Re:Each Firefox download has a unique identifier
by evilduck on Friday March 18, 2022 @11:06AM
(#30723235)
I have a hard time viewing Apple's Spotlight metadata as a wrong. It's locally created and stored, it's transparently shown in File info and mdls. It can be purged and edited with xattrs. It doesn't follow the file across computers and you can outright disable file metadata and indexing if you really care enough and I've never seen or heard of any evidence of Apple sending this local data outside your computer. Windows indexes files and creates metadata, even popular Linux desktop distros do it, because it's a usability improvement for most people.
>But yes I wish this prompt could be completely turned off.
defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO
Also Apple seems to just track this to show a prompt as to why they need approval for the install. And it's just stored locally in the metadata.
But yes I wish this prompt could be completely turned off. This isn't just security for the user though, they have a clear financial motive in promoting their app store as an easier option. After all the app store is a huge revenue driver for them on mobile but not on Mac.
Also Apple has done a lot worse things like checking the notarisation online every time an app was launched. They have now cut this back to once every few days since the outcry about it but still it's something you should be able to turn off IMO.
But what do you expect from a closed source OS (yes it is, only the kernel is open). And again, the fact that Apple does it too does not make Mozilla's action less questionable.