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Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

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Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#91

Post by eridius »

eropple wrote: post #71
eridius wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

You admit you didn't even see the message, so you're engaging in pure speculation as to how you think it behaved, and then criticizing Apple for it.

> Changing what it's supposed to do

What it's supposed to do is provide a good natural language search of any and all information it has available to it. This is what millions of customers use it for, and this is what Yosemite enhanced. Now it has more information available to it. Just as I can ask Siri "what is planet of the apes?" and she'll tell me about the movie, now I can ask Spotlight for "planet of the apes" and learn about the movie. This is great! It's bringing functionality from iOS back to the Mac, in a form that's generally easier to use (speaking to Siri is not always convenient), and doing it in a way that seamlessly integrates with the existing functionality.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#92

Post by eropple »

eridius wrote: post #86
eropple wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

The functionality changed dramatically and extremely visibly. If you are intent in completely ignoring the obvious changes, both to the aesthetics of the functionality, and to the actual behavior, that's your prerogative. But you can't turn around and claim Apple is behaving badly when you intentionally blinded yourself to the numerous ways that you could tell something is different. And besides all that, apparently…

The entire OS changed how it looked. Shifting Spotlight to be a window instead of a dropdown doesn't imply a change in functionality. Do you stop and frigging gawk at every change in an OS?

And I don't know what they're not asking me to opt into sending. That's the fucking problem. You can play with it all you want and fiddle with it however you like to determine you're okay with it, that's fine. I am blanket not okay with remote services receiving local anything by default. I got pissed when Ubuntu did it, I'm pissed when Apple does it.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#93

Post by eridius »

mikeash wrote: post #81
eridius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No power user ever uses spotlight to launch apps? Those are some awe-inspiring mental gymnastics you're doing to take Apple's side here.

A flippant response to a flippant response. But thanks for the hyperbole there.

Really, this thread just looks like a bunch of paranoid conspiracy nuts, thinking Apple is out to steal your searches. I get it, privacy is important. I don't disagree. But you're* acting like they installed a keylogger on your computer (in point of fact, someone on IRC accused Apple of making "something that sends all of their local query keystrokes to Apple", which is a pure fabrication).

* that's the plural "you", not you personally

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#94

Post by userbinator »

al2o3cr wrote: post #45

Breaking news: searching on Google sends your query to a third-party server! FILM AT 11!

Yes, and most if not everyone who uses a computer understands that Google searches the Internet. Spotlight was mainly for local search, so they would not expect that their queries for local files be sent outside of their computer.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#95

Post by eridius »

eropple wrote: post #92
eridius wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The functionality changed dramatically and extremely visibly. If you are intent in completely ignoring the obvious changes, both to the aesthetics of the functionality, and to the actual behavior, that's your prerogative. But you can't turn around and claim Apple is behaving badly when you intentionally blinded yourself to the numerous ways that you could tell something is different. And besides all that, apparently…

The entire OS changed how it looked. Shifting Spotlight to be a window instead of a dropdown doesn't imply a change in functionality. Do you stop and frigging gawk at every change in an OS? And I don't know what they're not asking me to opt into sending. That's the fucking problem. You can play with it all you want and fiddle with it however you like to determine you're okay with it, that's fine. I am blanket not oka…

Have you actually even looked at Spotlight? You seem to be claiming all they did was move it around on the screen. It pretty obviously changed a lot more than that. That should be especially obvious the first time you actually get a Spotlight Suggestions result.

> And I don't know [...] * That's the fucking problem*

Yes, that is the fucking problem. You're arguing very loudly about something you don't know anything about.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#96

Post by userbinator »

hayksaakian wrote: post #89

Real Question: Does anyone consider OS-native search that queries your local computer AND the web to be useful? As the default in ubuntu, it is actively confusing, and distracting. At least from my point of view, if I'm searching for something using my OS search, that means I want to find something ON MY computer. If I want to find something online, I will look online (google, etc.). The workflow from OS -> OS Search…

I certainly maintain a distinction between the two, and definitely never want queries for local files to leave the machine as they can contain sensitive information. Apple mentions that the local results of queries won't be sent, but the query itself will.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#97

Post by SoftwareMaven »

hayksaakian wrote: post #89

Real Question: Does anyone consider OS-native search that queries your local computer AND the web to be useful? As the default in ubuntu, it is actively confusing, and distracting. At least from my point of view, if I'm searching for something using my OS search, that means I want to find something ON MY computer. If I want to find something online, I will look online (google, etc.). The workflow from OS -> OS Search…

It may be confusing to people today. It will be expected behavior by the next generation. The real issue is what is "local" and what is "remote" is blurring. We see it with things like Google Docs, where they are "my" documents, and I want something like Spotlight to be able to search them, but they aren't local.

What we have today is two problems: First, we are in the middle of the transition. People are needing to learn new behaviors. That's always hard. Second, it isn't seamless yet. While I haven't tried it, I highly doubt my Google Docs would show up in the my Spotlight search. The fragmentation increases confusion.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#99

Post by arrrg »

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 not “fixing” anything. It’s changing a preference people can have different opinions about.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#100

Post by GrantS »

deadweight3 wrote: post #78

I have zero issue with this, and it's clearly labelled and explained. Of all the breaches in my privacy, this isn't one I'm worried about. Google gets 100% of my searches and email messages, so it's a question of who you trust.

To each his own, but I just want to point out that your examples of web searches and email require that SOME third party be involved because they are, by definition, attempts to reach a computer somewhere else on the internet.

In contrast, searching the local files on one's own computer or launching applications on one's own computer are private, local events that need not be shared with any third party.

Inherently private stuff just happens to leak out into the world now because Spotlight does web search too.

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