Comment by EGreg
4 hours ago
Oh man! Microsoft was the #1 company with this problem for over 25 years and they still do it?
Word and Excel “MACROS” used to be THE main vector for kiddie viruses. Come on M$ … billions of dollars and you’re still loading up non-interactive code execution in all your documents that people expect to be POD (Plain Old Data)?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/protect-yourself-...
Is it so much to ask for your software to AT LEAST warn peole when it’s about to take a destructive action, and keep asking until the user allows that class of thing non-interactivlely ONLY FOR THAT SIGNED SOFTWARE?
Apple does other software things really badly with their millions of dollars, but they get Privacy RIGHT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPogdNafgic
VS Code does exactly that, warns before loading this non-interactive code. It warns you loudly, with an ugly modal dialog, on opening a new to it folder and suggests Restricted Mode. A lot of the arguments here relate to:
1) This loud warning is easy to ignore, despite how loud it is
2) This loud warning is easy to disable, which many desire to do because it is very loud
3) This loud warning is easy to build bad habits (instead of marking safe parent folders, continually clicking Allow and training yourself to only click Allow)
4) Restricted Mode sounds "too restricted" to be useful (though it isn't too restrictive and is very useful)
5) Restricted Mode is also loud to remind you that you are in it, so many users think it is too loud and never want to be in it (despite it being very useful)