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Comment by blub | Hacker News Reader

Not having a sandbox was acceptable in the 80s and 90s, when the software development community was reasonably trustworthy.

The software developers and software companies of today are on average not to be trusted: they will outright steal the customers' private information and sell it or give it away without a second thought.

Absent adequate laws, the success of the iOS permissions model and the complete failure of the Android permission model in protecting customers is perhaps the clearest proof of what a sandbox can achieve. I am reasonably sure that I can download an iOS app - any app - and that my private information will remain secure.

The platforms of today must offer a secure, privacy-preserving running environment. The free for all is dead, and it has been killed by greedy devs and companies.

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Apple's implementation of sandboxing actually makes computer users less secure. All the good software is distributed away from the App Store, because sandboxed apps are far too limited (especially regarding the filesystem).

So users have been trained to not use the App Store, where apps have to go through an approval process, and instead to install software from the wild west of random websites.

The fact is that Macs are not phones, the iMac Pro costs six thousand dollars, and expecting users to use the crippled selection of software from the App Store is unworkable. Nobody pays six thousand dollars to play candy crush.

> Nobody pays six thousand dollars to play candy crush.

You would be surprised.

The App Store wasn't made for the 1000 people with iMac Pros. It's made for millions of average Joes who just want to use their computer without having to worry about ransomware.

You are definitely not in that crowd, but most Mac users definitely are. Frankly, until the App Store came out, they were all terrified of installing anything on their computer without some well known brand attached to it (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Adobe).

The App Store has been a great way for Apple to turn a demographic who was traditionally scared of installing apps into a new market.

> So users have been trained to not use the App Store

Again, you and I have been trained. Most users crap their pants when they see anything happed contrary to the "blessed path."

Mac App Store is a fascinating topic! It seems to be a product nearly abandoned by Apple (not much improvement in years since the first release, unless you count sandboxing as one.) User experience is poor (takes seconds to load pages, also the HTML-based buttons need to be clicked multiple times and/or downloads get stuck). Abandonware/copies of copies of copies of "free PDF Reader"-type software from developers who re-publish 300+ apps of questionable quality abound.

Yes the App Store app is so broken and abandoned that it seems far more sketchy than downloading software from a website, which is quite an achievement!

You're being ridiculous. The AppStore is one of the safest ways available to install software.

what value is "safe" if your choices are all extremely limited in what they can do? And if you think you can't get malware past apple screening you're not thinking creatively enough.

> Apple's implementation of sandboxing actually makes computer users less secure. All the good software is distributed away from the App Store, because sandboxed apps are far too limited (especially regarding the filesystem).

Nonsense. The vast majority of users don't need software that does wacky stuff with the file system. They need software that opens documents they made, which all software in the app store can do. I'm a pro (the kind that currently owns the Mac Pro and will likely own the next one or the iMac Pro next), and I basically avoid all software that's not from the App Store. Your ranting sounds delusional to me.

> Nonsense. The vast majority of users don't need software that does wacky stuff with the file system.

Uhhhh, what? You're justifying a company you PAID thousands of dollars to remain in control of your device? We're fighting this sort of inane thoughts where these ideas are already executed. Look up John Deere, and the Freedom to Fix.

> They need software that opens documents they made, which all software in the app store can do. I'm a pro (the kind that currently owns the Mac Pro and will likely own the next one or the iMac Pro next), and I basically avoid all software that's not from the App Store.

Ok. You can choose to or not to.

> Your ranting sounds delusional to me.

You're calling someone else delusional for calling bullshit on Apple's faux-security? And you're calling for the app-ification of all computers? The person calling bullshit on Apple-faux-security isn't the delusional one here.

“You're justifying a company you PAID thousands of dollars to remain in control of your device?“

This is the bit that you FOSS diehards don’t get. Nobody really cares. What they want is something that they can switch on and go to Facebook or edit their documents on. They don’t want to tinker with kernel exstentions or run servers. For most, computing appliances are far more convenient.

Nobody really cares? You know, we're on this forum called hackernews?

You might want to pack up that opinion and take it to some place called "consumernews" or something (they might call it "productnews" these days). That is where nobody really cares.

While most of the "FOSS diehards" get it just fine. People want convenience. It's not that hard to understand and you're making yourself look like a fool if that's your claim. Doesn't mean convenience is the right way forward, even if people want it or don't care.

Since when is "people don't care" a viable argument for anything, the people that don't care, don't understand this.

“Since when is "people don't care" a viable argument for anything, the people that don't care, don't understand this.”

So climb down from your ivory tower and make them understand without reverting the usual rhetoric as you have done here.

> The vast majority of users don't need software that does wacky stuff with the file system.

Its not about "wacky stuff" its about basic things. Apps in the AppStore are horribly crippled compared to their not AppStore counterparts.

I'm a pro, and like many other pros, basically avoid all software from the AppStore.

The fact is that Macs are not phones, the iMac Pro costs six thousand dollars, and expecting users to use the crippled selection of software from the App Store is unworkable.

Keep in mind that professional users that buy the iMac Pro use pro apps, like AutoCAD, Final Cut, Logic, ProTools, Creative Suite and the like; these apps are mission-critical to their workflows and are not crippled.

It works fine for me, I don't have to hunt for updates to all sorts of apps, pay only one company and have some extra security from the sandbox. Lots of awesome apps are available on the store.

I don't want to allow any app free access to the file system. And anyway, developers have found creative solutions to this problem also. E.g: by asking the user to open the target location from the app they can circumvent the protection.

The AppStore has its negative sides too: apps can disappear and be replaced by v2, forcing one to pay again and again.

The AppStore is terrible because its doesn't help developers, so they avoid it.

I'd LOVE to offer my app on the AppStore, but its too expensive and too restrictive.

A lot more awesome apps are available outside the AppStore.

> The software developers and software companies of today are on average not to be trusted: they will outright steal the customers' private information and sell it or give it away without a second thought.

This is an 'unintended side effect' of the software-as-a-service model. When software was licensed the software itself was what made the money, and there was no way that someone would buy a piece of software if it did not at least try to keep the data safe, in one piece and on the users' computer. But with software-as-a-service the user expects to see their data moving elsewhere and once that has happened all bets are off on how it can - and will - be monetized.

I agree that the idea of a sandbox and Mac App Store is still a vision worth continuing. The problem is that like macOS itself, it seems to have been sidelined for the past few years in favor of iOS and other endeavors.

The performance and limitations can definitely be improved, if not eliminated, if Apple focused on it. The question is: Will they?

> The free for all is dead, and it has been killed by greedy devs and companies.

I agree with you but think there should be more emphasis on connectivity.

In the 80's and 90's (less so of course in the 90's) if you got a computer virus it was probably from sharing software ... on a floppy disk. I used a Mac during those decades and like other software viruses were rare on that platform. :-/

The internet changed everything. Not only does the internet serve up compromised software it provides the back-channel so the malware can phone home.

I don't have any suggestions or any sort of panacea. It's nice sometimes just to reflect on how computing used to be. Back before passwords, sandboxes....

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