3 ms·

About 10 years ago I tried installed Little Snitch on my laptop. I set it up to check with me every time any native app tried to connect to the internet. "Here

by josephg 9mo ago

About 10 years ago I tried installed Little Snitch on my laptop. I set it up to check with me every time any native app tried to connect to the internet. "Here we go" I thought. "I'm going to actually see what apps are doing!". I think I naively thought I'd end up with 10 rules or something, blocking telemetry. Oh what a sweet naive child I was. Its constant. Everything on my computer seemed to use about 8 different telemetry and update services. The sheer number of packets of environmental waste being produced every second by modern computers is breathtaking. It never stops. Reading this article, I wonder what would happen if you tried selling software the old way again. "Buy our software! Pay once. We'll mail you out a USB stick with the program on it. Our software does not access the internet." It would be terribly inefficient, but it'd probably be fun to try. It would definitely force a lot more rigour around releases & testing.

throwaway132448 9mo ago
It’s got to the point where I turn off my WiFi now to do performance-sensitive work, because of the boost that killing all this background rubbish gives. Anything I need online I can just offload to my phone while my computer is offline.
- ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
  The problem with doing that, is that the standard TCP timeout is 60 seconds. All of a sudden, you are beset with 60-second hangs.
  - xnorswap 9mo ago
    You just gave me flashbacks of mistyping a folder share name on windows and having the whole PC lock up for a minute or two.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    If the computer doesn't have any online network connection, shouldn't it outright error? I understand that the timeout sucks when your network is not connected to the internet but still alive, then that's an issue, but if there is no connection at all, why would the timeouts matter?
    - moduspol 9mo ago
      It wouldn't be able to open a TCP connection without knowing what IP address / interface to use. You're right--it should outright error. You should only see timeouts like that if you were dropping the packets from some middleware or middlebox, but your client still had a valid IP address.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - lapcat 9mo ago
    > All of a sudden, you are beset with 60-second hangs. No, that's not how it works. Frankly, I'm astonished to see this claim here.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
      Depends. I have a couple of apps on my computer that do exactly that. I am looking forward to learning how it does work...
      - lapcat 9mo ago
        > I am looking forward to learning how it does work... It's basic sockets. If you call connect() when the internet is disabled, the errno is ENETUNREACH. The higher-level API are built on sockets. If any apps are misbehaving, they're simply badly coded.
        ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
        > It's basic sockets. Yup. I've done a bit of that stuff, in my time. > If any apps are misbehaving, they're simply badly coded. Plenty of that stuff, going around. Might want to ease back on the "instant insult" thing. Not a good look.
        lapcat 9mo ago
        > Yup. I've done a bit of that stuff, in my time. So are you willing to admit now that "the standard TCP timeout" was a misdiagnosis of your problem? You appeared to be projecting a personal problem with some unnamed badly coded apps onto everyone, as if it were inevitable, but the original commenter who said they turned off WiFi obviously does not experience this problem, and neither do I for that matter.
        ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
        [flagged]
  - ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
    Just a wrap-up. It was a badly-written comment. I meant some apps (and background tasks) on my computer hang. Most deal with it, but a surprising number don’t. I gave up on sniffing with Terminal and other tools, trying to figure out which ones. I have a number of dev tools installed on my computer, and a lot of those have a … casual … approach to quality. I have no issue admitting fault (I do it way too often), but I don’t really dig rewarding boorish behavior, so I just figured I’d leave it alone.
eru 9mo ago
Have you tried using Linux?
lapcat 9mo ago
> I wonder what would happen if you tried selling software the old way again. "Buy our software! Pay once. We'll mail you out a USB stick with the program on it. Our software does not access the internet." FWIW all of my Mac and iOS apps are upfront paid, with no telemetry or server-side component. Of course I don't distribute them via snail mail though. I'm doing pretty well. I'm certainly not rich, and probably not making as much money as corporate software engineers in the US, but I'm doing better financially than the majority of people. It's not impossible to follow the old business model.
- direwolf20 9mo ago
  How do you know they don't have telemetry?
  - lapcat 9mo ago
    I wrote them. I'm baffled by your question.
    - lastofthemojito 9mo ago
      I (and presumably the commenter you're responding to) initially read "all of my Mac and iOS apps" as "all of the Mac and iOS apps I use" instead of "all of the Mac and iOS apps I've written".
      - lapcat 9mo ago
        Did you and the other replier stop reading my comment after the first sentence? Because the second and following sentences make very clear—e.g., "distribute"—that I was talking about apps developed and sold by me.
- TheNewsIsHere 9mo ago
  I preferentially select for this software model. What applications to you make and where might I find them? I eagerly and quickly pay for major version upgrades to the independent software I buy. I’d like that model to stick around.
peddling-brink 9mo ago
And then Minecraft writes to a log 18,000 times a second, moaning about being unable to contact the telemetry provider until your disk fills up. I don’t know if they ever fix that bug, because I uninstalled the thing. The third-party launchers didn’t have that problem.

