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What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

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Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#61

Post by AussieWog93 »

caslon wrote: post #53
AussieWog93 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, instead you have to apply guesswork to figure out why an apt-get call accidentally uninstalled your desktop environment. :P

"One distribution using one package manager is bad when piloted by an incompetent YouTuber who ignores multiple warnings. Therefore, all of free software is bad."

It's more than just Linus's experience with Pop OS.

So many (consumer-focused) FOSS products have huge, obtuse quirks in them that prevent their widespread adoption, and uber-tech-literate people tend to overlook this because they really want to believe that FOSS can succeed.

In reality, a lot of these quirks come about because of the non-commercial nature of the projects[1]. When a business produces software, the aim is to get as many people as possible to use it. This means a smooth (enough) user experience or death.

For software written by volunteers, the aim is to (generally) satisfy the intellectual curiosity of the people writing it. This means huge issues for users, and QA in basically all forms, are overlooked in favour of working on cool/interesting things for developers.

[1] Yes, I know commercial FOSS exists. I run a reasonably large commercial FOSS project myself. However, the overwhelming majority of FOSS projects out there are volunteer-led and run.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#62

Post by dx034 »

sdfjkl wrote: post #6

Open source is where you don't have to apply guesswork to find out what a suspicious looking piece of software is doing on your computer.

No, the only protection against that is to block all outgoing connections that aren't on a white list. Most servers I have work this way. It's annoying at times but lowers the risk of some shady software/library talking home to ~0%.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#63

Post by dx034 »

Cockbrand wrote: post #43

I was never aware of this, and while poking around I came across ~/Library/Trial/Treatments/ /factorPacks/ /assets/com.apple.siri.asr.dictation.*/etiquette.json These files do contain an impressive amount of swear words, some of which I had never heard.

Only in one language or in all languages supported by Siri? Would be great when learning a new language :)

But probably needed for Siri to process speech locally, as they'd likely want to filter out those words.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#64

Post by dx034 »

csmattryder wrote: post #19
cabirum wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't remember a time when users were in control and actually owned Apple-made hard- and software. However, linux is alive and well, despite some flavours attempting to force autoupdating snap stores and the like onto users.

Linux can be chatty, but I'd recommend installing OpenSnitch to get a handle on the few phone-home calls from programs like snapd (if you choose to not neuter it, immediately) and distro-specific upsells like "ubuntu-advantage". The biggest pay-off for OpenSnitch is if you're going to be installing and using third-party programs like VSCode and Unity, who love to talk to analytics providers.

Can't that be filtered on a dns level with a list in pihole? Probably much nicer not having to keep it on all devices.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#65

Post by rosndo »

dmitriid wrote: post #31
sdfjkl wrote: post #6

Open source is where you don't have to apply guesswork to find out what a suspicious looking piece of software is doing on your computer.

Except it's been proven again and again that this is not even remotely the truth. The number of people who can properly analyse complex software to uncover what it actually does is a line asymptotically approaching zero. While OpenSSL is an overused example, it still remains a good one.

And the people who can do so are usually the same people who’d be perfectly capable of analyzing binaries directly.

Besides, you’ll never know if the code you’re looking at abuses some compiler quirk without studying the binary.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#67

Post by bee_rider »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #61
caslon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One distribution using one package manager is bad when piloted by an incompetent YouTuber who ignores multiple warnings. Therefore, all of free software is bad."

It's more than just Linus's experience with Pop OS. So many (consumer-focused) FOSS products have huge, obtuse quirks in them that prevent their widespread adoption, and uber-tech-literate people tend to overlook this because they really want to believe that FOSS can succeed. In reality, a lot of these quirks come about because of the non-commercial nature of the projects[1]. When a business produces software, the ai…

Who said free software was easy to use? It just reduces guesswork. It is often the case that precise tools both enable and require a little more understanding on the part of the users.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#68

Post by bee_rider »

rosndo wrote: post #65
dmitriid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's been proven again and again that this is not even remotely the truth. The number of people who can properly analyse complex software to uncover what it actually does is a line asymptotically approaching zero. While OpenSSL is an overused example, it still remains a good one.

And the people who can do so are usually the same people who’d be perfectly capable of analyzing binaries directly. Besides, you’ll never know if the code you’re looking at abuses some compiler quirk without studying the binary.

Somebody should tell the folks designing high-level languages that their code is no easier to analyze than a binary, I guess.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#69

Post by SanderSantema »

pjmlp wrote: post #20
sdfjkl wrote: post #6

Open source is where you don't have to apply guesswork to find out what a suspicious looking piece of software is doing on your computer.

Indeed, only to learn about all the programming languages, libraries and communication protocols used in the system, and then they might understand what is happening.

Whereas on closed source you’d have to do all of that and probably a good deal of reverse engineering on top of that. That’s unfortunately not something which it necessarily makes any easier, but rather a lot harder.

Re: What is triald and why is it taking so much disk space?

#70

Post by klohto »

dan1234 wrote: post #40
pilif wrote: post #34

I looked at one of the files: `~/Library/Trial/Treatments/SIRI_DIALOG_ASSETS/factorPacks/6242008c0f185b3e2ef6bf8e/assets/com.apple.siri.dialog.socialconversationfl#d5b431b/dialog/SocialConversation.catfamily/dalWhoIsYourValentine.cat/en.cat.bin` the file is gzip compressed and the decompressed data reveals some strings that are probably related to the question asked in the `cat` file: tag:valentine";Only localize if…

I've also disabled Siri and my ~/Library/Trial directory is only 3.6M (with no SIRI_DIALOG_ASSETS dir - so no valentines for me). Maybe you should check that Siri is still disabled on your Mac?

Interesting, I have it off but still have the folder. Did you do any "extra" steps to disable Siri?
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