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Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

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Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#11

Post by icelancer »

sprinfo wrote: post #3
x0x0 wrote: post #2

Everyone who's spent 3 hours talking a parent through downloading and installing a Zoom client understands exactly why they're doing this. Mine are unable to (1) reliably download a zip file; (2) navigate to that file using Finder; (3) run something inside it. By the time we were done -- I use copilot (basically VNC with NAT punching built in) -- and I got control of the laptop to just do it myself, there were 7 down…

This is not a valid to excuse companies when they do this.

For this forum, maybe not. For 99.9% of their userbase, it plainly is.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#12

Post by amluto »

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Everyone who's spent 3 hours talking a parent through downloading and installing a Zoom client understands exactly why they're doing this. Mine are unable to (1) reliably download a zip file; (2) navigate to that file using Finder; (3) run something inside it. By the time we were done -- I use copilot (basically VNC with NAT punching built in) -- and I got control of the laptop to just do it myself, there were 7 down…

And how exactly does this type of script help? The hard part is done before the script runs.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#13

Post by gamegod »

sigjuice wrote: post #5
x0x0 wrote: post #2

Everyone who's spent 3 hours talking a parent through downloading and installing a Zoom client understands exactly why they're doing this. Mine are unable to (1) reliably download a zip file; (2) navigate to that file using Finder; (3) run something inside it. By the time we were done -- I use copilot (basically VNC with NAT punching built in) -- and I got control of the laptop to just do it myself, there were 7 down…

They need to do the work to get on the Mac App Store

The Mac App Store is a trap - The sandboxed APIs are severely limited, and no large company is going to let Apple get even more in-between them and their customers.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#14

Post by pfranz »

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Everyone who's spent 3 hours talking a parent through downloading and installing a Zoom client understands exactly why they're doing this. Mine are unable to (1) reliably download a zip file; (2) navigate to that file using Finder; (3) run something inside it. By the time we were done -- I use copilot (basically VNC with NAT punching built in) -- and I got control of the laptop to just do it myself, there were 7 down…

> My MIL and I have literally had facetime pointed at her laptop while I directed her where to to get copilot running for the quarterly cleansing-of-the-spyware.

I haven't used it, but macOS does have screen sharing built into Messages.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#16

Post by wmf »

icelancer wrote: post #10
wmf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that problem exists it needs to be solved at the OS level, not worked around in shady ways. BTW, can't Web pages link to the app store?

So you want Zoom and Webex to submit a patch to OSX?

I would say they should put pressure on Apple to make the install flow better, but what am I saying; this is Apple.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#17

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

I still don’t understand the issue with this: it’s not using this feature as intended, but they’re not exploiting any vulnerabilities or attempting to exploit a privilege escalation bug in macOS. Apple’s installers allow these scripts to do anything (and I believe there’s a prompt along the lines of “this installer will run a script to determine if the package can be installed”).

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#19

Post by cosmotic »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #17

I still don’t understand the issue with this: it’s not using this feature as intended, but they’re not exploiting any vulnerabilities or attempting to exploit a privilege escalation bug in macOS. Apple’s installers allow these scripts to do anything (and I believe there’s a prompt along the lines of “this installer will run a script to determine if the package can be installed”).

They may not be exploiting vulnerabilities but they are breaking the contact with the expectations users have of how installers work.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#20

Post by berti »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #17

I still don’t understand the issue with this: it’s not using this feature as intended, but they’re not exploiting any vulnerabilities or attempting to exploit a privilege escalation bug in macOS. Apple’s installers allow these scripts to do anything (and I believe there’s a prompt along the lines of “this installer will run a script to determine if the package can be installed”).

> “this installer will run a script _to determine if the package can be installed_”

Why would the user expect that script to install the application, or even modify their system in any way?

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