Yep, we’re going to fix this so that if you uncheck it, we leave it unchecked.
> This fiasco has probably made it more likely that Apple will further lock down the accessibility APIs, possibly even making them unavailable without an Apple-issued, potentially App Store-only entitlement.
As alluded to elsewhere in this thread, this is already happening in macOS 10.12. We’ll be switching to the same approach that Steam (among others) do to request accessibility.
Granted my team is small, but we just uninstalled dropbox today. Going to use the web interface and look for another solution in the meantime.
I'd love to see Box or someone else encourage popular apps to support their sync platforms, but I doubt it will happen. I blame Apple for not supporting easy 3rd party integrations.
With that said, on the assumption that it is a way to exchange files between computers and/or share with other users, it would seem to be the case that ownCloud (nextCloud) fits the bill. You can host it yourself (as I do) or use a third party to host it for you. I have been using it for a number of years and I'm entirely happy with it.
Also, depending on your use scenario, another possible option may be https://www.stackfield.com/ a German end-to-end encrypted storage company. I believe there are others offering similar services.
Really?
FWIW Kim Dotcom, the founder of Mega, has distanced himself from it, saying the company had "suffered from a hostile takeover by a Chinese investor who is wanted in China for fraud"[1]
So yeah, don't trust Dropbox. Instead trust some shady Chinese characters. Can you name one of them? In comparison, note that Ben Newhouse, a Dropbox employee, is actually posting in this discussion.
There is also the added benefit of encryption
Without full source code to said encryption, all you have to go on is "trust us".
Forced to choose between the two, I know who I'd trust, and it wouldn't be Mega. YMMV.
And they're actually usable.
What does Chinese have to do with this?
Dropbox has done the opposite.
I like it though
Admittedly I'm not a Mac guy, but that can't be common practice.
And then the response isn't "we're going to stop endangering our users with this dangerous practice", it's "we're going to stop doing this one particular thing that happened to be called out this time".
It's not. It's very unusual.
Please feel free to duplicate my radar! Accessibility and Productivity/Utility app developers would love a Sandbox entitlement.
rdar://13570189 - Sandbox entitlement for Accessibility API to allow apps for the disabled
The Accessibility toolkit has always been off limits to Sandboxed apps, and no entitlement exists. This seems unlikely to change. It's unfortunate, as this keeps many good and useful apps out of the Mac App Store.
Without the source code and large amounts of resources it is not possible to determine whether an app is malicious or not. The only way would be for Apple to trust that developers actually do what they say they do. The unfortunate reality is that they cannot be trusted. I don't blame Apple for not taking that responsibility. Unfortunately that means the responsibility ends up with the user who cannot make the determination either. Such is life.
To clarify for others: In /Library/DropboxHelperTools, you'll find a folder for each user full of setuid tools which run as root and do various privileged things. I assume that the client is presenting the normal OS X "ask for elevated access" UI and then using that elevated access to configure and install these. (I don't work for Dropbox or anything; I've just been poking around.)
> - We use accessibility APIs for the Dropbox badge (Office integrations) and other integrations (finding windows & other UI interactions).
@newhouseb, I don't have Office, so I've turned off the badge. Is Dropbox now going to leave my accessibility permissions the way I set them? Or is it going to reactivate a permission behind my back that it no longer even needs?
I understand the desire to make your features "just work", but circumventing the user's privacy controls to do that is never acceptable. Especially accessibility, which is basically a general warrant to snoop on everything the user does. You wouldn't be on my system anymore if my work didn't require Dropbox. You're going to lose a lot of trust over this, and it won't even be half of what you deserve.
And it's not even in your interest in the long term. This fiasco has probably made it more likely that Apple will further lock down the accessibility APIs, possibly even making them unavailable without an Apple-issued, potentially App Store-only entitlement. Since Dropbox can't really do its job when it's locked in a sandbox, I really don't think that's what you guys want to happen.
Teams like yours are why we can't have nice things.
(P.S. plz respect NSFileCoordinator this isn't Tiger anymore kthxbai)