44 ms·

Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

407 points by chalmovsky 6mo ago

thisago 6mo ago
It's comic when reading but for sure this is tragic. I _have a feeling_ that bloat will continue increasing in the next years. It makes me wonder why did large companies are investing so much in web and putting web devs to write disk utility desktop apps?
- applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
  > It makes me wonder why did large companies are investing so much in web and putting web devs to write disk utility desktop apps? It's because in these environments where corporate cancer has metastasised, programmers are not in charge of hiring programmers, or much of anything when it comes to decision-making really. HR is composed of people who are not programmers. They are looking to hire people with a list of shiny hot new web stack keywords on a resume, because they have literally no other concept of how to filter candidate applications. So they end up with a bunch of hot React devs and nobody capable of making software that is fit for task.
  - adrianton3 6mo ago
    I don't follow - why do you think HR would be interested in shiny hot new web stack keywords over anything else?
    - voakbasda 6mo ago
      Because they lack any better signals from within the company. At several places I have worked, hiring is almost fully detached from the groups that need the workers. They never could find good candidates for our teams. This kind of disconnect is what corporate cancer looks like, and it is endemic in big business.
    - applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
      To a non-developer, every application they read might as well be a list of buzzwords. They cannot comprehend a word of it. Web stacks offer the opportunity to list more and newer buzzwords. Do I set up an interview with the person who lists "C systems programmer" or with the person who is a "full stack React, Tailwind, Next.js, Node.js, Electron, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS engineer seasoned in Javascript, Typescript, HTML, and CSS"? Well, the latter certainly sounds 10x more impressive. Into the trashbin the systems programmer application goes, they just don't have enough skills for an enterprise of our scale!
      - adrianton3 6mo ago
        A C systems programmer can definitely make a list of buzzwords as well. Also, let's say team A (10 C app/systems programmers) in a company asks HR to look for a C developer and HR comes back to them with 10 great web developers to be grilled by the engineers of team A - what happens then? Does team A shrug and say "welcome to our C codebase, we shall now rewrite it in tailwind or whatever because you are now here!" - I really don't see how it can play out
        applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
        This supposes team A has 10 C programmers in the first place. By one means or another, teams of web developers are put together and made to do non-web-development projects, and now half of the Windows 11 userland is written in fucking React. I'm not the one making these stupid decisions, but probably they were originally hired to work on a web project, then later moved to a new OS-related project because they were the pool of idle employees available, and the fleet of React-in-the-OS programmers expanded as new hires were now being funneled directly into React teams working on OS projects.
daneel_w 6mo ago
"I took an 'app coding' course in college".
Cthulhu_ 6mo ago
It reminds me of a lot of Windows software, especially virus scanners and supposed antimalware tools, going back 20+ years.
b00ty4breakfast 6mo ago
this reminds me, I still have an ancient version of iTunes on my old win7 box because something got corrupted at some point and now I can't uninstall it. Not being able to simply remove a program like you would any other program is next level evil in my book.
- Barbing 6mo ago
  I have a modern application from the macOS App Store in a permanent update purgatory. I dared drag to delete it, now it won’t update nor open. But an update is always shown available!
saagarjha 6mo ago
I feel like the complaints here are…not really Samsung's fault? > So I’ve dug around and found a cleanup script buried six folders deep inside the app bundle. Let’s try to run it: > sh ~/Library/'Application Support'/Samsung/'Samsung Magician'/SamsungMagician.app/Contents/Resources/CleanupMagician_Admin_Mac.sh > It ran. And my kitty exploded. Sweet kitty overflowed. Hundreds - literally hundreds - of lines of chown: Operation not permitted. I mean, if you read on, you'll find that most of the things that were removed were from system folders that are owned by root? Presumably this was run without sudo… > I rm -rf every Samsung folder I could find. The Preferences. The Caches. The LaunchAgents. The LaunchDaemons. The kernel extensions. The crash reports. …that's where you put your stuff on macOS. Would you prefer that they picked some non-standard location you had to dig up? > Package receipts in /private/var/db/receipts/ (Samsung left its receipts behind like a burglar leaving a bunch of turds in the living room) This is again for your benefit so you know what was installed on your system > Cached processes in /private/var/folders/7v/<your username hash>/C/ (yes, Samsung is in there too) That's getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR > I shut down my Mac. Held the power button. Booted into Recovery Mode. Opened Terminal. Ran csrutil disable. Rebooted. Opened Terminal. Deleted the kernel extensions. That's just how kernel extensions are on Apple silicon
- bee_rider 6mo ago
  Yeah, the two steps: * going into some internal directory and running a script based on the name * deleting a bunch of directories Seem like pretty bad ideas. Especially for software provided by a hardware vendor, which is probably a little clunky and inherently touches deep stuff. But not including a removal script seems like bad form. Edit: On the other hand, I don’t actually know for certain that the tool doesn’t have an uninstall script. Just, that the author didn’t find it. This seems worth noting because the author really wasn’t giving them the benefit of the doubt on anything, see all of the irrelevant complaints about animations.
  - rmunn 6mo ago
