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Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

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Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

#31

Post by saurik »

derefr wrote: post #24
libeclipse wrote: post #23

Earlier 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…

Websites are sandboxed sufficiently that they aren't supposed to be able to do anything crazy to my computer or access any of my data as new versions come out: the same is not true of Dropbox. I don't want some system automatically upgrading the code running on my computer. I want to be able to download new code for my computer and choose to install it. This means that if there's a bug introduced by the new software in my workflow, I have at least some chance in hell of knowing what caused the issue: "oh yeah, I just upgraded Dropbox"; when Dropbox just upgrades itself, one day my computer just starts being unstable, and I'm essentially screwed. This is markedly different (and worse) than Chrome updating itself, as Chrome doesn't inject itself into other random processes or extend the functionality of other parts of my computer: if Chrome upgrades itself into something broken, I will almost certainly be able to notice when I start by closing everything that I'm running, one by one. Software that automatically upgrades itself is also subject to targeted attacks: maybe one day I, and only I, get targeted with a new version of Dropbox, maybe not even being sent to me by Dropbox (due to some MITM-able flaw in their upgrade system) that is actually spyware. When I manually download new software on my schedule, particularly if I'm downloading it manually with a web browser, especially so if I download it once "anonymously" and reuse the download on all of my computers, I can feel a lot safer that I'm not being targetted. This is just so so so fundamentally different than a new version of a web site :/.

Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

#33

Post by jhasse »

eps wrote: post #16
cdransf wrote: post #7

This 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.

> Both of them doing that in mandatory fashion is unacceptable.

Don't install their apps then. There are lots of alternatives out there.

Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

#34

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

threeseed wrote: post #13
cdransf wrote: post #7

This doesn't seem any worse than Chrome continually updating itself.

Or Office, Creative Suite or dozens of other major applications.

Adobe software is a notorious offender for intrusive background updater processes. It's not exactly something to aspire to.

Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

#35

Post by ddebernardy »

larsnystrom wrote: post #26

Of course I see the possibility of harm here, but really, isn't automatic updates pretty standard by now? I mean, it's got to be better than letting a large swath of users run old versions of the software because they don't know how/don't care to update it. I mean, isn't that the more severe security issue at hand? And if you're conscious enough about your digital security that you really do mind Dropbox updating its…

> because they don't know how/don't care to update it

In this case the reality probably is closer to: because they don't know they should be worrying about it.

(Sample of one, obviously, but I certainly didn't know I should, and yet never got any kind of notification to that effect until I sought to delete the app a few weeks ago.)

It's so matter of factly on consumer devices that things just update themselves or nag you to do it from time to time, that it somewhat boggles the mind that it wasn't automated.

Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

#36

Post by victorhooi »

eps wrote: post #18

This is NOT about keeping everyone updated and reducing the pool of older clients. This can be done by simply denying service to outdated versions. It worked very well for AOL Messenger 20 years ago, no reason why it won't work just as well today. This is strictly about being able to install anything on users' machines at will and having a formal consent to do that. The fact that Chrome and others do that doesn't mak…

You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users - which is the exactly the opposite effect that Dropbox wants.

For the majority of typical users of Dropbox (and HN certainly doesn't count as typical), this is a net win in every way. They get the latest bugfixes, and they don't need to worry about all this downloading installers rubbish that seems so last decade.

Also - if you were deathly worried about Dropbox and what they could do - firstly, why would you install their client to begin with, considering it's entirely closed-source? Secondly, why would you use a cloud storage provider like them to begin with?

You talk about "losing control" - why not spin your own Dropbox? (I suspect many people, nerds included, underestimate the sheer amount of engineering and technical man years that go into something like this). However, for the Stallman's among it, it may make sense.

Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

#39

Post by victorhooi »

eps wrote: post #16
cdransf wrote: post #7

This 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.

If it's unacceptable, why would you use the Google Chrome browser?

It's open-source (Chromium project) - just compile it yourself?

Once you've run somebody else's binary, you're already conferring significant trust on them. And I might be biased, but the Chrome team has shown themselves to be very vigilant with security, and generally on-the-ball on all of these things. (Memory issues aside...although I'm not going to get into that...lol).

Many newer projects do this - e.g. Atom from Github auto-updates.

VS Code from Microsoft does this - I think it's awesome! =)

Re: Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

#40

Post by r618 »

stopped using dropbox on mac after the last snafu with forced accessibility features access, unability to uninstall itself properly and it monitoring the whole filesystem file i/o ( wtf ? )

i've been using icloud drive only on mac ever since - unfortunately it does not have public links ( or any public access for that matter ) - which is the only feature which is good on dropbox and i'm using it on windows machines

with the recent collaboration additions and its web UI/UX, dropbox is somehow becoming strange sharing frankenstein

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