, only UAC can. Granted, I've seen some fairly convincing looking fake prompts (that regular users would fall for) but to me they were still obviously fake, and they were unable to hide all UI elements like UAC does. The secure desktop for UAC is also supposed to help prevent cursor offsets and other attacks (replacing the system cursor with fake one that shows as if it's over the "no" button but is actually going to click on "yes"). macOS could really use something like that for it's prompts, and I don't know why any other OS hasn't implemented something like UAC's secure desktop.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    The most important feature of the secure desktop is one that is rarely ever mentioned: you can hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE on a real UAC prompt. This is something similar Linux prompts lack (as Linux lacks a similar privileged shortcut sequence); GNOME has full-screen, top-level, UAC-like prompts for PolKit and sudo, but it's hard to figure out if it's real or a fullscreen application. There are ways to avoid the CTRL+ALT+DELETE safeguard, but it's a lot harder than it is to spoof a password prompt that looks like the OS one. It's kind of unfortunate that KDE went with the macOS/Windows XP approach rather than doing what Windows does.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Mostly because Windows bad attitude by most hackers. Yes it has plenty of a stuff to complain about, and Microsoft keeps adding to it, yet it also has plenty of cool ideas. We should explore more what alternative approaches are there to operating systems, instead of doing UNIX and Windows clones all the time.
ziml77 1y ago
I find Linux even more annoying when it requires elevation. I get a password prompt rather than a yes/no dialog. I don't care about defending against an attack where I left my computer unlocked while I wasn't watching it, so the password request is pointless. The only thing I need to see is that I'm elevating something and the only extra security I want is that, like on Windows, it's impossible for an application to automate clicking yes. Last I checked there was no solution for this on Linux though. Heck I couldn't even find a way to switch it to use biometrics.
- muppetman 1y ago
  You can just make sudo not require a password... You'll never see any prompt again then.
  - ziml77 1y ago
    But I want a yes/no prompt. Otherwise anything can request root access and get it without my input. Again, Windows handles this about as well as any system without granular permissions based access control can. A prompt comes up which is presented on the secure desktop, thus necessitating manual intervention but only requiring a single click since the secure desktop is only able to be interacted with by SYSTEM level processes anyway.

nmgycombinator 1y ago

Out of curiosity, what do you find annoying about it?

