51–60 of 299 posts
Maybe I'm too dumb, but I haven't figured out a good way to sign just a binary (or a tar/zip containing a few binaries). I zipped up the binaries, sent them off to Apple, Apple comes back and says "yup, notarized!", and they still trigger the popup. I'm probably missing a step. I guess I'm not currently stapling the ticket to the binary, but supposedly you don't have to if you are running with a network connection.
Sometimes I wonder why we don't just treat an installation script like curl https://alx.sh | sh as a universal option for distributing applications. The provenance is there via the HTTPS certificate, and if you're already about to trust an application that can compromise your system, why not trust the installation script as well?
The most important argument is phishing. People aren’t good at recognizing when a web site is legitimate. One reason that app certification is a shitshow is that recognizing bad players while minimizing false negatives and false positives is a difficult problem. Domain names fundamentally don’t solve that problem.
App certification doesn't solve that problem either.
[0]: https://ofek.dev/words/guides/2025-05-13-distributing-comman...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can configure it in a way that it won't allow you to run it at all, but out of the box, you will receive a message which forces you through three clicks. Enough to scare off people with no deep knowledge. And yes, you can turn all of that off.
Why isn't the author getting that warning then? Is it because he's only testing the tool on the same machine that it was built on?
Sometimes I wonder why we don't just treat an installation script like curl https://alx.sh | sh as a universal option for distributing applications. The provenance is there via the HTTPS certificate, and if you're already about to trust an application that can compromise your system, why not trust the installation script as well?
Any user who does not like Gatekeeper can turn it off on their machine in ten seconds by running this in a Terminal: sudo spctl —-master-disable People will say, no, that’s too big a hammer, it’s not safe… but then, like, what do you actually want? Either you keep Gatekeeper because you like the friction it introduces, or you don’t like that friction and you should go turn it off. Pick one, you obviously can’t have b…
Rather than just having the options "Done" and "Move to Bin", give me an option to actually run it without having to manually go into System Settings each and every time without disabling security features? The added friction feels more like a way to force developers to pay Apple an annual fee for distributing rather than for my safety. Not saying it doesn't help with safety, just that it's more weighed to the former…
I've run several PiHoles for several years, primarily on latest versions (up to v5; current is v6.4.x) – recently updating to v6 has been extremely frustrating [0], e.g: realizing that even when you tell the pi's/en0 ("internet") interface to use a specific DNS server (in GUI/network settings), it still uses the DNS-server recommended by your local DHCP server [1].
[0] I am aware that this is a joint-issue between RaspbianOS and Pi-Hole teams
[1] which requires TWO sudo nmcli which newbs have no business configuring – what happened to -simple- ?
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If you ever want to consider how crazy DNS-capture is getting, realize that Firefox/&c are all dark-patterning the abilities to turn off "secure"-DNS. The latest Raspian/Pi-Hole defaults are terrifying... [2]
[2] another example: why doesn't v6 enable HTTPS localhost web-access, by default (like all previous versions?!)? Do the developers really expect us commoners to know how to generate localhost certificates – this is obviously behavior due to how the pihole useraccount behaves differently then the previously-root-blessed v5-behavior
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Thankfully, I've kept a local copy of my favorite distro of Pihole v5, and it is readily-cloneable.
When I attempted to pass a --version tag during a freshinstall (requesting v5 from remote installer), it went ahead and installed latest v6 (so why even.?!).
I don't get the part about Homebrew. If you're using Homebrew, it doesn't make a ton of sense to use Itch.io. Just use Homebrew. Seems like a more appropriate place to distribute a dev tool anyway. You could set up a patreon and print a link to it when appropriate. That's basically what Vim does. I agree that Apple is dumb of course.
To be fair, compared to the prices of Certum and other providers if you ever want to sign something for Windows, perhaps Apple isn't uniquely overpriced (they all seem to be that way): https://www.certum.eu/en/code-signing-certificates/
Looking more into the Windows side of things, I also found Azure Artifact Signing which is supposedly affordable at 8.54 EUR per month, but unfortunately they don't actually support individual users in the EU (only in US & Canada, meanwhile EU only gets support for organizations). I'd probably have to set up a SIA (equivalent of Ltd.) here first - it was in the plans for later, but this is a bit of a roadblock for using Azure too: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/artifact-signing
My tone might have been frustrated, but I will absolutely say that the code signing industry needs to have a Let's Encrypt moment of some description - at least commoditize it like Azure Artifact Signing was trying to do, but also for individual developers, across all platforms! Sadly, that doesn't seem to be possible when the platforms are intentionally walled gardens. I don't hate the idea of code signing, though - if done right, it's a good idea, same as TLS for (many) websites.
I genuinely don't understand why so many developers are willing to compromise so much for a thin laptop.
I don't get the part about Homebrew. If you're using Homebrew, it doesn't make a ton of sense to use Itch.io. Just use Homebrew. Seems like a more appropriate place to distribute a dev tool anyway. You could set up a patreon and print a link to it when appropriate. That's basically what Vim does. I agree that Apple is dumb of course.
They want to have a way for users to pay them. Itch.io has that, homebrew doesn't.