    I mean, there clearly was an uninstall script. It was in the app's Contents/Resources file, and it was called CleanupMagician_Admin_Mac.sh. Which means there was some intended way to trigger running it. Perhaps Samsung's instructions or their menu system weren't clear and they managed to hide it from him. But there most definitely was an uninstall script, and if he had managed to find the intended button in the interface, it would have asked for admin permissions and then done all the cleanup for him. The very cleanup that he complained about having to do by hand.
zhongwei2049 6mo ago
[flagged]
malfist 6mo ago
This type of writing is very grating on the nerves. It's not AI slop, but it feels the same way, where AI slop is trying to trick you into thinking every sentence is the pinnacle insight of human endeavor of all history, this writing stops every single sentence to say "Are you outraged? I'm outraged! You should be outraged! This is outrageous!" Especially when the outrage is that the user didn't follow instructions to use sudo on an uninstaller that needs to touch root owned files.
- greazy 6mo ago
  I completely disagree. I loved this article. I could feel the authors frustration and disdain for the software. It was funny and helpful.
- atoav 6mo ago
  Well I once watched an sysadmin with 430 years of experience swear his way through an installation process. Until I, back then a intern, pointed out that maybe reading the install instructions would have been a good idea, since there were some steps in there that would have saved us some time. We scrapped everything and reinstalled following the instructions and 15 minuted later it worked. I admit that I also often deviate from installation processes, but only when I really know why I want to do that. And I tend to read the instructions first. But I know people who are snuggly proud about not reading the manual and I really don't get it.
  - close04 6mo ago
    When all else fails, read the manual. It’s a tried and tested practice among experts worth their salt. A lit of practices save you 10s each day but when they fail you lose 10 years’ worth of savings.
  - rmunn 6mo ago
    Was "430 years" a typo for "30 years" or for "43 years"?
    - atoav 6mo ago
calin2k 6mo ago
samsung magician managed to help me clone a hdd to a ssd on windows with ease
- daneel_w 6mo ago
  https://clonezilla.org/ https://clonezilla.org/
0xAFFFF 6mo ago
Parts of that article are just downright terrible. First, the criticism of Electron is moot. Yes it's not sleek, but it's sufficient. This app is not supposed to be used heavily on a daily basis. Run it once to setup your drive, run it a few months later for a firmware upgrade or a quick health check and that's all. And when you had a taste of the absolute UX monsters some hardware vendors can produce on the software side, really an Electron app feels nice. But it gets more ridiculous. Embedded fonts? God forbid companies enforce their own design guidelines in their software. Translations? Fuck non-English speakers. User guide with screenshots? The audacity.
- bobbob1921 6mo ago
  While your point is valid, it makes an even stronger case that it should be easy to uninstall
  - 0xAFFFF 6mo ago
    Software should be at least as easy to uninstall as it is to install, so yes.
- esafak 6mo ago
  Please tell me you're a Microsoft customer.
internet2000 6mo ago
I hate how Mac OS makes it harder to delete than to add stuff to system folders. I forgot what was it, but adding something worked with sudo, removing it required disabling sip. Is there a reason for that?
r_lee 6mo ago
it all makes sense if you know how Korean software is like. buttons being jpegs is the norm
g947o 6mo ago
I empathize with many of the complaints, but some are a bit ridiculous. Using custom fonts in software UI is completely reasonable and normal, even if you don't like it.
- stavros 6mo ago
  I remember a time when UIs looked consistent, instead of custom-branded, and I still think the "completely reasonable and normal" state is the former, not the latter.
  - hombre_fatal 6mo ago
    When, Windows 3.1?
    - jeffreygoesto 6mo ago
      3.0 to server 2008 which makes that period 18 years.
      - GeekyBear 6mo ago
        Microsoft Office abandoned the normal Win32 UI conventions for the Ribbon interface before 2008.
        pndy 6mo ago
        Office 2007 introduced it, then it was implemented in Windows Live Essentials suite and in W7 applications. If I'm not mistaken LibreOffice got it not so long ago but with a different name to avoid any problems.
        jeffreygoesto 6mo ago
        That is why I cheated a bit, they were introduced with Windows Server 2012... ;)
        6mo ago
Shank 6mo ago
I think the most obscene thing here is that macOS is now littered with permission prompts for camera, background execution, etc, but makes no effort to stop even industry partners from spraying the disk with dozens of files that can’t be removed easily.
- functionmouse 6mo ago
  That's because this particular sort of cyber security is merely theatrics with the goal of reducing user agency and increasing paranoia and vendor lock-in. The user facing friction is the goal. There will always be scams and viruses; the only practical outcome will be that you have less control over your computer, and Apple/MS/Google have more. See: Sideloading, Wayland, UWPs, iOS JIT, Windows XP and 7 still being used for accessibility
  - nerdjon 6mo ago
    I strongly disagree. I often have apps on my Mac or iPhone that ask for permission to see my camera, microphone, contacts, etc etc that I don't want it to see. But I do want other apps to be able to access those things. Being able to stop those apps from accessing before they do instead of trying to fix it after is incredibly valuable. Sure some users just accept everything, but that is not an argument against them existing in the first place.
    - alpaca128 6mo ago
      Those examples are very reasonable. However I also had Mac OS suddenly treat all m4a files on the system as potential malware and it blocked any attempt at opening them. Why did it do that? Because I checked the "set as default app" option, one minute after I had already opened the same file using the same application. The only way to open the files was by entering the password in the settings app each time - but re-setting the same app as default in the file's Get Info dialog got rid of that "protection" system-wide without any password prompts or extra permissions. I don't see how that was supposed to help with security.
didgetmaster 6mo ago
I worked on a disk utility in the 90s called PartitionMagic that was one of the first ones to let you dynamically resize disk partitions. Maybe Samsung used that when naming their product. I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy . to /<appFolder> and the uninstall process was delete /<appFolder>
