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Comment by reboot81 | Hacker News Reader

Nice writeup. Annoying behavior of Apple. But is it worth disabling SIP for? No.

Since Windows and Linux don't have an equivalent of SIP, if you're comfortable using Windows or Linux at all, then you should be comfortable disabling SIP on macOS.

I disable SIP for so many other reasons, so this is fine.

Anyone uncomfortable with SIP should probably not be using macOS in the first place.

What should I use instead? Windows that that will track me? Or Linux that lacks the apps that I want to run?

I use a Mac and I disable SIP. Why? Because it makes me happier. I spend all day using a computer. I want the computer to work exactly how I tell it to work. I don’t ever want the computer to refuse to do something even when I enter the root password.

Life is about managing risks. Every day we take risks that are much bigger than disabling SIP: e.g. driving a car, crossing a road, riding a bicycle, eating a hamburger, or going outside without sunblock (if you have light skin) are infinitely more risky than disabling SIP.

If you don’t see any benefit from disabling SIP then feel free to leave it enabled. But don’t let fear run your life. We’re not here forever.

The makers of macOS chose to implement and enable SIP. If you are not comfortable with it, you aren’t comfortable with macOS.

> Or Linux that lacks the apps that I want to run?

Emulation exists.

Not being completely "comfortable" (I'd say satisfied) is a given for any software choice. Nothing is perfect and everything is a tradeoff.

Linux presents no shortage of compromises itself. You could just as well say that if you're not satisfied with native Linux software, then you're not satisfied, or "comfortable", with Linux. This example is especially humorous since you might very well end up bringing another OS into the fold (to virtualize or, heaven forbid, emulate). That's about as strong a signal of dissatisfaction as they come.

There is a crucial difference. With macOS, if Apple does some change to it, you just… live with it. If you’re not comfortable with the direction the author is taking macOS, you probably are not trusting that author in general, and hence probably should abstain from using it. With Linux, it is created by a myriad of creators, and you can freely mix and match. Don’t like what Ubuntu is changing? Use Debian! Don’t like what Gnome is doing? Use KDE! You can completely avoid whatever entity is doing what you consider questionable things, if you so choose. But with macOS, you have macOS from Apple, period. You can’t differentiate between departments or individual authors within Apple; it’s all a monolithic entity. Therefore, if you disagree with a single bit of macOS, like SIP, you can’t remove SIP (and its authors) from your macOS. It’s all macOS from Apple, and you can’t portion out and choose your trust.

Spoken like a real iOS zealot. Some of us remember when macOS or OS X or Mac OS X was just a unix, and are indeed uncomfortable with where Apple took macOS in the past decade or so.

For us, there are still options on the Mac: https://gist.github.com/LeoNatan/b1cf77e1a0df2558f02631656e5...

Using this is probably going to make your life miserable as things break and you don't know why. Or you do, and power through it anyway.

Do you have an example of something that breaks?

Disabling SIP has certainly made my Mac life much better.

Do you have AMFI turned off?

No.

That's why your stuff isn't broken.

You didn't answer my question. Give examples.

All sorts of things break in odd ways, because Apple doesn't really test for this and all the APIs die. TCC is definitely hosed, I've heard of things like Chrome crashes and ADB failing to connect, etc. You really don't want to do this.

> Spoken like a real iOS zealot.

Really? I wouldn’t touch iOS with a ten-foot pole, so that shows what you know.

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