How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’ • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#181

Post by president » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #146

Fiahil wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enterprise customer DO give a damn about security. They can be slow to react, but rules are also there for a very long time. If Zoom doesn't want to loose most of their marketshare in favor of WebEx, they should probably address these issues.

This is hilariously wrong. I brought up Zoom issues at our enterprise client - no one gives a shit (this is in Germany, so rather privacy focused). As a consultant I felt a need to bring the issues up, backed with sources of course. So why does no one care? Because Zoom UI/UX apparently works 100x better than most other solutions. People dont even REACT when I mentions Jitsi or just using the Teams solution that ever…

Could also be an issue of pricing. I wouldn't be surprised if Zoom is cheaper than MS. Maybe someone with knowledge on the sourcing side could comment on that.

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#182

Post by basch » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

Saaster wrote: post #132

untog wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just amazes me that the "just works" solution here is still a native app. Plenty of reasons to use native apps but in 2020 video conferencing really isn't one: WebRTC is capable and supported by every major desktop and mobile browser. It's literally one click and you're done!

None of the WebRTC based options just work, they're all glitchy and cannot scale up to even moderate amounts of users. We have Google Hangouts Meet for free for our org, and we still pay for Zoom because It Just Works.

Even having the "unblock this site from camera and microphone" burried in the browser chrome or settings pages somewhere is a dealbreaker. It's too easy for people to mindlessly click "no" to can this access your microphone, because of the way the browser pops it up during first use, instead of during "install."

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#183

Post by johannes1234321 » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #75

aequitas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just had a corporate presentation with around 250 people. Normally we use Teams or Slack for internal communication, this was also stated by management, that Zoom should only be used for 'big' meetings like this. I think they know the other solutions will not work as well for bigger groups. I've not had issues with using either solution for small group meetings. Actually I have to go out of my way to run Zoom in t…

App installation should always just be a file copy. Deinstallation should always just be a move to Trash (or ~/Disabled equiv). IMHO. I'm even uncomfortable with config scattered everywhere. The continued need for those 3rd party uninstallers is an admission of failure. Source: released products ported to misc Windows, classic Mac, modern Mac. Our dev, QA, Test, tech supp was always so much easier on Mac. Not least b…

If the file is only moved to trash it will keep configuration and other artefacts around or not support such features or the file ahs to be mutable, which is questionable from a security pov

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#184

Post by jwr » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #10

aequitas wrote: post #6

Not that I'm in favor of this practice, but the one key feature that conference software must have is: it just works™. Nothing turns you off more from a conferencing solution than: any problem getting it working right now. When there is just the slightest issue, one person not being able to join, one person not getting voice to work, bad audio, your entire team is blocked/distracted. Which results in a collective dis…

I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. Because in an enterprise context it is often hard to download an executable and run it with sufficient permissions. While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. What makes Zoom more "just works" than that?

> I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't.

I'm also curious. I subscribed to Whereby (https://whereby.com/), where I can send people a URL, which they click and land in my conference room. There is ZERO software they need to install.

[For all the "well, actually" folks: yes, it "only" works in every modern browser out there, and it works "only" for up to 12 people. Fine with me.]

Zoom has more features, but there are many other solutions that work much better and are WAY simpler. It's just that Zoom is well known, and it's easiest to choose the tool that everyone has heard about.

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#185

Post by jopolous » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

jcelerier wrote: post #164

jopolous wrote: post #133

On a simpler level, zoom on macOS sketches me out in lots of ways. My macbook's bluetooth will not connect to my earbuds, but only when zoom is running. Other audio recording/playing apps don't affect things at all. What the heck is going on here?! Scrolling on settings panels is definitely their own home-brewed scrolling functionality. Why?! Was macOS's not cutting it for some reason? The settings menu is very clear…

> My macbook's bluetooth will not connect to my earbuds, but only when zoom is running. that sounds like something related to this bug : https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/airpods-get-stuck-low...

Nice, that's pretty much what I had to do to fix this. I used the bluetooth explorer to force AAC, and force zoom to use the internal MacBook mic

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#186

Post by sgustard » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

kiliancs wrote: post #178

t0mas88 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. Because in an enterprise context it is often hard to download an executable and run it with sufficient permissions. While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. What makes Zoom more "just works" than that?

From my perspective, working in the browser is not necessarily "just working", because for many combinations of OS/hardware, the performance is terrible and not only eats battery and will slow down other programs, but also affects the quality of the call (audio and video).

Also, granting a website access to my camera, granting access to my microphone, and so on; which are really not functions I want to be granting any websites. I don't run a browser to have it randomly turn on surveillance devices. I prefer to run an app to access my camera and quit it when I'm done.

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#187

Post by giovannibajo1 » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

milesskorpen wrote: post #92

jeroenhd wrote: post #89

As someone who's never used or seen Zoom in action, what's pulling people into Zoom that's not already available in other tools (Hangouts Meet, MS Teams) and even works without installing anything (such as Jitsi)? Based on what I've seen, there's just so much hostile behaviour by the company (including lying about meeting HIPAA e2e requirements!) and the fact that their _official client_ had parts removed by the macO…

I use Meet at work. For social gatherings, my friend group exclusively uses Zoom because (a) better tiling (seems small, but you want to see everyone) and (b) video quality seems better.

There’s a chrome extension to do tiling:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-meet-grid-v...

Which is even more infuriating because it shows that missing tiling in Meet is just a frontend issue.

I’m completely baffled that this is not implemented.

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#188

Post by giovannibajo1 » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

jtvjan wrote: post #94

wodenokoto wrote: post #54

Having never installed Zoom, and honestly not having photographic memory of how the installation process on MacOS is, how is it supposed to look in the installer? Also, what happened to just dragging the program into the applications folder? I really liked that way of installing apps, but most things seems to have an annoying click-through wizard.

They embedded their installation into a pre-install script. Normally, you'd go through a next-next-next process with a pkg installer, but in this case you get a popup asking you if you want to allow it to "run a program to determine if the software can be installed" (the purpose of pre-install scripts) immediately after opening the pkg, you authenticate, and then the installer just disappears.

Before that, when they had the shady web server, the zoom application would pop up immediately connected to the right meaning, as your browser would be “waking it up” via http. It looks like they still haven’t fixed this after they removed the http server.

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#189

Post by jedieaston » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #40

rainforest wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To their credit, they seem to be using AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges which doesn't get the user's password, but executes a command as root, which is marginally better than stealing the password like Dropbox did.

How hard do you think it is to steal a password once you have root?

It should be impossible with SIP enabled, as in OS X 10.14 Apple protected the files in /var/db/dslocal where the user shadow files are stored so that root could not read them (unless triggered by an Apple signed executable, like Software Update). If you are running with SIP disabled you've taken the risk of it happening, and if you are on a corporate laptop (or 99% of personal machines) it is engaged.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/344117/mac-10-13-1...

Re: How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you clicking ‘install’

#190

Post by benhurmarcel » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

rickyc091 wrote: post #170

t0mas88 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. Because in an enterprise context it is often hard to download an executable and run it with sufficient permissions. While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. What makes Zoom more "just works" than that?

Google requires you to have a Google account. Kids in middle school (ages 12-14) and younger typically don't have an email address. Zoom, on the other hand, lets you join a call without logging in. You can even join straight from the browser if needed without installing anything.

> Google requires you to have a Google account

Not for joining a meeting, no. You just type your name.