I'm targeting macOS because that's the OS I use. I use it because the two alternatives suck a lot more. Modern Mac hardware is also really nice and a joy to use. The integration of software and hardware is unmatched by any competition.
It basically requires you to be incorporated and hire a notary so you‘re probably spending $ 1000 or more for the first year. Renewal is cheaper but you will still be paying at least $ 100 a year.
Also if you know a good affordable way for a code signing certificate on Windows answer to this comment. I gave up the last time I tried.
https://www.ksoftware.net/code-signing-certificates/
Last time I looked they had the best pricing I could find at about $70/year. However, you still have to jump through the antiquated hoops for them to validate your business. One of the hoops was something like "have a business address and phone number listed in a commercial directory" which was particularly tricky to do for us since we don't have a company office anywhere and don't have a company phone number. In 2022, it should be reasonable for a software company to exist without a published phone number. I think we got around that by setting up a Twilio or Google Voice number and then adding a business listing in Google to one of our owner's residential addresses. Totally useless but apparently good enough to pass validation.
I'm using it for my app, and I never had any issues. You don't need to incorporate a company to get this certificate ( https://support.sectigo.com/PS_KnowledgeDetailPageFaq?Id=kA0... scroll down to the Individual Validation Requirements).
If your ID has your address printed on it, then you are lucky and can just take a photo of the ID and yourself holding the ID. If you don't, then you need to go to a notary and sign a special form provided by Sectigo.
Sectigo doesn't even need to call you anymore, as it was about 5-10 years ago.
The downside of the OV certificate is that Windows Defender will show a blue pop-up saying that your app might put the user's PC at risk. Good thing is that it will eventually go away after some time. For my app it took about a year.
That's the problem ID's don't have addresses printed on them in most European countries. So you have to get a notary and this is really expensive. There is a system to proof your place of residence here without a notary but these companies don't accept them.
There's no reason to do windows code signing unless you're writing a hardware driver(?).
If you love the hardware and the integration, and have the money, what exactly is your issue? -- if you were about FLOSS more than anything you wouldn't be pushing the proprietary platform stuff to begin with, and if you don't like the "walled garden" approach you shouldn't be using Apple ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The same things apply to the Microsoft Store for apps, and similar (but to a much lesser degree) for the likes of the Ubuntu Software Center. It's about trust, ease of use, and having apps and updates all handleable from one location.
If you're distributing the app yourself, outwith the App Store, you don't have any of those "dependencies" -- and if your complaint is paying to have your code signed properly as a dev, that's the same across macOS and Windows, in a similar vein to SSL certs for websites. Sure, you can work without it, but you're going to alienate and scare some users by doing so.
But I use none of Apple's online services. Not even the app store. App store for me is the place to update Apple apps, and that's really it.
> and if your complaint is paying to have your code signed properly as a dev, that's the same across macOS and Windows,
Windows? I know you can sign Windows executables, but why would anyone want to? I have Windows 11 on a VM. It runs unsigned executables just fine and, unlike macOS, doesn't treat them like they're radioactive. You just get a differently-colored confirmation window if you run them as administrator.
> in a similar vein to SSL certs for websites
And before Let's Encrypt and other similar free automatic CAs came along, SSL/TLS was very niche.
See, it's about choice. If you want to throw your money away for some reason, sure you can still pay for an SSL certificate. Or you can use Let's Encrypt for free, set it up once and forget. Your users would see a lock icon either way. No such luck with macOS app signing — Apple is your only option.
I like Android's security model better. You sign your apk with a self-signed certificate. No signing identity is enforced upon initial installation, but if you release an update, the new apk has to be signed with the same certificate. You can install an apk with the same package id but a different signature only after you uninstall the previous one (and delete all its private data). This helps with security and data integrity. I see no reason why Apple couldn't adopt a similar scheme on their platforms, except that they want all control they could get away with.
It ought to! I'd love to see this in Linux and the BSD's too. Signing applications and binaries should be the norm.
> And before Let's Encrypt and other similar free automatic CAs came along, SSL/TLS was very niche.
Let's Encrypt came about to help with security. Happy to hear arguments pro a similar service for application signing, but it will have to follow similar, or tighter restrictions and you'd still be at the whim of third party.
> I like Android's security model better. You sign your apk with a self-signed certificate.
That is most definitely not a security policy. Self-signing is no different to not signing at all. There is no provenance, no chain-of-trust.
We should've probably started with the fact that I despise security policies based on provenance, chains of trust, public key infrastructure, and third parties. This kind of "security" feels extremely fragile and unnecessarily centralized. We somehow live with how SSH identifies servers by their keys, with no third-party verification, and consider that an okay level of security. Why can't we use the same approach for TLS and for executable signatures? What's so fundamentally different that third parties are required in these cases?
Self signing is open to too much abuse. The whole point of signing is that the provenance can be verified (yes, checksums are a thing) and that the signing can be revoked should something bad happen. Notarising code is the process of a third party verifying your identity. So rather than saying, “hey, you can trust me”, you are asking a third party to vet and prove that you are trustworthy. If you can’t see the value in that for all parties - including the most important party, your customers - then that’s up to you. No sane SOC will allow unsigned or self-signed binaries. Consumers with the slightest bit of savvy will not run unsigned or self-signed binaries, and OS vendors need to take care of the rest. Thinking of the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability triad, your solution is unworkable.
> Consumers with the slightest bit of savvy will not run unsigned or self-signed binaries
I'm a "consumer with the slightest bit of savvy" and I despise code signing schemes that care about the signing identity, so you're already wrong. I absolutely will run unsigned and self-signed binaries. I trust myself and my own judgement more than I do anyone else in the entire universe.