- whatsupdog 6mo ago
  PartionMagic was not A disk utility, it was THE disk utility!
  - didgetmaster 6mo ago
    I also headed up a disk imaging product for the same company called Drive Image. It wasn't quite as popular, but it was fun to develop as well.
    - user3939382 6mo ago
      You were competing with Norton Ghost at the time IIRC. Partition Magic was an amazing piece of software. It was so good when you explained “called Partition Magic” I was like “called”? It was so clearly the best of its kind it didn’t even occur to me that these years later people wouldn’t know of it, it felt like reading “I worked on a search engine called Google”. Anyway thanks for the great software.
      - didgetmaster 6mo ago
        I mainly mentioned it that way because once the company (PowerQuest) was bought out by Symantec, the product was mostly abandoned. Unlike Google, most programmers younger than 30 have never heard of it.
- riffraff 6mo ago
  I remember that! It was awesome!
patentatt 6mo ago
I recently tried to install Samsung magician on Windows 11. Tried. It flat out doesn’t work, tried some basic remediation and internet searching to figure it out, but could not get it to run at all. Completely nonfunctional. Seems to be an issue with some electron configuration or command line args. I gave up because it wasn’t worth more effort, but I believe it when I read that the software is a dumpster fire.
gwbas1c 6mo ago
Years ago I shipped a MacOS product. If you deleted it, you would get an error emptying the recycle bin (or force-deleting the application bundle if you did an rm -R to it.) Why? Well, at the time Windows Explorer had an API for extensions, but MacOS didn't for Finder. We needed to add some menu items to the context menu, which on MacOS required reverse engineering Finder and injecting code into it. This then meant that Finder had an open file handle into our application bundle until you either restarted Finder or restarted MacOS. Then, as long as you didn't start our application, you could cleanly delete it. (Thankfully MacOS cleaned this up with the Finder extension API about a decade ago.) Having gotten familiar with internals of both Windows and MacOS... MacOS has its own set of gremlins too.
- Rohansi 6mo ago
  > MacOS has its own set of gremlins too. You can't really blame macOS for this one. Interesting to hear this isn't just a Windows thing though.
  - gamblor956 6mo ago
    You really can, considering that a Windows program would not have had that issue.
    - Rohansi 6mo ago
      How is it better on Windows? It doesn't do anything to prevent third-party software from injecting into system processes.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- Aperocky 6mo ago
  As a mac user for 10+ years that cycled about 7 macs for personal and professional use, I've used Finder about biweekly to click on the airdrop button..
ryandrake 6mo ago
> I shut down my Mac. Held the power button. Booted into Recovery Mode. Opened Terminal. Ran csrutil disable. Rebooted. Opened Terminal. Deleted the kernel extensions. Ran find to confirm they’re gone. Shut down AGAIN. Booted into Recovery Mode AGAIN. Ran csrutil enable. Rebooted AGAIN. All this just to delete four dead files and their mirrors from a disk utility. This one is entirely on Apple. It was Apple who decided that "root isn't good enough" and that you, the user, shouldn't be able to administer your own goddamn system as root, without performing backflips while singing Happy Birthday.
- Aurornis 6mo ago
  You can just turn that off once and leave it off if it bothers you. Even most power users leave it on except for temporary situations like this because it’s a helpful security protection.
  - kstrauser 6mo ago
    Yup. I leave it alone. As much as it’s a hassle every 2 years or so when I need to do some voodoo on my laptop, it’s even more of a hassle for potential attackers. For me, for my risk profile, I believe it has a good return on investment.
- sneak 6mo ago
  This is 100% by design and 100% a good thing. “root” aka uid=0 should NOT have unlimited privileges to permanently modify the deepest parts of the OS, as assuming uid=0 is done daily for routine operations. Modifying kernel level stuff should not be possible from this daily use privilege level. It’s an ancient holdover from unix time sharing systems that are approaching a hundred years old. If you think it’s bad, you don’t know why it was built - google Chesterton’s Fence. You, the user, still have 100% ability to modify your system however you choose - if you first clearly indicate that you ARE the user, and not just some random-ass installer running under admin privs, which is a completely normal and common occurrence. A higher privilege level that is used to protect OS integrity is a wonderful thing. If you think there is a better or safer way to access it, please submit your suggestions to Apple, but don’t assume the guardrails around System Integrity Protection (1TR etc) are slapdash or unreasonable or poorly thought out.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
germandiago 6mo ago
This is a great reason to choose an alternative.
tracker1 6mo ago
The last time I booted to a windows drive on my prior desktop was to update the firmware on a Samsung NVME SSD drive to prevent premature failure. Was kind of a pain for even that task as I hadn't been running Windows for about a year at that point... in fact my insiders build of windows was so out of sync it wouldn't even update anymore. Meh. Since then I've been using Corsair and WD Black drives, since Samsung has gotten overpriced and hasn't seemed as reliable the past few years. That application was one of the reasons.
mmastrac 6mo ago
If you're installing Samsung Magician for firmware updates, keep in mind that you can always update your firmware without using it and it's just as safe.
- kiddico 6mo ago
  How?
freak42 6mo ago
For personal reasons I am avoiding all Samsung products and over the years it seems like I unintentionally dodged one annoying issue after another.
- SV_BubbleTime 6mo ago
  My in-laws bought a Samsung TV, and I swore them off when I saw ads on the menu. Then I stayed in Hawaii for a while and my rental had a Samsung washer… it had a DOWNLOAD setting on the dial so I could hook up the app… for… washing clothes… it didn’t clean anything, it had a minutes long process of shaking my clothes about to get a feel for them before it bothered adding a lady’s thimble full of water… nope. I had never missed my speed queens so much. Then I was at a big box store and their Samsung fridge with a tablet on the door locked up and hung. That was three personal strikes.
