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The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

eclecticlight.co

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Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#81

Post by diebir »

Meh. Mac OS X package management is irreparably broken to begin with. There is a "package manager" but... it only knows how to install, not remove packages.

Then the software vendors are divided as to whether the software should be installed by "dragging" an image into Applications folder, or by running an installer of some sort, which is usually a package that installs other packages or some such. Then, there is a Apple store crap on top of all this, which, if I remember correctly, is also a package manager install.

Apple sucks at software. Mac OS X is stuck in 1995, as far as package management goes. The consumer does not care, hence Apple has no incentive to fix this mess.

Apple has a beautiful thing going: the "drag to install" and the self contained software images. Yet, they won't make any effort to regulate this.

P.S. The "uninstall" process on Mac OS X is usually some sort of a crappy shell script, which executes various "rm -rf" commands. The reliability and quality of those commands is left to the creativity of developers, that normally have no clue and write shell code by looking up examples on the Internet. It's a wonder uninstalls do not wipe out the whole disk more often.

What. A. Mess.

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#82

Post by misterdata »

diebir wrote: post #81

Meh. Mac OS X package management is irreparably broken to begin with. There is a "package manager" but... it only knows how to install, not remove packages. Then the software vendors are divided as to whether the software should be installed by "dragging" an image into Applications folder, or by running an installer of some sort, which is usually a package that installs other packages or some such. Then, there is a A…

This may be true, but still I've encountered very few problems installing, updating and removing software on my Mac despite this compared to other platforms I've used. Why would having separate package managers coexist be a bad thing if they can be complementary? (e.g. Homebrew installs different kinds of things than the drag-to-Applications-folder mechanism).

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#83

Post by Twisell »

diebir wrote: post #81

Meh. Mac OS X package management is irreparably broken to begin with. There is a "package manager" but... it only knows how to install, not remove packages. Then the software vendors are divided as to whether the software should be installed by "dragging" an image into Applications folder, or by running an installer of some sort, which is usually a package that installs other packages or some such. Then, there is a A…

Meanwhile on my office PC Windows 10 seem still struggling with the concept of a meaningful progress bar or a readable list of system update (BEFORE triggering a 2 hours WTF update for obscure reasons).

Apple do know how to manage packet for system update and provide a dumb-customer-prof one « The AppStore » for paying developers.

If developers write messy scripts how come you would it be fair to blame apple. And you will find dubious install process on every plateform from dirty .bat on Win to « easy » makefile for Unix that work after 2 hours of hard tweaking.

Sorry for the rant :/

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#84

Post by dunham »

sp00ls wrote: post #69
mintplant wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have barely any experience with macOS, but could an application perform those steps on a user's behalf if it were granted Accessibility access?

Every app I've installed that wants accessibility access follows the same steps from the comment you replied to. You must explicitly unlock that pane with your password after clicking the lock and then enable the app to have accessibility access.

It's also possible to detect input events from accessibility. Little Snitch detects and ignores those events (tested via "Synergy" - a keyboard/mouse sharing application), as does the download icon that appears in the upper right corner of iBooks (I don't know why).

The accessibility preferences panel appears to accept those synthetic events, however.

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#85

Post by throwaway2048 »

abritinthebay wrote: post #57
carlosrg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an user too and I'd like to be treated like an adult by my operating system.

You’re not the general case.

Does that mean that he shouldn't care about his own experience? Maybe he should just watch American idol, listen to the top 20 pop hits and eat at McDonalds too, because obviously if he isn't in the majority, his opinion dosen't matter.

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#86

Post by romwell »

Twisell wrote: post #83
diebir wrote: post #81

Meh. Mac OS X package management is irreparably broken to begin with. There is a "package manager" but... it only knows how to install, not remove packages. Then the software vendors are divided as to whether the software should be installed by "dragging" an image into Applications folder, or by running an installer of some sort, which is usually a package that installs other packages or some such. Then, there is a A…

Meanwhile on my office PC Windows 10 seem still struggling with the concept of a meaningful progress bar or a readable list of system update (BEFORE triggering a 2 hours WTF update for obscure reasons). Apple do know how to manage packet for system update and provide a dumb-customer-prof one « The AppStore » for paying developers. If developers write messy scripts how come you would it be fair to blame apple. And you…

Well, while your rant is true, I haven't had to deal with BAT files (or even Powershell scripts) in Windows installs for a very long time.

(One reason for that may be NSIS, bequeathed onto us by Justin Frankel of Winamp, Gnutella and Reaper fame, which allows for streamlined (un)installers).

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#87

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

acdha wrote: post #70
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an organization's network, protecting resources from the user is a concept that makes sense. On personal devices, protecting anything from the user is a backwards and broken model that doesn't respect reality. It's the user's device, they should be able to use it any way they want. There is no need, or desire, to protect it from the user. What we really want to do, is protect the user's data from malicious actors,…

> It's the user's device, they should be able to use it any way they want. Your mistake is conflating what the user authorizing with what the user wants. Nobody wants to install malware but millions of people manage every day. If blaming the user for mistakes was going to be a successful strategy we’d have evidence of that by now but since the opposite is true it’s no surprise that everyone is doing things which actu…

> Your mistake is conflating what the user authorizing with what the user wants.

Unless you are arrogant enough to believe that you can read the user's mind to know what they actually want, then the only alternative is that you end up with a system that can only be used for the narrow use case you imagine.

This is probably why the Linux Desktop is only really useful as a web kiosk.

>If blaming the user for mistakes was going to be a successful strategy we’d have evidence of that by now

If user-oriented permissions were going to work we'd have evidence for that. Instead what we have is people being infected by ransomware that never needed a privilege escalation at all, because some idiot was so concerned with protecting the OS from the user they forgot to protect the user's data from malicious actors.

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#88

Post by acdha »

twir wrote: post #80
acdha wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as with SELinux or AppArmor, you can ignore it if you think your normal practices keep you safe. That's probably mistaken but it's fully under your control: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Se...

I don't mind those features in and of themselves, and I see their value; it's Apple's paternalistic attitude that bothers me. I've used Macs for my entire life and always felt I still had a semblance of control over the hardware and software that I bought, but that feeling of control is going away.

How is a feature you can turn off paternalistic? I’d think that argument is much stronger about iOS.

Re: The ‘app’ you can’t trash: how SIP is broken in High Sierra

#89

Post by abritinthebay »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #85
abritinthebay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not the general case.

Does that mean that he shouldn't care about his own experience? Maybe he should just watch American idol, listen to the top 20 pop hits and eat at McDonalds too, because obviously if he isn't in the majority, his opinion dosen't matter.

Good lord that was a hell of a leap of logic you just made. You must be tired after jumping to conclusions and attacking straw men.

Meanwhile, here in reality, the general case is what is design something for (you, btw, were describing lowest common denominator programming - a very different thing with a different, tho related, focus).

Understanding what niche you occupy is key to understanding what products and services are designed for you & which are not. Complaining that you are not catered to as a uncommon case in general purpose product is not only fruitless it’s also foolish.

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