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Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

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Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#161

Post by jen729w »

nmgycombinator wrote: post #95
xp84 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No comment on the overall topic, but I have long made a practice of installing into $HOME/Applications instead[1], and it's rare for me to encounter software that cares. A few apps have added popups to explain to beginners "Hey, you're running me from the Downloads folder, uhh, want me to properly move myself to /Applications/?" but that's about it. The only apps I run from /Applications that aren't part of the OS ar…

> The idea being that I could then migrate more easily by copying the whole home directory, and thus all my apps that didn't require "installation" would come over. Unrelated, but this is what I find so interesting and cool about the drag-and-drop to install method prevalent on macOS. People complain, but what I guess they don't realize is that all they're doing is moving a folder into their `Applications` folder and…

Just so you know, there is something about dragging that app bundle to /Applications that causes something to happen. Because if you `mv` it in the terminal, the app often doesn't work.

It's been a while since I did this, and I can't remember the details. Sorry. Someone else might.

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#162

Post by josephg »

nmgycombinator wrote: post #122
josephg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These experiences have been why I’ve not a big fan of “capabilities” as a concept. The UX around them is awful, and almost has to be. I don't think the UX has to be awful. The problem is just that they're kinda half baked on macos, and bolted on, and not really a first class citizen. There's no reason you couldn't have: - A preferences dialog showing which long-lived capabilities you've granted to which application…

As someone who's looked into the internals of macOS for a bit now, this is all incredibly fascinating. However, I am curious: do you think capabilities could be implemented like this at a really low level? Part of me thinks we have the security models we do in POSIX is because they're simple enough to represent in C code. The capability systems you're mentioning sound cool, but they sound a lot more complex. And if t…

SeL4 is a capability based operating system toolkit, entirely implemented in C. The core operating system is just a few thousand lines of code. Its even mathematically proven to be bug free - which is totally insane.

It even uses a capability to allocate (assign) memory. So you typically have a microservice (userland process) in charge of memory on the whole system. Other processes get heap memory allocated to them by asking that service for it. (Though typically you'll allocate large blocks, and divide it up using a normal allocator).

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#163

Post by p_ing »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #160
cypherpunks01 wrote: post #78

Just recently learned I should be installing mac apps into my home directory Applications, not the system Applications (as every single app installer suggests). Of course, only makes sense for a single-user machine. If I downgrade myself to a non-admin user, and install apps into my home Applications, then I'm not bothered by permissions requests from apps to update themselves. Almost all of them can just do it, on t…

I don't even have a ~/Applications on macOS 15.4.1.

You need to manually create it.

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#164

Post by mschnell »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #160
cypherpunks01 wrote: post #78

Just recently learned I should be installing mac apps into my home directory Applications, not the system Applications (as every single app installer suggests). Of course, only makes sense for a single-user machine. If I downgrade myself to a non-admin user, and install apps into my home Applications, then I'm not bothered by permissions requests from apps to update themselves. Almost all of them can just do it, on t…

I don't even have a ~/Applications on macOS 15.4.1.

In the Finder it is translated to your system language. For example, „Programme“ in German. It is still Applications in the terminal.

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#165

Post by WA »

yencabulator wrote: post #152
xp84 wrote: post #90

On the off-chance someone at Apple reads this, I'll repeat my perennial beg that Apple stops popping up 'Give me your (local admin) password right now' dialogs randomly throughout the day because the computer has a hankering to install updates or something. Anyone with basic skills can whip up a convincing replica of that popup on the Web, and the "bottom 80%" (at least) of users in technical savvy would not think to…

Seems like it's time to re-post this golden oldie: The Line of Death https://textslashplain.com/2017/01/14/the-line-of-death/

Thanks for posting. I’ve had this vividly in my mind for years, but didn’t remember the source. Makes so much sense.

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#166

Post by throwaway290 »

cypherpunks01 wrote: post #78

Just recently learned I should be installing mac apps into my home directory Applications, not the system Applications (as every single app installer suggests). Of course, only makes sense for a single-user machine. If I downgrade myself to a non-admin user, and install apps into my home Applications, then I'm not bothered by permissions requests from apps to update themselves. Almost all of them can just do it, on t…

If you install an app in ~/Applications, it can auto update without root, but any sus code can overwrite it without root rights too

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#167

Post by tonyedgecombe »

jen729w wrote: post #161
nmgycombinator wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea being that I could then migrate more easily by copying the whole home directory, and thus all my apps that didn't require "installation" would come over. Unrelated, but this is what I find so interesting and cool about the drag-and-drop to install method prevalent on macOS. People complain, but what I guess they don't realize is that all they're doing is moving a folder into their `Applications` folder and…

Just so you know, there is something about dragging that app bundle to /Applications that causes something to happen. Because if you `mv` it in the terminal, the app often doesn't work. It's been a while since I did this, and I can't remember the details. Sorry. Someone else might.

There is a bit of magic going on in Finder with /Applications. It’s actually two folders, one in the system partition which you can’t write into and one in the data partition where anything you install goes.

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#168

Post by andelink »

viraptor wrote: post #80
bigyabai wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god, don't get me started... 1. iCloud nags never go away if you don't log into iCloud 2. Apple Music is just an advertisement by default and "conveniently" opens every sound file mimetype 3. Functionally useless subscription slopware like AppleTV+ comes installed by-default for no reason 4. Package management is a colossal clusterfuck that can't even enforce package parity across system architectures 5. Apple sti…

> Apple Music is just an advertisement by default and "conveniently" opens every sound file mimetype Not only that, but you get the advertisement every time it starts and then it doesn't play the actual file. So unless you join the service the process is: try to open the audio file, close the advert, go back to source, open the file again.

Agreed the default experience is bad. You can however change the default app for each of the relevant file types. I’ve set my default to be iina

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#169

Post by sexy_seedbox »

nmgycombinator wrote: post #128
Jerry2 wrote: post #127

Author didn't disclose if got a reward for his work. Hope he did!

Thank you for your kind words. To respond: 1. I'm not a "he", I would prefer "they". 2. As I mentioned in another comment, I have not received word back yet on any reward.

Maybe they'll put you into their "Hall of Fame"

Re: Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?

#170

Post by nmgycombinator »

sexy_seedbox wrote: post #169
nmgycombinator wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your kind words. To respond: 1. I'm not a "he", I would prefer "they". 2. As I mentioned in another comment, I have not received word back yet on any reward.

Maybe they'll put you into their "Hall of Fame"

I think their "Hall of Fame" (or at least whatever people colloquially refer to as that) is their credits for people who found bugs in their web servers, so I don't think that counts here. I did get credited, so I'm happy about that. Now I just have to wait and see if they determine it's worth a reward (and, if so, how much).
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