  - aceazzameen 6mo ago
    The days of quality Samsung products are long over.
ronb1964 6mo ago
[dead]
SkiFire13 6mo ago
> Localization files for every language on Earth - [...] - Samsung really wanted to make sure everyone on the planet could experience this suffering equally Why are you considering localization as bloat? I bet your reaction wouldn't be positive if your native language(s) were missing instead.
- estimator7292 6mo ago
  Zero percent of users require 100 percent of languages at all times.
  - SkiFire13 6mo ago
    Sure, let's go back to the old days where you had to download language packs for windows and office.
    - Dylan16807 6mo ago
      The alternative would be the installer only installing the languages that match the system settings. Which yes is imperfect, but not nearly as bad as separate downloads or god forbid the two tier base language and modification pack system Microsoft came up with.
radicality 6mo ago
Absolutely agree I hate that software. Last I remember I was trying to upgrade firmware I think of either a usbc drive, but could have been some m2 nvme drive via usb4. Software looked so nasty that I think I managed to get it somehow working in a VM for firmware update.
gamblor956 6mo ago
On Windows, you run the uninstaller, click once, and a few seconds later everything is uninstalled. You reboot to remove any remaining files immediately, or you can just wait until the next time you naturally reboot and it happens then. This has been how it works in the Windows world for several decades. Surprising that Apple still hasn't figured this out yet.
- tuetuopay 6mo ago
  Ever tried to uninstall an antivirus on windows? Or any program that does not want to be uninstalled? I've had programs whose uninstall.exe was no different than /bin/true. On this point, Windows is no better than macOS: the OS relies on the goodwill of the developers to provide working uninstallers. The only protection is a world where the OS provider does the application packaging: Linux repositories, Mac App Store, Windows Store. And even then, apps are still free to litter your filesystem at runtime, unless they're heavily sandboxed. Then FlatPak it is, or iOS apps or Android apps. Not great.
  - gamblor956 6mo ago
    Yes, I have uninstalled antivirus. The uninstaller removed most of the files, except those in memory. I turned off the computer at the end of the day, and after startup the next morning the remaining files were gone. The only remaining files were the "user space" like custom preferences or files created by the user using the program. The uninstaller rightfully leaves it up to the user to decide what to do with those.
- streetfighter64 6mo ago
  Not to enter another OS ** measuring contest, but on linux systems you can both install and remove programs with a single command line. No need to search the web for the installer, no need to install the MSVC runtime (dependencies are handled automatically), no reboots needed pretty much ever, etc. And no, on windows not "everything" is removed by most uninstallers. At least it wasn't back when I was using windows 7. Though I doubt it's really changed, unless you count those "windows store apps", but that's also equivalently available on mac. Both are a poor imitation of a proper linux package manager.
Leomuck 6mo ago
Man, that is actually hilarious. Also reminds you that "Big Tech" doesn't necessarily build great stuff. They sell well, but are they built well? I don't even want to know how Microslops stuff looks behind the scenes :)
forentix 6mo ago
It’s always the dummies who don’t know what they’re doing who write long screeds about how bad something is. The first indication the OP is a dummy was using “sh” to run the Samsung uninstall script instead of just invoking it directly, then not realizing he should’ve sudo’ed it. This is not a defense of Samsung, their software sucks, but this over the top.
- Dylan16807 6mo ago
  > The first indication the OP is a dummy was using “sh” to run the Samsung uninstall script instead of just invoking it directly Well that's a novel way to gatekeep. Stick to the part about realizing it needed sudo, because the other complaint is just ridiculous.
fhn 6mo ago
Uninstalling malware takes extra steps and multiple reboots
whackyMax 6mo ago
Having experienced exactly this situation, I was lucky I kept automated backups and went back an hour or two after I installed it. TimeMachine ftw.
xnyan 6mo ago
> What kind of fucking name is that anyway? “Samsung Magician” - for a disk utility? Who greenlit this? Who sat in a meeting and said “yeah, Magician, like it does magic” I agree with all your points except this. Disk utilities have a long history of magic-themed names: PartitionMagic, Disk Wizard, Magic Partition Resizer, the list goes on. Samsung is doing whatever everybody else does and is naming their tools based on user expectations.
sunnybeetroot 6mo ago
Is my understand correct that if I install an app with homebrew cask and then uninstall it everything should be gone, or not even with the homebrew cask would everything be uninstalled?
rsynnott 6mo ago
About ten years ago, I bought a low-end Samsung TVZ, intended to hold me over until OLEDs got into a non-silly price range. Based on that TV, I will never buy anything from Samsung again. It had, get this, a _variable audio lag_. Audio might be nearly in sync, or might lag by a couple hundred ms, depending on the TV’s mood at the time. Just incredible that they ever thought this was a reasonable thing to sell.
- nottorp 6mo ago
  Was electron available back then? Maybe they did sound processing with it.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
subscribed 6mo ago
Hey, I'm only 3 months into attempts to clearly uninstall MSI software form my laptop, so i can reinstall it (it refuses to install atm), because it seems to be the only way to...... set the battery charging limit.
- MarchApril 6mo ago
  Was it MSI Dragon Center? Few years ago I reinstalled the OS and had to scour the earth for the app for that specific model so it can turn off the keyboard backlight and remap some buttons. Now the screen broke and it's running as a Linux server, and guess whose backlight is turn on all day, everyday?
aucisson_masque 6mo ago
> An entire Electron framework - yes, they embedded a full Chromium browser engine to show you a pie chart of your disk space Ram is cheap and unused ram is wasted ram - Samsung management