muppetman 1y ago
Every time I update an app I have to be told I downloaded it from the Internet and do I trust it. Can this app look on the local network? Constantly being nagged to the point I don't even check/care anymore. Exactly what Vista used to do.
- nmgycombinator 1y ago
  The local network popup thing is too overdone in my opinion. However, I do think it is a good choice (in some respects) for Apple to have the "this is a program downloaded from the Internet", even if it can be annoying. It might also be a push to get developers to publish on the App Store (where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe). It's a double-edged sword in my opinion. I think it's good that the OS is looking out for the user in a lot of cases. I also understand how it can give the users pop-up fatigue.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    > It might also be a push to get developers to publish on the App Store (where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe). This is exploitation of developers, plain and simple. Apple should secure their runtime, not roleplay as a software rent-a-cop that manually (and fallibly) inspects submissions. The App Store is a blatant moneymaking racket, on mobile and desktop alike. "Security" is a fig leaf for the perverse incentive Apple has to corral developers under their thumb.
    - nmgycombinator 1y ago
      Honestly, I think you have a fair point there. I personally don't believe that any system could be 100% secure. But I do think there is a point to be made on the efficacy of securing the runtime compared to individual app inspection.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Apple does both. They secure the runtime and review apps.
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        And to NSO Group's delight, they don't review SMS messages or Safari contents either. The "curated security" shtick is a lie, it does not protect anyone and doesn't function reliably in the first place. Both targeted malware and generic scams are rampant and unrestrained on iOS. Many of them are promoted as iPhone Search Ads, or suggested Siri results. The knock-on effects it has are even worse. By relying on this game of shuffling private entitlements around, Apple has less incentive to actually review what developers are doing with them. Look at the Uber iPhone app's screenrecord permissions, or when TikTok stole iOS clipboards. Apple uses "secure" review as an excuse to not review apps or secure their runtime.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        But they do secure their runtime. It's not an excuse not to.
        saagarjha 1y ago
        Apple's review sucks but you are very confused about your "takedown" of their security practices. It's not meant to protect against everything. Even well-made security boundaries can fail against sophisticated attackers, or be too onerous against generic malware.
    - p_ing 1y ago
      I think entitlements are the correct direction to move in. I don't like Apple's implementation. But it gives us that fine-grained control of what an app can and cannot do with things outside of the app's "bubble" (or sandbox). We need Discretionary Access Control.
  - trollbridge 1y ago
    I simply run `xattr -d downloaded-app.dmg` on apps I download that I trust to turn off this behaviour.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      yeah, 'cause that's so much easier than just saying yes to the prompt, or right-clicking and selecting open from the context menu
      - p_ing 1y ago
        In macOS 15, there is no GUI bypass. Right click -> Open no longer works. xattr is "the way". I'm sure someone has probably created an Automation or something for it.
        nmgycombinator 1y ago
        There's a small section in System Settings that they don't really tell you about that pops up when the OS blocks a file from opening. You can then override the block there. Yes, it's extremely annoying.
        trollbridge 1y ago
        I have an alias set in my shell for `xattr -d ~/Downloads/.{dmg,zip,z}`.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - ben-schaaf 1y ago
    > It might also be a push to get developers to publish on the App Store (where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe). Apps on macOS need to be signed and notarised. Apple has the exact same capability to scan for malicious behaviour and revoke your keys regardless of how you publish. We all know the real reason they want to push apps towards the app store.
  - zakki 1y ago
    Microsoft was right.
  - DecentShoes 1y ago
    *the App Store where apple can be more sure they'll get a 30% cut
  - mike_hearn 1y ago
    "This is a program downloaded from the internet" isn't a push to the app store. It predates the Mac App Store, iirc. It's another quick security hack (as they often are in any OS). Many years ago someone noticed that apps can pick any icon they want. And, therefore, if you could convince a browser to download a file to ~/Downloads (not hard), the user might look inside and find what appears to be a harmless JPEG or Word document, double click it and are immediately pwnd because back then there was no app sandboxing of any kind, no SIP etc. macOS in that era was a conventional desktop UNIX. So the quick hack - make apps that download things mark files with extended attributes, and if the Finder sees that, it pops up the warning and then removes them. Now the user realizes (maybe) that the document-looking-thing was actually an app.
    - nmgycombinator 1y ago
      That's a fair point. But did Mac have the same issue as Windows where file extensions were not shown by default? That feels like it would have been the core issue.
      - thewebguyd 1y ago
        There is a "show all file name extensions" option in Finder, but I don't recall if it's on by default or not as I haven't had to set up a fresh macOS install in a while and I've always had it turned on. But, macOS isn't like Windows - the file extension doesn't matter. I can have a "file.txt" but it's actually a .xlsx excel workbook, and Excel will open it just fine (albeit, with a warning that the file extension doesn't match but that's dependent on the application presenting a warning). Windows actually uses the file extension to determine the type, macOS (and other *nixes) don't, they'll use some other file metadata. You can put whatever extension you want on a file, it doesn't matter except for determining what default app will attempt to open it when double clicking it in Finder.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    > where Apple can be more sure (hopefully) that the apps are safe Ha, they'd love to capture the 30% Apple tax on macOS too, I'm sure. I don't think the mark-of-the-web feature is bad, but I am particularly annoyed that I have to open the system settings app to open an application. Honestly, when I first tried modern macOS, I was surprised how bad the popups and warnings were. This is exactly what Apple (rightfully) made fun of when Vista came around. I've caught myself mindlessly approving prompts because there are so many of them and most of them don't make much sense at all ("do you want to allow iTerm access to your downloads" after I've explicitly dragged the thing to the special "developer tools" setting? what the heck?).