by josephg 9mo ago

throwaway132448 9mo ago

It’s got to the point where I turn off my WiFi now to do performance-sensitive work, because of the boost that killing all this background rubbish gives. Anything I need online I can just offload to my phone while my computer is offline.

ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
The problem with doing that, is that the standard TCP timeout is 60 seconds. All of a sudden, you are beset with 60-second hangs.
- xnorswap 9mo ago
  You just gave me flashbacks of mistyping a folder share name on windows and having the whole PC lock up for a minute or two.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  If the computer doesn't have any online network connection, shouldn't it outright error? I understand that the timeout sucks when your network is not connected to the internet but still alive, then that's an issue, but if there is no connection at all, why would the timeouts matter?
  - moduspol 9mo ago
    It wouldn't be able to open a TCP connection without knowing what IP address / interface to use. You're right--it should outright error. You should only see timeouts like that if you were dropping the packets from some middleware or middlebox, but your client still had a valid IP address.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- lapcat 9mo ago
  > All of a sudden, you are beset with 60-second hangs. No, that's not how it works. Frankly, I'm astonished to see this claim here.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
    Depends. I have a couple of apps on my computer that do exactly that. I am looking forward to learning how it does work...
    - lapcat 9mo ago
      > I am looking forward to learning how it does work... It's basic sockets. If you call connect() when the internet is disabled, the errno is ENETUNREACH. The higher-level API are built on sockets. If any apps are misbehaving, they're simply badly coded.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
        > It's basic sockets. Yup. I've done a bit of that stuff, in my time. > If any apps are misbehaving, they're simply badly coded. Plenty of that stuff, going around. Might want to ease back on the "instant insult" thing. Not a good look.
        lapcat 9mo ago
        > Yup. I've done a bit of that stuff, in my time. So are you willing to admit now that "the standard TCP timeout" was a misdiagnosis of your problem? You appeared to be projecting a personal problem with some unnamed badly coded apps onto everyone, as if it were inevitable, but the original commenter who said they turned off WiFi obviously does not experience this problem, and neither do I for that matter.
        ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
        [flagged]
- ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
  Just a wrap-up. It was a badly-written comment. I meant some apps (and background tasks) on my computer hang. Most deal with it, but a surprising number don’t. I gave up on sniffing with Terminal and other tools, trying to figure out which ones. I have a number of dev tools installed on my computer, and a lot of those have a … casual … approach to quality. I have no issue admitting fault (I do it way too often), but I don’t really dig rewarding boorish behavior, so I just figured I’d leave it alone.

eru 9mo ago

Have you tried using Linux?

lapcat 9mo ago

> I wonder what would happen if you tried selling software the old way again. "Buy our software! Pay once. We'll mail you out a USB stick with the program on it. Our software does not access the internet." FWIW all of my Mac and iOS apps are upfront paid, with no telemetry or server-side component. Of course I don't distribute them via snail mail though. I'm doing pretty well. I'm certainly not rich, and probably not making as much money as corporate software engineers in the US, but I'm doing better financially than the majority of people. It's not impossible to follow the old business model.

direwolf20 9mo ago
How do you know they don't have telemetry?
- lapcat 9mo ago
  I wrote them. I'm baffled by your question.
  - lastofthemojito 9mo ago
    I (and presumably the commenter you're responding to) initially read "all of my Mac and iOS apps" as "all of the Mac and iOS apps I use" instead of "all of the Mac and iOS apps I've written".
    - lapcat 9mo ago
      Did you and the other replier stop reading my comment after the first sentence? Because the second and following sentences make very clear—e.g., "distribute"—that I was talking about apps developed and sold by me.
TheNewsIsHere 9mo ago
I preferentially select for this software model. What applications to you make and where might I find them? I eagerly and quickly pay for major version upgrades to the independent software I buy. I’d like that model to stick around.

peddling-brink 9mo ago

And then Minecraft writes to a log 18,000 times a second, moaning about being unable to contact the telemetry provider until your disk fills up. I don’t know if they ever fix that bug, because I uninstalled the thing. The third-party launchers didn’t have that problem.