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Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

fix-macosx.com

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Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#71

Post by eropple »

eridius wrote: post #58
eropple wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing this without actually bothering to let people know in an up-front, opt-in way certainly doesn't make the user experience better. While there's some conceivable value to the feature, turning it on without even letting users know is pretty bullshit and you're perturbing a lot of electrons in this thread with your defense of a really shitty default behavior.

They did let people know. You should really research this a bit before going of half-cocked, accusing Apple of doing something shitty, and me of defending this shitty behavior, when they're not actually doing the shitty thing you think they're doing. The first time you initiate Spotlight after installing Yosemite, it gives you a very big message, explaining how Spotlight changed, explaining that it now sends search q…

Before this article informed me of it, I saw no such message. Or rather, I saw it, but didn't read it because it disappeared as soon as you hit your first keystroke in Spotlight. I'm not even always looking at the screen when I trigger Spotlight and I don't go reading the Spotlight popup for fun because I know what it's supposed to do, and what it's supposed to do is a local search without reporting my search terms to Apple. Changing what it's supposed to do in an easily-dismissed way is exactly the shitty, sneaky thing you're defending them for.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#72

Post by jonknee »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #22

There is a war on going in search. You can see it in Google's quarterly results where this last quarter they spent nearly a billion dollars on paid distribution (aka people they pay to send them searches that they can monetize rather than people who just show up at Google.com or one of their properties). It stuns me that Apple hasn't bitten the bullet and built a search engine yet since they could make more on it tha…

As for google's paid distribution, quite a bit of that goes to Mozilla which most around here would say is a "Good Thing". Most of the rest goes to Apple for Google being the default search engine on iOS.

Besides and instant revenue loss, Apple would build an absolutely awful search engine so it's great news that they haven't tried yet. I mean, look at how awesome they did with mapping.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#73

Post by nijiko »

eridius wrote: post #65
eropple wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally the first I've heard of this, and I upgraded yesterday. I didn't see whatever warning supposedly appears on the first use of Spotlight because--as I always do--I hit it and started typing . The idea that having a button in the bowels of a preference menu is sufficient is...I don't want to say "nuts", but I'm thinking it pretty hard. I'm not happy. Not unhappy enough to subject myself to a Linux desk…

You immediately ran a spotlight query, despite Spotlight itself looking radically different, being in a different place on the screen (floating in the middle, instead of anchored to the upper-right), and didn't even notice the message it tried to tell you? That's pretty impressive. > in the bowels of a preference menu This is not the first time you've resorted to hyperbole in order to try and paint Apple in a bad lig…

power users just hit it and go.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#74

Post by eropple »

eridius wrote: post #65
eropple wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally the first I've heard of this, and I upgraded yesterday. I didn't see whatever warning supposedly appears on the first use of Spotlight because--as I always do--I hit it and started typing . The idea that having a button in the bowels of a preference menu is sufficient is...I don't want to say "nuts", but I'm thinking it pretty hard. I'm not happy. Not unhappy enough to subject myself to a Linux desk…

You immediately ran a spotlight query, despite Spotlight itself looking radically different, being in a different place on the screen (floating in the middle, instead of anchored to the upper-right), and didn't even notice the message it tried to tell you? That's pretty impressive. > in the bowels of a preference menu This is not the first time you've resorted to hyperbole in order to try and paint Apple in a bad lig…

How is it sarcastically impressive that I hit cmd-space and typed "it" for iTerm, like I do every time I start up my computer and have for the last two years? How is it sarcastically impressive that I just start typing into Spotlight, because I know that's what Spotlight is? And what makes you think I've gone to Spotlight preferences since upgrading to Yosemite? I had my preferences the way I wanted them, why would an OS upgrade make me psychically know to go there?

Going further, what makes you think I give a material shit about Apple's PR materials? I don't read about OS X releases, I upgrade when they show up because I trusted (past tense) Apple to do the right thing. Something you can bypass without even acknowledging it is at best sneaky. If Apple thought this was seriously all that and a bag of potato chips, an opt-in is real easy.

