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NirSoft Freeware (2008)

nirsoft.net

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Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#231

Post by interfixus »

tracker1 wrote: post #228
interfixus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had perfectly viably cross platform GUI-applications for decades. Lots of them. Done one way or another, or a third. I'm sorry, I fail to see the problem that abominations like Electron are trying to solve.

Could you demonstrate an alternative that allows for UI as complex, with fewer cross platform issues that can easily target usage on MacOS, Windows and Linux? Let alone leveraging the language and UI interface/api that are the most widely developed against.

We used to get along just fine on things like Qt, Gtk (perhaps via Wx), or indeed Tk - in some ways still my favorite after all these years. But then 'easily' wasn't necessarily the gold standard of everything.

The electronisms I occasionally have to use are glorified chat-apps like Signal. Hardly complex UI cases.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#232

Post by tracker1 »

interfixus wrote: post #231
tracker1 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you demonstrate an alternative that allows for UI as complex, with fewer cross platform issues that can easily target usage on MacOS, Windows and Linux? Let alone leveraging the language and UI interface/api that are the most widely developed against.

We used to get along just fine on things like Qt, Gtk (perhaps via Wx), or indeed Tk - in some ways still my favorite after all these years. But then 'easily' wasn't necessarily the gold standard of everything. The electronisms I occasionally have to use are glorified chat-apps like Signal. Hardly complex UI cases.

By comparison, I wouldn't consider VS Code a "simple" UI. And replicating it with Qt, GTX or anything else would be a significant endeavor for even one platform, let alone three very different platforms. They all have serious flaws. As a user, I'd rather have something useful now, than wait a couple years hoping to maybe see a linux or mac release of a program.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#233

Post by interfixus »

tracker1 wrote: post #232
interfixus wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to get along just fine on things like Qt, Gtk (perhaps via Wx), or indeed Tk - in some ways still my favorite after all these years. But then 'easily' wasn't necessarily the gold standard of everything. The electronisms I occasionally have to use are glorified chat-apps like Signal. Hardly complex UI cases.

By comparison, I wouldn't consider VS Code a "simple" UI. And replicating it with Qt, GTX or anything else would be a significant endeavor for even one platform, let alone three very different platforms. They all have serious flaws. As a user, I'd rather have something useful now, than wait a couple years hoping to maybe see a linux or mac release of a program.

To each his own, of course, and if VS Code does it for you, well then - excellent.

I personally find it a bloated mess, and like to stick with my Komodo and my Geany - two neat examples of portable UIs done right.

Anyway, I'm sure there are ways of embedding runtime web macinery in somewhat less than 100Mb. Twenty years ago I did so in a megabyte or two, admittedly without the js.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#234

Post by chii »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #210
nradov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately waste of users' computer resources is an externality and developers are more expensive than ever. Revealed preferences show that customers would rather buy more hardware resources than pay higher prices for efficient software (within reasonable limits).

I would be careful talking about revealed preferences here - individual customers have close to zero choice in the matter. They select from what's available on the market, not from the space of all possible software.

If the efficient market theory is to be believed, then as soon as a competitor shows up with the user's preferred choice, they will gain the market share.

The fact that no such competitor exists is evidence that the user's preferences aren't what you stated, but is in fact consistent with reality, namely they prefer free and bloated.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#235

Post by toephu2 »

Wow Chromepass actually worked..I didn't even enter my windows admin password or anything..

I thought Chrome encrypts all the saved passwords. How is another program so easily able to read the passwords?

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#237

Post by TeMPOraL »

chii wrote: post #234
TeMPOraL wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be careful talking about revealed preferences here - individual customers have close to zero choice in the matter. They select from what's available on the market, not from the space of all possible software.

If the efficient market theory is to be believed, then as soon as a competitor shows up with the user's preferred choice, they will gain the market share. The fact that no such competitor exists is evidence that the user's preferences aren't what you stated, but is in fact consistent with reality, namely they prefer free and bloated.

The mistake here is believing in efficient market theory.

It's not so easy for a competitor to show up, because they have to work against heavy first-mover advantage and network effects in software. Those who do a crap job get first to the market and set the trend (and the expectations). Moreover, there's a heavy component of tragedy of the commons here, with commons being users' computing resources - the software is often designed with implicit belief that it's the only thing running on user's machine. It's enough to make a sale, and you don't get a reward for making it so that your users can run many other stuff simultaneously with your application.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#239

Post by framp »

dschuetz wrote: post #174

I find it particularly funny that he doesn't explain why his binaries are literally plagued with "false positives". I'm really curious. Does he use some arcane compression techniques which usually are found in virus signatures?

I think the issue is that his freeware utilities were used as part of spyware by third parties.

AV back in the days were mainly all blacklists of known actors and a few tricks (eg: when the executable was obfuscated with a compressor like UPX or using some more advanced techniques)

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#240

Post by ebrenes »

tracker1 wrote: post #229
epalmer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on a mac and use slack an vscode. Neither has crashed on me. I'm wondering if there is something about your mac setup. I don't like that slack consumes some many resources. I love vscode so I don't care.

I've seen VS Code crash on Windows more than Mac... also, it often leaves anything you had running in the integrated terminal running in the background when it does crash. I haven't seen that specific behavior on mac though.

Most of the issues I've had with VS Code were actually due to extensions and not VS Code itself. Like for example, we started getting issues with CPU's getting pegged to 100% and it seems it was a couple of linters that were running causing that.
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