News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by paulgpetty on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @08:47AM (#22736970)
Two questions this raises, for me at least:

How do I know I’ve completely uninstalled all the things Zoom installed?

And, if Zoom provided a separate uninstaller (like many apps do) and it was verified to purge all of the stuff they installed (along with the uninstaller); would that appease people's concerns?

For now I’m sticking with the iOS app for video & their web-based experience for desktop sharing...

Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by simonh on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @08:55AM (#22737015)
A previous version of Zoom installed a web server on MacOS without telling you, and left it there after the uninstall process. So the answer is no, you can't be sure.

Oh, and there was a known vulnerability in the web server that allowed remote access to your camera. The company claimed this was all intentional and was a feature and refused to remediate it for months. Eventually Apple issues a system update that removed the web server.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/zoom-webca...

Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by Hackbraten on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @10:29AM (#22737834)
If you have Homebrew installed, you can run `brew cask zap zoomus` to get rid of all the things (as far as we know) Zoom has installed.

If you prefer to remove it manually, here’s the list of files and folders Homebrew will delete on `brew cask zap zoomus`:

https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/a6026e0a36c22...

Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by saagarjha on Thursday April 02, 2020 @01:37AM (#22756510)
Your list seems to be missing a couple of files that the Zoom uninstaller cleans up.
Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by Hackbraten on Thursday April 02, 2020 @08:54AM (#22758365)
That's deliberate. Homebrew always runs the Zoom uninstaller first before going through the list.

Running the uninstaller is enforced by the `pkg` declaration. See also: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/a6026e0a36c22...

Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by aequitas on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @10:16AM (#22737708)
I think it's interesting to see the outcry when Apple poses new restrictions in the application distribution process (like signing and sandboxing) but conversely the same cries go up when there is an App that seems to be abusing loose control mechanisms.

I think a lot of power users rightfully feel they are belittled by sandboxes and application restrictions. But seeing that they are not the major userbase and most Apps don't really need any permissions at all for their intended purpose (the user's purpose at least) I think Apple is moving in the right direction.

Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by lonelappde on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @11:03AM (#22738169)
It's possible to things wrong in more than one way.
Re:How the Zoom macOS installer does its job without you cli... by why_only_15 on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @09:00AM (#22737037)
Part of the benefit of macOS apps is that you can just put them in the trash and they're gone. Breaking that contract isn't like awful but it is frustrating.