407 points by chalmovsky 6mo ago

It's comic when reading but for sure this is tragic. I _have a feeling_ that bloat will continue increasing in the next years. It makes me wonder why did large companies are investing so much in web and putting web devs to write disk utility desktop apps?

applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
> It makes me wonder why did large companies are investing so much in web and putting web devs to write disk utility desktop apps? It's because in these environments where corporate cancer has metastasised, programmers are not in charge of hiring programmers, or much of anything when it comes to decision-making really. HR is composed of people who are not programmers. They are looking to hire people with a list of shiny hot new web stack keywords on a resume, because they have literally no other concept of how to filter candidate applications. So they end up with a bunch of hot React devs and nobody capable of making software that is fit for task.
- adrianton3 6mo ago
  I don't follow - why do you think HR would be interested in shiny hot new web stack keywords over anything else?
  - voakbasda 6mo ago
    Because they lack any better signals from within the company. At several places I have worked, hiring is almost fully detached from the groups that need the workers. They never could find good candidates for our teams. This kind of disconnect is what corporate cancer looks like, and it is endemic in big business.
  - applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
    To a non-developer, every application they read might as well be a list of buzzwords. They cannot comprehend a word of it. Web stacks offer the opportunity to list more and newer buzzwords. Do I set up an interview with the person who lists "C systems programmer" or with the person who is a "full stack React, Tailwind, Next.js, Node.js, Electron, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS engineer seasoned in Javascript, Typescript, HTML, and CSS"? Well, the latter certainly sounds 10x more impressive. Into the trashbin the systems programmer application goes, they just don't have enough skills for an enterprise of our scale!
    - adrianton3 6mo ago
      A C systems programmer can definitely make a list of buzzwords as well. Also, let's say team A (10 C app/systems programmers) in a company asks HR to look for a C developer and HR comes back to them with 10 great web developers to be grilled by the engineers of team A - what happens then? Does team A shrug and say "welcome to our C codebase, we shall now rewrite it in tailwind or whatever because you are now here!" - I really don't see how it can play out
      - applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
        This supposes team A has 10 C programmers in the first place. By one means or another, teams of web developers are put together and made to do non-web-development projects, and now half of the Windows 11 userland is written in fucking React. I'm not the one making these stupid decisions, but probably they were originally hired to work on a web project, then later moved to a new OS-related project because they were the pool of idle employees available, and the fleet of React-in-the-OS programmers expanded as new hires were now being funneled directly into React teams working on OS projects.

daneel_w 6mo ago

"I took an 'app coding' course in college".

Cthulhu_ 6mo ago

It reminds me of a lot of Windows software, especially virus scanners and supposed antimalware tools, going back 20+ years.

b00ty4breakfast 6mo ago

this reminds me, I still have an ancient version of iTunes on my old win7 box because something got corrupted at some point and now I can't uninstall it. Not being able to simply remove a program like you would any other program is next level evil in my book.

Barbing 6mo ago
I have a modern application from the macOS App Store in a permanent update purgatory. I dared drag to delete it, now it won’t update nor open. But an update is always shown available!

saagarjha 6mo ago

I feel like the complaints here are…not really Samsung's fault? > So I’ve dug around and found a cleanup script buried six folders deep inside the app bundle. Let’s try to run it: > sh ~/Library/'Application Support'/Samsung/'Samsung Magician'/SamsungMagician.app/Contents/Resources/CleanupMagician_Admin_Mac.sh > It ran. And my kitty exploded. Sweet kitty overflowed. Hundreds - literally hundreds - of lines of chown: Operation not permitted. I mean, if you read on, you'll find that most of the things that were removed were from system folders that are owned by root? Presumably this was run without sudo… > I rm -rf every Samsung folder I could find. The Preferences. The Caches. The LaunchAgents. The LaunchDaemons. The kernel extensions. The crash reports. …that's where you put your stuff on macOS. Would you prefer that they picked some non-standard location you had to dig up? > Package receipts in /private/var/db/receipts/ (Samsung left its receipts behind like a burglar leaving a bunch of turds in the living room) This is again for your benefit so you know what was installed on your system > Cached processes in /private/var/folders/7v/<your username hash>/C/ (yes, Samsung is in there too) That's getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR > I shut down my Mac. Held the power button. Booted into Recovery Mode. Opened Terminal. Ran csrutil disable. Rebooted. Opened Terminal. Deleted the kernel extensions. That's just how kernel extensions are on Apple silicon

bee_rider 6mo ago
Yeah, the two steps: * going into some internal directory and running a script based on the name * deleting a bunch of directories Seem like pretty bad ideas. Especially for software provided by a hardware vendor, which is probably a little clunky and inherently touches deep stuff. But not including a removal script seems like bad form. Edit: On the other hand, I don’t actually know for certain that the tool doesn’t have an uninstall script. Just, that the author didn’t find it. This seems worth noting because the author really wasn’t giving them the benefit of the doubt on anything, see all of the irrelevant complaints about animations.
- rmunn 6mo ago
  I mean, there clearly was an uninstall script. It was in the app's Contents/Resources file, and it was called CleanupMagician_Admin_Mac.sh. Which means there was some intended way to trigger running it. Perhaps Samsung's instructions or their menu system weren't clear and they managed to hide it from him. But there most definitely was an uninstall script, and if he had managed to find the intended button in the interface, it would have asked for admin permissions and then done all the cleanup for him. The very cleanup that he complained about having to do by hand.

