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Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

9to5mac.com

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Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#111

Post by hbn »

radlad wrote: post #55
nazgu1 wrote: post #7

What looks odd to me is this silence about acquisition. I've got a lot of emails and read enough blog posts from developers that brags about new owners and new opportunities that goes with it. Bartender is just utility app, but has permissions to e.g screen recording, so new version from new developer without prior explanation just seems shady

With the most recent update, macOS notified me that I needed to allow new permissions. But macOS didn't explain that this was because the cert changed. When I Googled the issue, I found this support article: https://www.macbartender.com/Bartender5/PermissionIssues/ The support article doesn't mention the cert change or the new owners, and instead calls it "a known issue where certain apps, including Bartender, might…

I couldn't get the screen recording permission to work at all after the last update. I emailed the dev(s?) and had a short exchange where they tried to help but it never got resolved.

But after this I'm not trusting it at all.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#114

Post by mistersquid »

evv wrote: post #65
michalf6 wrote: post #22

Use Ice instead: https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice

yeah, no reason these days to use proprietary solutions for small problems. I'll check out Ice, it seems much more modern (and maintained) than Dozer: https://github.com/Mortennn/Dozer I just wish somebody would create an open source alternative to Rouge Amoeba's Loopback!

> I just wish somebody would create an open source alternative to Rouge [sic] Amoeba's Loopback!

Rogue Amoeba has been around for over two decades. They are an early macOS X shop and their softwares are best of breed. Their esteemed Audio Hijack recently received an overhaul to its permissions structure. My understanding (gleaned from a podcast?) is Rogue Amoeba worked closely with Apple on this reworking.

It is doubtful Rogue Amoeba would ever silently sell to an unknown developer.

Rogue Amoeba is precisely the kind of software shop worth supporting with your money and time. I say this only as a satisfied user of several of their products.

I have nothing against OSS and do use many OSS products; I also support software shops that produce good software at a good price and have demonstrated loyalty and commitment to their users. Rogue Amoeba is just such a shop.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#115

Post by afh1 »

Kovah wrote: post #89
nazgu1 wrote: post #7

What looks odd to me is this silence about acquisition. I've got a lot of emails and read enough blog posts from developers that brags about new owners and new opportunities that goes with it. Bartender is just utility app, but has permissions to e.g screen recording, so new version from new developer without prior explanation just seems shady

Reminds me of the silent takeover of the Stylish browser extension that was sold to some analytics company and then reported your complete browsing history to said company. No information to the users until someone noticed what what going on. Similar things seemed to have happened to the ModHeader extension, newer versions now inject ads.

If only developers were required by package managers to sign packages with their own keys, and users warned on signature changes...

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#116

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

brtkdotse wrote: post #63
hbn wrote: post #14

Apple really needs to just build this functionality into macOS already. You shouldn't need to pay someone else to shove icons into a drawer. And on the new MacBooks with a notch through the center of the menu bar, it always seems like the icons on the right and the menus for the focused app on the left are ever encroaching towards that space.

I’ve tried switching from Windows to MacOS three times over the past few years and each time I run up against the wall of having to research, choose and purchase small utilities to fix things that I never in a million years would’ve guessed would be an issue. Windows management. File handler. Menu bar organizers. The list goes on.

I just really hate how there are some insane defaults that don't have easy ways to change them.

Pointer Acceleration being the biggest one. One inch of mouse movement should always be the same number of pixels of pointer movement, whether I move my mouse at a snail's pace or at mach 2. A fast, but incredibly short movement of the mouse should not produce the same pointer movement as a slow, but very wide movement.

Second was disappearing scrollbars. Those make sense on a mobile device where screen space is a premium, but on a desktop (or even a laptop!), it doesn't make sense.

Nowadays, both of those actually do have options in the System Settings panel, but when I first got introduced to using a Mac in 2014, both of those requires some archaic shell commands that I had to Google to find.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#117

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

bhokbah wrote: post #99
brtkdotse wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve tried switching from Windows to MacOS three times over the past few years and each time I run up against the wall of having to research, choose and purchase small utilities to fix things that I never in a million years would’ve guessed would be an issue. Windows management. File handler. Menu bar organizers. The list goes on.

As a long time mac user I have zero utilities installed. If you want to turn your mac into windows, maybe just use windows.

Sometimes, you don't have an option.

At my current job, we're issues MacBooks. My biggest pet peeve of macOS is the grouping of windows behind a single icon on the dock bar. I hate that if I have two Chrome windows open, it takes two clicks to go between them.

With the exception of modals, if a program has multiple windows open, when I should see each of them as its own item on the dock bar (or in Windows, the taskbar). I don't think even Windows makes this an option anymore, but I use WindowBlinds on my personal Win10 computer to give me that behavior while also skinning everything to look like Win2K, because I can't stand the flat aesthetic that's popular right now.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#118

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

j16sdiz wrote: post #23

I don't know, but since when buyers need to identify themself? This is just a change of ownership, no malware were found

no malware were found yet

The fact that it was sold, but the selling was not announced, is incredibly shady. Normally, a developer shouts it from the rooftops, so it makes me raise an eyebrow and wonder if a condition of the sale was to not announce the sale.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I think you're being naive.

Re: Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

#119

Post by i-blis »

submeta wrote: post #72

Just going to uninstall it. Wtf. - Are there alternatives?

I refrained to install Bartender on a new machine (despite having a license) because of the scary permissions it want me to grant it. I found an open source alternative that fits my needs. Check if fits yours.

https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden

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