It sounds like a (Mac OS|OSX) issue, because why is it looking for URL handlers in its backups?
You could test it with Slack, they also use the same way ("tell the browser to load a URL") to load their app from the browser.
Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
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Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#12Sort of sidetracking, but: afaik applications open from a browser via a custom protocol in a link, and for that the application has to be already installed—unless MacOS offers to search the app store (if it does, not sure). So, this suggests to me that either MacOS leaves protocol associations in place after uninstalling an app, and has the machinery to resurrect such an app from the backups, or Zoom leaves around a…
It might be possible that the uninstaller does something strange to "uninstall" the app and leaves macOS confused.
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#13Open a bug with Apple about this. They fixed an issue I reported a few years back about being able to launch applications in the Trash. They will likely want to add the same restriction to Time Machine Backups as well.
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#14I wasn't aware that any non-OS service even had access to data and applications saved in Time Machine. This might be worthy of a bug bounty report to Apple.
There's at least one app for figuring out why every hourly backup takes half a gigabyte. It might require root privileges, but I doubt that.
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#15This sounds like it might be a bug/misconfiguration in Launch Services, which deals things like application registration and URL scheme handling. Since I would expect your browser to do something like call to the system to open the URL (LSOpenURLsWithRole, et al.) I don't think this is a problem with Zoom.
In which case the following may help:
Dump LS database: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -dump > ~/lsdump.txt
Purge LS database: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#16another plug for the zoom redirect plugin https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#17I wasn't aware that any non-OS service even had access to data and applications saved in Time Machine. This might be worthy of a bug bounty report to Apple.
There's at least one app for figuring out why every hourly backup takes half a gigabyte. It might require root privileges, but I doubt that.
Wait, is that not normal?
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#18Open a bug with Apple about this. They fixed an issue I reported a few years back about being able to launch applications in the Trash. They will likely want to add the same restriction to Time Machine Backups as well.
What if you need to run an old version of the application?
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#19Open a bug with Apple about this. They fixed an issue I reported a few years back about being able to launch applications in the Trash. They will likely want to add the same restriction to Time Machine Backups as well.
What if you need to run an old version of the application?
Copy it out.
Re: Tell HN: Zoom runs application from Time Machine backup when uninstalled on Mac
#20another plug for the zoom redirect plugin https://github.com/arkadiyt/zoom-redirector
Except it appears Zoom has disabled their web client for now?