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Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

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Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#21

Post by ryandrake »

monadic2 wrote: post #15

Why do these apps require installers at all? What are they installing—presumably any of their proprietary tech can run in userspace unprivileged. Personally, my best guess is because that’s the flow the product manager expected.

The standard way to install an application on the Mac is to simply drag it into the Applications folder. That’s what is expected by users. For the vast majority of applications this should be enough. Whenever I see a Windows-style “installer” the first thing I think is... what kind of shenanigans are going on?

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#22

Post by egypturnash »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #17

I still don’t understand the issue with this: it’s not using this feature as intended, but they’re not exploiting any vulnerabilities or attempting to exploit a privilege escalation bug in macOS. Apple’s installers allow these scripts to do anything (and I believe there’s a prompt along the lines of “this installer will run a script to determine if the package can be installed”).

“This installer will run a script to determine if the package can be installed.”

Not “This installer will run a script that installs this package without asking further questions, then terminate abruptly without going through the rest of the install process and giving you a chance to decide exactly where it should go”.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#24

Post by foobaw »

atarian wrote: post #18

The founder of Zoom used to work at WebEx before it was acquired. Wouldn't be surprised if he brought along some WebEx folks as well.

the founder of zoom brought tons of people from WebEx (know someone who was part of the early webex team and now zoom)

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#25

Post by lathiat »

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Everyone who's spent 3 hours talking a parent through downloading and installing a Zoom client understands exactly why they're doing this. Mine are unable to (1) reliably download a zip file; (2) navigate to that file using Finder; (3) run something inside it. By the time we were done -- I use copilot (basically VNC with NAT punching built in) -- and I got control of the laptop to just do it myself, there were 7 down…

While I agree with you that this aspect of Mac app installation is confusing (especially with Safari where your download just disappears into the top right toolbar) - they need to have figured that out before getting this far into the installer. Once your in the installer its all about hitting buttons.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#26

Post by gnicholas »

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Everyone who's spent 3 hours talking a parent through downloading and installing a Zoom client understands exactly why they're doing this. Mine are unable to (1) reliably download a zip file; (2) navigate to that file using Finder; (3) run something inside it. By the time we were done -- I use copilot (basically VNC with NAT punching built in) -- and I got control of the laptop to just do it myself, there were 7 down…

I used to do FT-on-iPhone-pointed-at-computer also. Now it's easy to do screen sharing via Messages (formerly iMessage). Comes with built-in audio also, so you don't even need to make a phone call.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#27

Post by saagarjha »

monadic2 wrote: post #15

Why do these apps require installers at all? What are they installing—presumably any of their proprietary tech can run in userspace unprivileged. Personally, my best guess is because that’s the flow the product manager expected.

With Zoom, apparently there's the app bundle, some browser plugins, and an audio kernel extension (the latter two of which are majorly deprecated?)

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#28

Post by saagarjha »

wmf wrote: post #4
x0x0 wrote: post #2

Everyone who's spent 3 hours talking a parent through downloading and installing a Zoom client understands exactly why they're doing this. Mine are unable to (1) reliably download a zip file; (2) navigate to that file using Finder; (3) run something inside it. By the time we were done -- I use copilot (basically VNC with NAT punching built in) -- and I got control of the laptop to just do it myself, there were 7 down…

If that problem exists it needs to be solved at the OS level, not worked around in shady ways. BTW, can't Web pages link to the app store?

> BTW, can't Web pages link to the app store?

Yes. But neither are distributed on the App Store, so…

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#29

Post by panic »

monadic2 wrote: post #15

Why do these apps require installers at all? What are they installing—presumably any of their proprietary tech can run in userspace unprivileged. Personally, my best guess is because that’s the flow the product manager expected.

It seems unnecessary for core functionality at least -- I installed Zoom by unpacking the .app from the .pkg by hand (without running any installer scripts) and it works fine.

Re: Tell HN: Cisco WebEx on OS X uses the same pre-installer tricks as Zoom

#30

Post by saagarjha »

gamegod wrote: post #13
sigjuice wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need to do the work to get on the Mac App Store

The Mac App Store is a trap - The sandboxed APIs are severely limited, and no large company is going to let Apple get even more in-between them and their customers.

The sandboxed APIs should be more than enough for a video conferencing client. (Which, after all, can run in a browser…)
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