zhongwei2049 6mo ago

[flagged]

malfist 6mo ago

This type of writing is very grating on the nerves. It's not AI slop, but it feels the same way, where AI slop is trying to trick you into thinking every sentence is the pinnacle insight of human endeavor of all history, this writing stops every single sentence to say "Are you outraged? I'm outraged! You should be outraged! This is outrageous!" Especially when the outrage is that the user didn't follow instructions to use sudo on an uninstaller that needs to touch root owned files.

greazy 6mo ago
I completely disagree. I loved this article. I could feel the authors frustration and disdain for the software. It was funny and helpful.
atoav 6mo ago
Well I once watched an sysadmin with 430 years of experience swear his way through an installation process. Until I, back then a intern, pointed out that maybe reading the install instructions would have been a good idea, since there were some steps in there that would have saved us some time. We scrapped everything and reinstalled following the instructions and 15 minuted later it worked. I admit that I also often deviate from installation processes, but only when I really know why I want to do that. And I tend to read the instructions first. But I know people who are snuggly proud about not reading the manual and I really don't get it.
- close04 6mo ago
  When all else fails, read the manual. It’s a tried and tested practice among experts worth their salt. A lit of practices save you 10s each day but when they fail you lose 10 years’ worth of savings.
- rmunn 6mo ago
  Was "430 years" a typo for "30 years" or for "43 years"?
  - atoav 6mo ago

calin2k 6mo ago

samsung magician managed to help me clone a hdd to a ssd on windows with ease

daneel_w 6mo ago
https://clonezilla.org/ https://clonezilla.org/

0xAFFFF 6mo ago

Parts of that article are just downright terrible. First, the criticism of Electron is moot. Yes it's not sleek, but it's sufficient. This app is not supposed to be used heavily on a daily basis. Run it once to setup your drive, run it a few months later for a firmware upgrade or a quick health check and that's all. And when you had a taste of the absolute UX monsters some hardware vendors can produce on the software side, really an Electron app feels nice. But it gets more ridiculous. Embedded fonts? God forbid companies enforce their own design guidelines in their software. Translations? Fuck non-English speakers. User guide with screenshots? The audacity.

bobbob1921 6mo ago
While your point is valid, it makes an even stronger case that it should be easy to uninstall
- 0xAFFFF 6mo ago
  Software should be at least as easy to uninstall as it is to install, so yes.
esafak 6mo ago
Please tell me you're a Microsoft customer.

internet2000 6mo ago

I hate how Mac OS makes it harder to delete than to add stuff to system folders. I forgot what was it, but adding something worked with sudo, removing it required disabling sip. Is there a reason for that?

r_lee 6mo ago

it all makes sense if you know how Korean software is like. buttons being jpegs is the norm

g947o 6mo ago

I empathize with many of the complaints, but some are a bit ridiculous. Using custom fonts in software UI is completely reasonable and normal, even if you don't like it.

stavros 6mo ago
I remember a time when UIs looked consistent, instead of custom-branded, and I still think the "completely reasonable and normal" state is the former, not the latter.
- hombre_fatal 6mo ago
  When, Windows 3.1?
  - jeffreygoesto 6mo ago
    3.0 to server 2008 which makes that period 18 years.
    - GeekyBear 6mo ago
      Microsoft Office abandoned the normal Win32 UI conventions for the Ribbon interface before 2008.
      - pndy 6mo ago
        Office 2007 introduced it, then it was implemented in Windows Live Essentials suite and in W7 applications. If I'm not mistaken LibreOffice got it not so long ago but with a different name to avoid any problems.
      - jeffreygoesto 6mo ago
        That is why I cheated a bit, they were introduced with Windows Server 2012... ;)
        6mo ago

Shank 6mo ago

I think the most obscene thing here is that macOS is now littered with permission prompts for camera, background execution, etc, but makes no effort to stop even industry partners from spraying the disk with dozens of files that can’t be removed easily.

functionmouse 6mo ago
That's because this particular sort of cyber security is merely theatrics with the goal of reducing user agency and increasing paranoia and vendor lock-in. The user facing friction is the goal. There will always be scams and viruses; the only practical outcome will be that you have less control over your computer, and Apple/MS/Google have more. See: Sideloading, Wayland, UWPs, iOS JIT, Windows XP and 7 still being used for accessibility
- nerdjon 6mo ago
  I strongly disagree. I often have apps on my Mac or iPhone that ask for permission to see my camera, microphone, contacts, etc etc that I don't want it to see. But I do want other apps to be able to access those things. Being able to stop those apps from accessing before they do instead of trying to fix it after is incredibly valuable. Sure some users just accept everything, but that is not an argument against them existing in the first place.
  - alpaca128 6mo ago
    Those examples are very reasonable. However I also had Mac OS suddenly treat all m4a files on the system as potential malware and it blocked any attempt at opening them. Why did it do that? Because I checked the "set as default app" option, one minute after I had already opened the same file using the same application. The only way to open the files was by entering the password in the settings app each time - but re-setting the same app as default in the file's Get Info dialog got rid of that "protection" system-wide without any password prompts or extra permissions. I don't see how that was supposed to help with security.