- TylerE 1y ago
  The one that I find really obnoxious is granting permission to read from a “removable” drive. Like the one my steam library lives on.
  - nmgycombinator 1y ago
    How often do you face that? I would think the OS would save your response in a way it could refer back to.
    - TylerE 1y ago
      Frequently. The problem is it’s per app not per drive. I had my entire homedir on there for a while but the prompts just got to be too obnoxious.
      - nmgycombinator 1y ago
        Damn, that sucks.
- p_ing 1y ago
  This isn't what Vista "used to do". Vista had a single elevation popup dialog / shatter attack prevention screen. Any request that required elevation required this popup. macOS has not only elevation requests but entitlements. Using the local network is an entitlement. What macOS gets very wrong is any denied entitlements will re-prompt next time you perform that action with the app, which may simply be starting the app. It also does one entitlement at a time, i.e. if you have an app that requires screen sharing and camera, you'll get the first entitlement, restart app, go to do action you wanted again, second entitlement. Both OSes have MoTW, but Apple goes beyond with the notarization warning/block. macOS users are going to suffer from prompt fatigue. And the /r/macos "secure cus UNIX!" will be wrong on two points.
  - nmgycombinator 1y ago
    Quick clarification on terminology. From a developer perspective, entitlements a static dictionary (or a collection of key-value pairs) attached to the app at code-signing time. The entitlements you mentioned don't "entitle" the app to access resources, as user consent is still required. An app with [the com.apple.security.device.usb entitlement](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/entitlements/com.apple.security.device.usb https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/en...) is technically always going to have that entitlement attached to the app regardless of user consent.
  - sureIy 1y ago
    Technically you're right. From an end-user standpoint, it's irrelevant. Apple's mock vista ad applies just as well to Ventura: they're all annoying and a security theater if the user is just told to input admin password into any random popup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    FWIW, Vista's level of prompts is the only way to run UAC in any kind of secure fashion. The configuration that has been the default since Windows 7 makes it trivial for a low-privilege application to gain UAC privileges. Microsoft doesn't regard UAC as a security boundary if you're logged in as an admin (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/tn-archive/cc751383(v=technet.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/tn-archi...). You can use UAC as one as part of a defence-in-depth approach by logging in as a non-administrator user (like everyone tells you to do but nobody wants to do) and entering a password for every prompt, but for that to work well you'd need to make sure to turn UAC prompts back to max (read: Vista level or worse). I don't think I'd set up a system like that without a fingerprint reader or Windows Hello facial recognition camera, because typing out the password that often is just a massive pain. Windows, as configured by default, barely runs any downloaded files. You can pay hundreds of euros for a certificate, sign your installer, and still have users get told off by SmartScreen for daring to open an executable file. I don't think Apple's notarization has done anything useful so far, but their security prompts are a lot less scary than Windows'. I think it's a matter of time before unsigned Windows executables with the MotW simply won't open by default like those on macOS.
bigyabai 1y ago
Oh god, don't get me started... 1. iCloud nags never go away if you don't log into iCloud 2. Apple Music is just an advertisement by default and "conveniently" opens every sound file mimetype 3. Functionally useless subscription slopware like AppleTV+ comes installed by-default for no reason 4. Package management is a colossal clusterfuck that can't even enforce package parity across system architectures 5. Apple still doesn't trust their users enough to have modern amenities like a native Vulkan runtime or Nvidia GPU drivers Vista was terrible, but it didn't suffer from this level of identity crisis.
- nmgycombinator 1y ago
  I agree that it's weird that Apple TV comes pre-installed. The others I have less experience with so I can't really comment on them.
- tough 1y ago
  you might like https://github.com/philocalyst/infat https://github.com/philocalyst/infat to change the mimetypes associations
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    I might prefer respectful default apps that delight the user and don't cost anything more than what I paid for at checkout. MacOS isn't for me, I guess.
    - tough 1y ago
      I hear you, but 10y of MacOS usage habit will make that to you, it's easier for me to work around MacOS quirks and Apple's authoritarianism than it is to try and get a Linux distro I like to work perfectly for me for more than 6 months, or worse, go back to win
- louthy 1y ago
  Slight tangent: Apple TV constantly has MLS (major league soccer) and Apple TV+ in the left-side pop up Home menu, taking up real-estate for something I will never access. So annoying. Why, as someone from England — with arguably the best football league in the world — would I want to watch American Soccer? I don’t even watch the English league. The menu is: ——————— * Search * Home * Apple TV+ * MLS * Store * Library ——————— Title: Channels & Apps * This is where all the channels I have actually opted for live — separate from the Apple products that I don’t want ——————— Both Apple TV+ and MLS should not be on that menu permanently. And it should be possible to turn them off.

