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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

#51

Post by disiplus »

ddebernardy wrote: post #35
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…

i disabled the automatic update on my android device. i had a lot of apps installed and had the feeling something is updating all the time and trashing my battery life. and then there is problem that alot of times the new wersions are worse then older ones. i had the instance where newer versions of apps, had features removed because they now offer "pro" version, and also change the layout to cram more ads. so now im updating the app only if i notice that something is not working right.

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

#52

Post by izacus »

nkristoffersen wrote: post #17
greenhatman wrote: post #12

Earlier 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.

Except that each of those sandboxed apps keeps uploading your behavioural and private data pretty much constantly with no ability for you to limit or stop it like you can on the deskop :)

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

#53

Post by huhtenberg »

victorhooi wrote: post #36
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 l…

>You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users

No, it won't.

It's an urban legend.

For every support request that cannot be answered from a stock pile of answers, the first reply is "update to the latest version and then come back." and not once did I see anyone ever complain about it (leave alone become angry) in my 20+ years in IT business. Never. Not a single complaint. Those who can upgrade will upgrade when asked.

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

#54

Post by thanksgiving »

tajen wrote: post #49
Gaelan wrote: post #11

Ugh. I'm all for calling out Dropbox (or anyone else) when they actually do something wrong, but this is getting ridiculous.

I think the concern might be that we are more and more granting ownership of our machines: If NSA wants to install a spyware on targetted systems, they have a dozen autoupdate channels to do it through now. Which is good because we do nothing wrong. Apart from Youporn, where only one underage model that you didn't know about could lead you to jail. You know, accusations do wonders for your career. Apart from this cat…

> I think the concern might be that we are more and more granting ownership of our machines: If NSA wants to install a spyware on targetted systems, they have a dozen autoupdate channels to do it through now.

> Which is good because we do nothing wrong. Apart from Youporn, where only one underage model that you didn't know about could lead you to jail. You know, accusations do wonders for your career.

> Apart from this catastrophic scenario, I don't either see what's wrong. How many people per year are accused of pedophilia, that could be due to conflicting work/nation interests?

Thank you. And to people who think this won't affect them, it doesn't even have to be cp charges. NSA has lost the fight to keep its uncensored dragnet data to itself. Today, it is FBI who has access to it. Tomorrow, it will be the IRS which is fine. However, the real kicker will come when state departments of revenue and city police get their hands on it.

Remember, we as a people, legitimately break the law millions of times every day. It doesn't have to be cooked up evidence. If someone wants to hang any of us "upstanding" citizens, they just have to look hard enough.

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

#55

Post by thanksgiving »

victorhooi wrote: post #39
eps wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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

My impression was that at least in Debian based systems (Ubuntu and others), it updates with apt now?

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

#56

Post by lokedhs »

huhtenberg wrote: post #53
victorhooi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users No, it won't. It's an urban legend. For every support request that cannot be answered from a stock pile of answers, the first reply is "update to the latest version and then come back." and not once did I see anyone ever complain about it (leave alone become angry) in my 20+ years in IT business. Never…

That depends on the industry. I have worked with support for about as long as you, and many clients wants to find a solution that they can use until they upgrade (since the upgrade process can take quite some time if you have lots of dependent software that needs validating).

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

#57

Post by OskarS »

microtonal wrote: post #45
jhasse wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both of them doing that in mandatory fashion is unacceptable. Don't install their apps then. There are lots of alternatives out there.

So, what is a good alternative to Dropbox that supports LAN sync, block-level uploads [1], revisions, and that most of my colleagues, friends and friends have or can set up? If you actually look at the competition, most of them do not have LAN sync or block sync (OneDrive, Google Drive), they do not have proper support for revisions (Resilio Sync), or are hard to set up for most people (Syncthing). [1] So that if I c…

There is probably no product with the exact feature set of Dropbox. But if you want to take the principled stand, you'll have to live with that. You can't be all "refuse closed-source autoupdating software, it is evil! Richard Stallman was right all along!" and then complain about you not getting the features that those products offer. That's the price you pay for your principles.

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

#59

Post by Nullabillity »

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…

> 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.

So... don't break ABI compatibility?

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

#60

Post by nicky0 »

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…

I'm sure my Dropbox has been updating itself already for years.
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