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Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

blog.kronis.dev

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Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#71

Post by ronsor »

pie_flavor wrote: post #42
kingforaday wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default Windows 11 will not run an untrusted .exe/PE file - it's governed by Microsoft Defender SmartScreen that will present a pop-up scaring people away and it actually isn't intuitive to click-through to run the program unless you've done it before.

But after enough people run it, that disappears. They implement crowdsourced trust, because it isn't a rent extraction exercise but actual concern about malware.

True.

But also most malware delivery now doesn't trigger it because malware developers have gotten craftier. If you're unscrupulous, it's not a concern.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#72

Post by stephc_int13 »

jameshart wrote: post #63
stephc_int13 wrote: post #21

I am not entirely against the whole notarization thing. If it is good for the end-user, it is usually also good for the ecosystem a a whole, trust is valuable. But ffs, they are rich enough to make this a lot less painful and hostile for developers. And this is not a new thing, I used to develop games for iOS, from the very beginning, and while the process somewhat simplified over time, it was a huge cortisol inducin…

Making it take some pain for developers is precisely what makes it valuable. If you could automate signing up for a developer account and didn’t have to put up some cash it would lose all value as a trust signal.

The cash part is not even the worst, even if this is obviously ridiculous for free/open source projects.

The bad UX is really what irks me. Enough that I may entirely opt-out of the Apple ecosystem forever, and I don't think I am the only one feeling that way.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#73

Post by tclancy »

KronisLV wrote: post #58

Author here, just pushed a quick update to the article. 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 pe…

Don't be fair. I finally signed up for an Apple Developer Account and it took weeks and I think it took weeks because I finally decided the system wasn't accepting my Driver's License uploads on my (Apple) phone because the camera's light was hitting the hologram which was reflecting back so I moved my application process to my (Apple) laptop and tried there and that's where I fell into a gully, as best I can tell: I somehow, in spite of using the same document throughout with my literal government-supplied ID on it that doesn't change, wound up in two competing applications. One of them seemed to succeed, the other one seemed to fail. On the plus side, they took my cash. On the downside, they did not give me what I bought and it took a couple weeks of re-uploading my PII, which in no way will ever bite me in the ass, to sort it out. All so I could get some vibe-coded slop I created onto my phone.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#75

Post by GeekyBear »

KronisLV wrote: post #58

Author here, just pushed a quick update to the article. 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 pe…

To avoid having your application blocked by Windows SmartScreen, you need to pay extra for an extended validation code signing certificate. A normal code signing certificate is not sufficient.

Here's an eight year old Stack Overflow discussion of the issue:

> A guaranteed way to immediately and permanently get rid of the Microsoft SmartScreen warnings is to buy an "Extended Validation" (EV) code signing certificate from one of the Microsoft-approved certificate authorities (CA's), and to sign your app with that EV certificate.

Such an EV certificate will typically cost you somewhere between 300 and 700 USD per year (you better compare prices), and will only be issued to registered businesses. If you're a single developer, you must be a sole proprietor and have an active business license.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48946680/how-to-avoid-th...

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#76

Post by m-s-y »

Rendello wrote: post #47

I love when my Mac declares random PDFs malware and deletes them when I try to open them. On two occasions I've been completely dumbstruck when the software I was using was deleted out from under me. I'm not a fan of the overuse of "gaslight", but it sure felt like that when I had to restart Docker and the OS was like "what do you mean, Docker? You've never had Docker installed! What are you talking about? Are you fe…

Sorry to say but your PDFs were malware. In 20+ years I’ve never seen this on my Macs nor the literal thousands I’ve managed with various MDMs.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#77

Post by hermitcrab »

seam_carver wrote: post #39
ryandrake wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 seconds or 30 seconds, it's just too much friction to ask end users to do. I actually develop on a Mac, but I've written off Apple as a target system for hobby/open source projects. Between quarantine, code signing, and notarizing (which requires $99 a year), it's just not worth it. Good for Apple users if they like this shit--I'm just not going to bother with distributing to the platform anymore. macOS is slowly…

Isn't code signing even harder/more expensive on Windows?

Signing on Windows is a pain in the arse and gets more expensive every year. I dread having to renew my certificate. Also they keep reducing the maximum certificate length, so you can't just do it once every 5 years, like you used to be able to.

I can't remember how difficult it was to set up my initial Apple developer account (trauma related memory loss, perhaps) but it is dead simple to renew. Just pay the $99. I did it yesterday. Took about a minute.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#78

Post by hermitcrab »

GeekyBear wrote: post #67
seam_carver wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't code signing even harder/more expensive on Windows?

The extended validation code signing certificate you need to avoid having your installer blocked by Windows SmartScreen is quite a bit more expensive. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48946680/how-to-avoid-th...

IIRC it also doesn't stop the Smartscreen warning appearing.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#80

Post by hermitcrab »

ofek wrote: post #53

I shared the author's frustration when figuring out how to ship such binaries to end users so I wrote a guide [0] detailing exactly how to do it. Apple's documentation is surprisingly poor and I couldn't find any blog posts so I ended up reverse engineering what works via trial and error as well as popular OSS projects on GitHub. [0]: https://ofek.dev/words/guides/2025-05-13-distributing-comman...

I have also written some notes. They are a bit out of date, but might still be useful:

https://successfulsoftware.net/2018/11/16/how-to-notarize-yo...

https://successfulsoftware.net/2023/04/28/moving-from-altool...

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