nixpulvis 1y ago

The tradeoff between security and extensibility is something which seems to be unavoidable. But the goalposts have moved a bit. At least macOS is not plagued with malicious processes like was common on windows. Or maybe I'm just careful?

skinkestek 1y ago
Neither was Windows if you knew what you were doing. I ran Windows XP for years without antivirus back in the early 2000s and so did others.

pjmlp 1y ago

Yes, Windows has had quite a few years to improve the experience of UAC, on the other hand there are plenty of other stuff to complain about.

thewebguyd 1y ago
At least Windows now makes the UAC dialog distinct from the rest of the OS and any other Window. macOS (and most linux DEs too) just look like any other application dialog, easily spoofed. UAC on Windows opens up on the secure desktop, which is isolated in protected memory and not accessible to other processes. It's also visually distinct, hiding all other UI elements, and nothing else can present the actual secure desktop, only UAC can. Granted, I've seen some fairly convincing looking fake prompts (that regular users would fall for) but to me they were still obviously fake, and they were unable to hide all UI elements like UAC does. The secure desktop for UAC is also supposed to help prevent cursor offsets and other attacks (replacing the system cursor with fake one that shows as if it's over the "no" button but is actually going to click on "yes"). macOS could really use something like that for it's prompts, and I don't know why any other OS hasn't implemented something like UAC's secure desktop.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  The most important feature of the secure desktop is one that is rarely ever mentioned: you can hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE on a real UAC prompt. This is something similar Linux prompts lack (as Linux lacks a similar privileged shortcut sequence); GNOME has full-screen, top-level, UAC-like prompts for PolKit and sudo, but it's hard to figure out if it's real or a fullscreen application. There are ways to avoid the CTRL+ALT+DELETE safeguard, but it's a lot harder than it is to spoof a password prompt that looks like the OS one. It's kind of unfortunate that KDE went with the macOS/Windows XP approach rather than doing what Windows does.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Mostly because Windows bad attitude by most hackers. Yes it has plenty of a stuff to complain about, and Microsoft keeps adding to it, yet it also has plenty of cool ideas. We should explore more what alternative approaches are there to operating systems, instead of doing UNIX and Windows clones all the time.

ziml77 1y ago

I find Linux even more annoying when it requires elevation. I get a password prompt rather than a yes/no dialog. I don't care about defending against an attack where I left my computer unlocked while I wasn't watching it, so the password request is pointless. The only thing I need to see is that I'm elevating something and the only extra security I want is that, like on Windows, it's impossible for an application to automate clicking yes. Last I checked there was no solution for this on Linux though. Heck I couldn't even find a way to switch it to use biometrics.

muppetman 1y ago
You can just make sudo not require a password... You'll never see any prompt again then.
- ziml77 1y ago
  But I want a yes/no prompt. Otherwise anything can request root access and get it without my input. Again, Windows handles this about as well as any system without granular permissions based access control can. A prompt comes up which is presented on the secure desktop, thus necessitating manual intervention but only requiring a single click since the secure desktop is only able to be interacted with by SYSTEM level processes anyway.