Be better than defending this, man. It's dirty.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#75

Post by kingnight »

ljfuller wrote: post #49
kingnight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this be considered overthinking it? A domain, a python script, to effectively achieve tapping a couple toggles in sys prefs? And this is quite difficult for the average non terminal using person. > This site _criticizes_ Apple for certain privacy-invading features of Mac OS X and teaches users how to fix them. So, obviously, the site is not approved by Apple. Snark!

Howdy. Author here. By way of introduction, I'm also the author of PLCrashReporter ( https://www.plcrashreporter.org/ ), ported Java 6 to Mac OS X (a.k.a Soylatte), and -- this might lower some folk's estimation of me here -- started the MacPorts project almost 15 years ago at Apple, along with co-workers Jordan Hubbard and Kevin Van Vechten. That slightly snarky disclaimer you quoted actually has a serious backstory…

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time respond, and for your impressive body of work.

My knee-jerk reaction to everything about this site can definitely be attributed to ignorance. Something worth considering, in my opinion, for the goal of the project.

fix-osx: I didn't know it needed fixing (in the context of what this site declares is wrong). I am open to being wrong, and that it would need fixing, but my gut response is that it doesn't. It is not intended to attack/dispute your messaging, but rather explain how it could be read by someone unfamiliar with how it is indeed that way.

Expanding on that, I don't hold that OSX inherently betrays user privacy. While this can be considered a privacy leak by ux design (it is, I agree), it's not something that would lead me to the conclusion that the OS has no privacy by design. I'll be looking more into this now, however.

Regarding the disclaimer... That backstory certainly validates the tone, but a disclaimer for the disclaimer would be nice for the uninitiated :-

Best,

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#76

Post by moloch »

mtrpcic wrote: post #2

While fixing spotlight is a good idea (especially if you're opening it a lot in public), please don't blindly execute code without reading it first. While this code isn't malicious, running misc. third party code without reading it first is a bad idea for everyone.

It's the same security model as downloading a binary and running it.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#77

Post by enlightenedfool »

The first time I clicked spotlight after upgrade to yosemite, I was clueless what to do with the pop-up. closed, clicked spotlight several times until i realized i need to start typing and then saw the cursor. something weird about the whole UI changes. I prefer the old look and glossy icons. what's up with flat everything. The first thing I did was disabling the web search in spotlight.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#79

Post by eridius »

nijiko wrote: post #73
eridius wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You immediately ran a spotlight query, despite Spotlight itself looking radically different, being in a different place on the screen (floating in the middle, instead of anchored to the upper-right), and didn't even notice the message it tried to tell you? That's pretty impressive. > in the bowels of a preference menu This is not the first time you've resorted to hyperbole in order to try and paint Apple in a bad lig…

power users just hit it and go.

Power users use Alfred or LaunchBar (or Quicksilver, IIRC that project was resurrected).

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#80

Post by gress »

etjossem wrote: post #14

For those interested, here's the specific language Apple offers to explain what Spotlight is doing. I didn't see it elsewhere so I figured I'd post it. From the Spotlight preferences pane: "When you use Spotlight, your search queries, the Spotlight Suggestions you select, and related usage data will be sent to Apple. Search results found on your Mac will not be sent. If you have Location Services on your Mac turned o…

So, the title, as well as being innuendo, is false - it's not 'by design' it is 'by default', and only for search terms.

I think it's fair enough to point out that these search terms are transmitted to Apple. It's also reasonable to complain that the option is hidden, and the terms and conditions where this is pointed out are glossed over.

This site, however, is counterproductive theater designed to look hackerish and scary, as well as to mislead users. It commits exactly the same error as Apple is accused of committing - it hides the fact that there is a simple UI to control this function, and that users should be educated to make the choice for themselves.

Whoever did this is making things worse.

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