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Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

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Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#31

Post by kergonath »

kccqzy wrote: post #14
kergonath wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand if the app pulls an Adobe and leaves tons of relatively heavy crap strewn about, yeah it should probably come with an uninstaller. Google is guilty of this sort of things as well. Well, it was anyway at some point. I somehow managed to get rid of everything, including their updater that re-installs itself regardless of what you do to remove it. I wish we had more control over sandboxes so we could…

macOS already has a sandbox. In practice many sandboxed apps can't actually write to /Library or ~/Library. They write to a sandboxed directory that pretends to be ~/Library further containing directories like ~/Library/Application Support. The real path of that directory is generally under ~/Library/Containers. Now for obvious reasons Apple cannot force all macOS apps to be sandboxed. It was already a PR hit when th…

> macOS already has a sandbox. In practice many sandboxed apps can't actually write to /Library or ~/Library. They write to a sandboxed directory that pretends to be ~/Library further containing directories like ~/Library/Application Support. The real path of that directory is generally under ~/Library/Containers.

I know that: what I would like is more ways for the users to control this. I expect these companies to do everything they can to evade restrictions, and I’d like some ways to tighten the rules more than the defaults for some applications. I think from the OS perspective everything is there already, just not accessible through any UI.

> Now for obvious reasons Apple cannot force all macOS apps to be sandboxed. It was already a PR hit when they required Mac App Store apps to be sandboxed.

Indeed. But overall it’s an improvement for user security, just like SIP and the read-only system image.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#32

Post by pnm45678 »

> Well, looks like we got a working uninstaller with a good user experience for free.

Yes, but the downside is that you're now relying on an unstable interface (as I understand it, this behaviour is not documented as a contract anywhere). Apple would be free to break you at any time.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#33

Post by pfp »

tacker2000 wrote: post #15
MissTake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, still leaves them behind. I’ve been using AppCleaner ( https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ ) for years now and it’s a real neat (and free) app that’ll do a pretty decent job of cleaning up crud.

This is just unbelievable. The billion $$ company cant just automate the uninstall procedure for their users? How hard would it be to auto delete the contents of ~/Library? Or have some periodic auto clean? one can always dream, no? I wonder how many users that have uninstalled VMware still have 30 gigs of unused VMs lying around on their disk.

No. The user data, preferences etc under ~/Library/ belong to you - whether it's 3 kB of preference toggles or 3 decades of email.

It would be "unbelievable" if a multibillion company decided to be helpful and erase your data just because you deleted the binary that created them (actually, it wouldn't, but let's not digress into how those companies are stripping away our agency by mobile-ossifying everything).

The whole Mac idea was that there's no "uninstall process" with opaque windoze registries etc; what the Finder shows you is simple enough for an average user to understand. Like dragging an "Application" or a CD-ROM into the Trash to get rid of it. Of course they ruined all that with ~/Library/{Preferences,Application Whatever,Kitchen Sink}/.

Turns out your UNIX with a human face ate its children afterall. With relish.

Also, "uninstallable" means "cannot be installed"

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#34

Post by marcellus23 »

pnm45678 wrote: post #32

> Well, looks like we got a working uninstaller with a good user experience for free. Yes, but the downside is that you're now relying on an unstable interface (as I understand it, this behaviour is not documented as a contract anywhere). Apple would be free to break you at any time.

True, but the worst that could reasonably happen is that the "X" button would go away and it would be just like every other non-MAS app.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#35

Post by miked85 »

tacker2000 wrote: post #15
MissTake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, still leaves them behind. I’ve been using AppCleaner ( https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ ) for years now and it’s a real neat (and free) app that’ll do a pretty decent job of cleaning up crud.

This is just unbelievable. The billion $$ company cant just automate the uninstall procedure for their users? How hard would it be to auto delete the contents of ~/Library? Or have some periodic auto clean? one can always dream, no? I wonder how many users that have uninstalled VMware still have 30 gigs of unused VMs lying around on their disk.

They are too busy working on allowing Safari to maximize as expected.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#36

Post by ryandrake »

mattigames wrote: post #23
jrmg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also just run apps from anywhere - network drives, removable disks, disk images etc., so the system can’t just delete settings for apps it’s currently unaware of.

That's also Apple's fault isn't it? App data should fall into an predictable folder regardless of the location from where is ran, if for whatever reason the app needs to use a different folder it should be something developers have to go to multiple hurdles to implement (e.g. specify in a manifest what files and where will them be stored, and explicitly specify it they should be automatically deleted or not after mov…

To be fair, the situation isn't much better on Windows or Linux. While at least they have a concept of uninstalling an application, you're still reliant on the developer actually getting it right and not missing some tempfile or something.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#37

Post by cush »

tacker2000 wrote: post #15
MissTake wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, still leaves them behind. I’ve been using AppCleaner ( https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ ) for years now and it’s a real neat (and free) app that’ll do a pretty decent job of cleaning up crud.

This is just unbelievable. The billion $$ company cant just automate the uninstall procedure for their users? How hard would it be to auto delete the contents of ~/Library? Or have some periodic auto clean? one can always dream, no? I wonder how many users that have uninstalled VMware still have 30 gigs of unused VMs lying around on their disk.

It’s a tradeoff between an incredibly user-friendly install experience for non App Store apps, vs a clean uninstall experience.

The OS doesn’t know what files that app created, thus can’t clean them up.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#38

Post by stuartd »

timothevs wrote: post #12
tinglymintyfrsh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppZapper isn't free, but it's much more thorough.

Really? I thought it was abandonware… I used it all the time back in the day, but I thought it went the way of the Disco app.

Got AppZapper from a bundle maybe a decade ago. Still works.

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#39

Post by throwaway892238 »

The thing I hate more than anything else about technology is when people make things that are intentionally shitty, for no other reason than they want it to be shitty.

  "Hello billion dollar company, I would like a way to install and uninstall my software in your operating system."
  "No."
  "Wh.... huh? Please?"
  "Pay us money and go through our app store."
  "Um....why? No? Please? Can't you just let me make software and give it to users, without going through you?"
  "No."
  "Why not?"
  "We don't like it when you do that."
  "So?"
  "So you only get to do what we say, how we say."
  "Why?"
  "It makes us happy."
  "And what about the users' happiness?"
  *laughs in dollar bills*

Re: Making macOS Apps Uninstallable

#40

Post by swatcoder »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #39

The thing I hate more than anything else about technology is when people make things that are intentionally shitty, for no other reason than they want it to be shitty. "Hello billion dollar company, I would like a way to install and uninstall my software in your operating system." "No." "Wh.... huh? Please?" "Pay us money and go through our app store." "Um....why? No? Please? Can't you just let me make software and g…

Makes a product for consumers who want it, knowing that other successful and widely available products exist for other consumers.

Apple’s choices may not be what everyone wants, but they’re not without upsides for those that do.

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