didgetmaster 6mo ago

I worked on a disk utility in the 90s called PartitionMagic that was one of the first ones to let you dynamically resize disk partitions. Maybe Samsung used that when naming their product. I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy . to /<appFolder> and the uninstall process was delete /<appFolder>

whatsupdog 6mo ago
PartionMagic was not A disk utility, it was THE disk utility!
- didgetmaster 6mo ago
  I also headed up a disk imaging product for the same company called Drive Image. It wasn't quite as popular, but it was fun to develop as well.
  - user3939382 6mo ago
    You were competing with Norton Ghost at the time IIRC. Partition Magic was an amazing piece of software. It was so good when you explained “called Partition Magic” I was like “called”? It was so clearly the best of its kind it didn’t even occur to me that these years later people wouldn’t know of it, it felt like reading “I worked on a search engine called Google”. Anyway thanks for the great software.
    - didgetmaster 6mo ago
      I mainly mentioned it that way because once the company (PowerQuest) was bought out by Symantec, the product was mostly abandoned. Unlike Google, most programmers younger than 30 have never heard of it.
riffraff 6mo ago
I remember that! It was awesome!

patentatt 6mo ago

I recently tried to install Samsung magician on Windows 11. Tried. It flat out doesn’t work, tried some basic remediation and internet searching to figure it out, but could not get it to run at all. Completely nonfunctional. Seems to be an issue with some electron configuration or command line args. I gave up because it wasn’t worth more effort, but I believe it when I read that the software is a dumpster fire.

gwbas1c 6mo ago

Years ago I shipped a MacOS product. If you deleted it, you would get an error emptying the recycle bin (or force-deleting the application bundle if you did an rm -R to it.) Why? Well, at the time Windows Explorer had an API for extensions, but MacOS didn't for Finder. We needed to add some menu items to the context menu, which on MacOS required reverse engineering Finder and injecting code into it. This then meant that Finder had an open file handle into our application bundle until you either restarted Finder or restarted MacOS. Then, as long as you didn't start our application, you could cleanly delete it. (Thankfully MacOS cleaned this up with the Finder extension API about a decade ago.) Having gotten familiar with internals of both Windows and MacOS... MacOS has its own set of gremlins too.

Rohansi 6mo ago
> MacOS has its own set of gremlins too. You can't really blame macOS for this one. Interesting to hear this isn't just a Windows thing though.
- gamblor956 6mo ago
  You really can, considering that a Windows program would not have had that issue.
  - Rohansi 6mo ago
    How is it better on Windows? It doesn't do anything to prevent third-party software from injecting into system processes.
deleted 6mo ago
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Aperocky 6mo ago
As a mac user for 10+ years that cycled about 7 macs for personal and professional use, I've used Finder about biweekly to click on the airdrop button..

ryandrake 6mo ago

> I shut down my Mac. Held the power button. Booted into Recovery Mode. Opened Terminal. Ran csrutil disable. Rebooted. Opened Terminal. Deleted the kernel extensions. Ran find to confirm they’re gone. Shut down AGAIN. Booted into Recovery Mode AGAIN. Ran csrutil enable. Rebooted AGAIN. All this just to delete four dead files and their mirrors from a disk utility. This one is entirely on Apple. It was Apple who decided that "root isn't good enough" and that you, the user, shouldn't be able to administer your own goddamn system as root, without performing backflips while singing Happy Birthday.

Aurornis 6mo ago
You can just turn that off once and leave it off if it bothers you. Even most power users leave it on except for temporary situations like this because it’s a helpful security protection.
- kstrauser 6mo ago
  Yup. I leave it alone. As much as it’s a hassle every 2 years or so when I need to do some voodoo on my laptop, it’s even more of a hassle for potential attackers. For me, for my risk profile, I believe it has a good return on investment.
sneak 6mo ago
This is 100% by design and 100% a good thing. “root” aka uid=0 should NOT have unlimited privileges to permanently modify the deepest parts of the OS, as assuming uid=0 is done daily for routine operations. Modifying kernel level stuff should not be possible from this daily use privilege level. It’s an ancient holdover from unix time sharing systems that are approaching a hundred years old. If you think it’s bad, you don’t know why it was built - google Chesterton’s Fence. You, the user, still have 100% ability to modify your system however you choose - if you first clearly indicate that you ARE the user, and not just some random-ass installer running under admin privs, which is a completely normal and common occurrence. A higher privilege level that is used to protect OS integrity is a wonderful thing. If you think there is a better or safer way to access it, please submit your suggestions to Apple, but don’t assume the guardrails around System Integrity Protection (1TR etc) are slapdash or unreasonable or poorly thought out.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

germandiago 6mo ago

This is a great reason to choose an alternative.

tracker1 6mo ago

The last time I booted to a windows drive on my prior desktop was to update the firmware on a Samsung NVME SSD drive to prevent premature failure. Was kind of a pain for even that task as I hadn't been running Windows for about a year at that point... in fact my insiders build of windows was so out of sync it wouldn't even update anymore. Meh. Since then I've been using Corsair and WD Black drives, since Samsung has gotten overpriced and hasn't seemed as reliable the past few years. That application was one of the reasons.

mmastrac 6mo ago

If you're installing Samsung Magician for firmware updates, keep in mind that you can always update your firmware without using it and it's just as safe.

kiddico 6mo ago
How?

freak42 6mo ago

For personal reasons I am avoiding all Samsung products and over the years it seems like I unintentionally dodged one annoying issue after another.

