Comment by JohnMakin

2 years ago

> Yes, make macOS more and more like iPadOS so their users can do less and less other than buying apps from the app store and scrolling through the slop on Safari.

This doesn't seem at all a fair characterization of what happened here - you can still run these applications, they just added a (seemingly pretty reasonable) step to do so. I don't see this as allowing users to do less, and I struggle to find a strong argument against this when the typical user is not a l33t hacker type and most typical users find it extremely easy to download and run malware.

> you can still run these applications, they just added a (seemingly pretty reasonable) step to do so.

Every version of macOS makes it harder and harder to run unsigned code. They keep pushing the bypass deeper and making it less convenient. It’s super super annoying and stupid.

Protecting users against malware should be the job of XProtect. If a naive user can run malware via right-clicking, they can do it nearly as easily through the Privacy & Security page. All this change does is bring unsigned software closer to outright deprecation, at which point Apple can backdoor app review through notarization just like they do on iOS in the EU.

  • I’m probably viewing this too much in the lens of an IT administrator, I absolutely do not want any of my machines to run unsigned applications and I can’t think of any reasons I personally would want to, so for me, that friction is a good thing.

    As to what Apple may eventually do, just seems a little speculative.

  • Users shouldn’t need to control-click/right click though. That’s not something I can think that exists anywhere else in macOS.

    Putting this in system settings makes sense.