This doesn't seem any worse than Chrome continually updating itself.
Or Office, Creative Suite or dozens of other major applications.
Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
21–30 of 93 posts
Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#22Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#23This doesn't seem any worse than Chrome continually updating itself.
Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#24This doesn't seem any worse than Chrome continually updating itself.
In chrome you have the option to disable the auto update feature - an option that is noticeably missing here.
The Dropbox sync service, on the other hand, is literally just the client half of Dropbox's own proprietary backend. If Dropbox makes an ABI-incompatible change to their sync protocol on the server side, the non-updated client will just break until you update.
Wanting to disable updates to such a service, would be like wanting to load the old version of a webapp SPA whenever you visit the site. What's the point? It's not going to (have been designed to) work that way.
Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#25This doesn't seem any worse than Chrome continually updating itself.
Both of them doing that in mandatory fashion is unacceptable. I might be OK with running this bit of their code on my computer, but it's not an open bar for dropping anything executable onto my machine at will.
Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#26And if you're conscious enough about your digital security that you really do mind Dropbox updating itself automatically, why did you install their app in the first place? The only OS I actually expect to protect me from the apps I install is iOS, and only in combination with the AppStore review process.
From what I hear, Apple's attempts at creating similar safeguards in macOS with the Mac AppStore has not been received that well with developers because of the restrictions sandboxing place on the apps.
Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd still prefer to be prompted to update. I know my phone is a security mess. But I want my desktop not to be.
That is funny to me because I assume my phone is much more secure (with strict sandboxing) compared to my desktop.
Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
In chrome you have the option to disable the auto update feature - an option that is noticeably missing here.
Chrome is a program that has standalone functionality where the program would still do useful work without updating. The Dropbox sync service, on the other hand, is literally just the client half of Dropbox's own proprietary backend. If Dropbox makes an ABI-incompatible change to their sync protocol on the server side, the non-updated client will just break until you update. Wanting to disable updates to such a servi…
Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background
#29I wonder how they did the auto-update that brought that feature to me... I have a pretty shitty internet connection here and i recognized the dropbox updater sucking up my bandwidth yesterday... I've not triggered any manual update...
To the best of my knowledge I haven't updated recently, so they've basically had an auto-update feature sitting dormant for a while.
Nothing fishy here.