SV_BubbleTime 6mo ago
My in-laws bought a Samsung TV, and I swore them off when I saw ads on the menu. Then I stayed in Hawaii for a while and my rental had a Samsung washer… it had a DOWNLOAD setting on the dial so I could hook up the app… for… washing clothes… it didn’t clean anything, it had a minutes long process of shaking my clothes about to get a feel for them before it bothered adding a lady’s thimble full of water… nope. I had never missed my speed queens so much. Then I was at a big box store and their Samsung fridge with a tablet on the door locked up and hung. That was three personal strikes.
- aceazzameen 6mo ago
  The days of quality Samsung products are long over.

ronb1964 6mo ago

[dead]

SkiFire13 6mo ago

> Localization files for every language on Earth - [...] - Samsung really wanted to make sure everyone on the planet could experience this suffering equally Why are you considering localization as bloat? I bet your reaction wouldn't be positive if your native language(s) were missing instead.

estimator7292 6mo ago
Zero percent of users require 100 percent of languages at all times.
- SkiFire13 6mo ago
  Sure, let's go back to the old days where you had to download language packs for windows and office.
  - Dylan16807 6mo ago
    The alternative would be the installer only installing the languages that match the system settings. Which yes is imperfect, but not nearly as bad as separate downloads or god forbid the two tier base language and modification pack system Microsoft came up with.

radicality 6mo ago

Absolutely agree I hate that software. Last I remember I was trying to upgrade firmware I think of either a usbc drive, but could have been some m2 nvme drive via usb4. Software looked so nasty that I think I managed to get it somehow working in a VM for firmware update.

gamblor956 6mo ago

On Windows, you run the uninstaller, click once, and a few seconds later everything is uninstalled. You reboot to remove any remaining files immediately, or you can just wait until the next time you naturally reboot and it happens then. This has been how it works in the Windows world for several decades. Surprising that Apple still hasn't figured this out yet.

tuetuopay 6mo ago
Ever tried to uninstall an antivirus on windows? Or any program that does not want to be uninstalled? I've had programs whose uninstall.exe was no different than /bin/true. On this point, Windows is no better than macOS: the OS relies on the goodwill of the developers to provide working uninstallers. The only protection is a world where the OS provider does the application packaging: Linux repositories, Mac App Store, Windows Store. And even then, apps are still free to litter your filesystem at runtime, unless they're heavily sandboxed. Then FlatPak it is, or iOS apps or Android apps. Not great.
- gamblor956 6mo ago
  Yes, I have uninstalled antivirus. The uninstaller removed most of the files, except those in memory. I turned off the computer at the end of the day, and after startup the next morning the remaining files were gone. The only remaining files were the "user space" like custom preferences or files created by the user using the program. The uninstaller rightfully leaves it up to the user to decide what to do with those.
streetfighter64 6mo ago
Not to enter another OS ** measuring contest, but on linux systems you can both install and remove programs with a single command line. No need to search the web for the installer, no need to install the MSVC runtime (dependencies are handled automatically), no reboots needed pretty much ever, etc. And no, on windows not "everything" is removed by most uninstallers. At least it wasn't back when I was using windows 7. Though I doubt it's really changed, unless you count those "windows store apps", but that's also equivalently available on mac. Both are a poor imitation of a proper linux package manager.

Leomuck 6mo ago

Man, that is actually hilarious. Also reminds you that "Big Tech" doesn't necessarily build great stuff. They sell well, but are they built well? I don't even want to know how Microslops stuff looks behind the scenes :)

forentix 6mo ago

It’s always the dummies who don’t know what they’re doing who write long screeds about how bad something is. The first indication the OP is a dummy was using “sh” to run the Samsung uninstall script instead of just invoking it directly, then not realizing he should’ve sudo’ed it. This is not a defense of Samsung, their software sucks, but this over the top.

Dylan16807 6mo ago
> The first indication the OP is a dummy was using “sh” to run the Samsung uninstall script instead of just invoking it directly Well that's a novel way to gatekeep. Stick to the part about realizing it needed sudo, because the other complaint is just ridiculous.

fhn 6mo ago

Uninstalling malware takes extra steps and multiple reboots

whackyMax 6mo ago

Having experienced exactly this situation, I was lucky I kept automated backups and went back an hour or two after I installed it. TimeMachine ftw.

xnyan 6mo ago

> What kind of fucking name is that anyway? “Samsung Magician” - for a disk utility? Who greenlit this? Who sat in a meeting and said “yeah, Magician, like it does magic” I agree with all your points except this. Disk utilities have a long history of magic-themed names: PartitionMagic, Disk Wizard, Magic Partition Resizer, the list goes on. Samsung is doing whatever everybody else does and is naming their tools based on user expectations.

sunnybeetroot 6mo ago

Is my understand correct that if I install an app with homebrew cask and then uninstall it everything should be gone, or not even with the homebrew cask would everything be uninstalled?

rsynnott 6mo ago

About ten years ago, I bought a low-end Samsung TVZ, intended to hold me over until OLEDs got into a non-silly price range. Based on that TV, I will never buy anything from Samsung again. It had, get this, a _variable audio lag_. Audio might be nearly in sync, or might lag by a couple hundred ms, depending on the TV’s mood at the time. Just incredible that they ever thought this was a reasonable thing to sell.

nottorp 6mo ago
Was electron available back then? Maybe they did sound processing with it.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

subscribed 6mo ago

Hey, I'm only 3 months into attempts to clearly uninstall MSI software form my laptop, so i can reinstall it (it refuses to install atm), because it seems to be the only way to...... set the battery charging limit.

MarchApril 6mo ago
Was it MSI Dragon Center? Few years ago I reinstalled the OS and had to scour the earth for the app for that specific model so it can turn off the keyboard backlight and remap some buttons. Now the screen broke and it's running as a Linux server, and guess whose backlight is turn on all day, everyday?

aucisson_masque 6mo ago

> An entire Electron framework - yes, they embedded a full Chromium browser engine to show you a pie chart of your disk space Ram is cheap and unused ram is wasted ram - Samsung management