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Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

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Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#111
post #43

I worked on a disk utility in the 90s called PartitionMagic that was one of the first ones to let you dynamically resize disk partitions. Maybe Samsung used that when naming their product. I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy . to / and the uninstall process was delete /

Windows is the same now. Due to "new and better" approach, each program puts its data in 5 different folders for "multi user" reasons. What is infuriating that all those folders are hidden and all of them are on C: drive. So your C: drive gets clogged. This makes it impossible to track how much space each program uses. (On a side note its been years since floppy drives were the A: drive... and yet we are still stuck…

On a similar note, I wondered if my week Mac still called the main volume “Macintosh HD”. Yup. When is the last time Apple marketed their computers as “Macintosh”? And when’s the last time they sold one with a “hard drive”?

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#112

I worked on a disk utility in the 90s called PartitionMagic that was one of the first ones to let you dynamically resize disk partitions. Maybe Samsung used that when naming their product. I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy . to / and the uninstall process was delete /

PartionMagic was not A disk utility, it was THE disk utility!

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. Personally, I'd look for another alternative from a company that better understands the Mac. Chrome, for instance, previously used an installer that had to run with administrative permissions and famously ended up rendering systems unbootable. System utilities and drivers a…

Mac apps often do various things on your computer. Just because you dragged it to Bin, doesn't mean there are no leftovers on your computer. I'd prefer proper uninstaller any day.

Are you under the impression that Windows uninstallers don't leave files and registry settings behind?

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#114
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because this particular sort of cyber security is merely theatrics with the goal of reducing user agency and increasing paranoia and vendor lock-in. The user facing friction is the goal. There will always be scams and viruses; the only practical outcome will be that you have less control over your computer, and Apple/MS/Google have more. See: Sideloading, Wayland, UWPs, iOS JIT, Windows XP and 7 still being us…

>Wayland I can see the rest, but why did you mix in Wayland, a open source display protocol?

I think there's some controversy regarding that programs are limited in what extent they can access each other. You need sudo to do global hotkeys/keylogging, probably accessing pixel contents of other apps, etc. I suppose they mean it only prevents some specific threats while leaving open goals in other, even more easily exploited places

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. Personally, I'd look for another alternative from a company that better understands the Mac. Chrome, for instance, previously used an installer that had to run with administrative permissions and famously ended up rendering systems unbootable. System utilities and drivers a…

Mac apps often do various things on your computer. Just because you dragged it to Bin, doesn't mean there are no leftovers on your computer. I'd prefer proper uninstaller any day.

> Mac apps often do various things on your computer. Just because you dragged it to Bin, doesn't mean there are no leftovers on your computer. I'd prefer proper uninstaller any day.

I think I know what you're talking about. There are likely files inside the ~/Library/Application Support/ or ~/Library/Caches/ folders for example.

What is the proper, Apple way to make sure these get deleted when we delete apps? Because I fear there is no universal solution here. There are some files that an app creates that some of the time I would probably want to persist uninstalls. But then these files should be in a user home directory, not in application support according to XDG, right? I feel like the OS should detect dragging of an app to the trash can and clean up its app support folders? I don't think it does this today but I think it should.

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#116
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy . to / and the uninstall process was delete / I don't remember this ever being the case, even in times of DOS.

I remember software, tools and some games shipping like this forever, typically they have a "portable" label slapped on them, bet you can find Windows software/games still shipped like this today, if you look for "-portable" or "-archive" rather than "installer". One quick example, offers an installer or a ZIP archive, the "installation process" for the ZIP archive is basically "copy files out from archive && ./execu…

Yes, but that was never really a default. Even DOS software came with installers and messed with AUTEXEC.

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#117

I worked on a disk utility in the 90s called PartitionMagic that was one of the first ones to let you dynamically resize disk partitions. Maybe Samsung used that when naming their product. I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy . to / and the uninstall process was delete /

PartionMagic was not A disk utility, it was THE disk utility!

I also headed up a disk imaging product for the same company called Drive Image. It wasn't quite as popular, but it was fun to develop as well.

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#118
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy . to / and the uninstall process was delete / I don't remember this ever being the case, even in times of DOS.

I remember software, tools and some games shipping like this forever, typically they have a "portable" label slapped on them, bet you can find Windows software/games still shipped like this today, if you look for "-portable" or "-archive" rather than "installer". One quick example, offers an installer or a ZIP archive, the "installation process" for the ZIP archive is basically "copy files out from archive && ./execu…

[deleted]

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a red huge red flag. And the companies that make such products _never_ care about making sure an uninstallation is actually clean.

"Does it have a way to uninstall, and does that uninstallation clean every application artifact?" is such a great litmus test for just how much a software company actually cares about having a proper finished product that respects the user. Nobody forces a company to do it, but when they don't do it, you can probably bet that they're cutting corners and disrespecting the user's machine in other ways, too. It's like "…

Well said.

I would add an appreciation for companies producing non-bloated, native software.

Re: Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall

#120
post #61
post #54

Years ago I shipped a MacOS product. If you deleted it, you would get an error emptying the recycle bin (or force-deleting the application bundle if you did an rm -R to it.) Why? Well, at the time Windows Explorer had an API for extensions, but MacOS didn't for Finder. We needed to add some menu items to the context menu, which on MacOS required reverse engineering Finder and injecting code into it. This then meant t…

> MacOS has its own set of gremlins too. You can't really blame macOS for this one. Interesting to hear this isn't just a Windows thing though.

You really can, considering that a Windows program would not have had that issue.
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