I think it’s a fair critique; at the very least MacOS should more readily expose this information to power users and sysads who want to know.

I don’t think it should be necessary to rely on third party software to review the status of an important first party system component.

OSX was an operating system for both power users and common users. macOS is just for the latter. Power users require hardware and software they can trust and rely on and macOS is an unreliable garbage which breaks UX under the disguise of security updates.

Ivy and Cook made me switch from their computer products to whatever I can run FreeBSD or Linux on. It's almost like Cook is waiting for security flaws discoveries to push UI changes, take configuration options away or introduce another privacy-invading snooping mechanisms under the disgraceful pretense of protecting children.

    he downloaded and ran my free utility XProCheck

    ....

    I also suggested that he looked at a third-party
    anti-malware product for a second opinion

   ...

   you’ll find third-party tools like my own SilentKnight,
   silnite and XProCheck a good start. And they’re
   completely free to use

So the user was afraid of malware on his machine because he received an email that looks malicious.

And the solution is to have him download binaries of the internet and execute them?

What practical alternative, within a lowly user's reach, would you suggest instead?

Not download binaries of the internet and execute them.

The mail program the user used was probably written by Apple, one of the biggest companies in the world. And Mail is probably one of the most hardened and scrutinized against attacks applications in the world.

If the user is afraid that Apple mail is faulty or malicious, then installing software from tiny companies is suicide out of fear of death.

Have you forgotten the silent remote code execution vulnerabilities in iMessage, also one of the most hardened and scrutinized applications made by one of the biggest and richest companies in the world.

I guess it will be in the detrimental of the users to have Apple publicly disclose all the security risks they are exposed to. Although the current state is not perfect, it is the optimal choice. There is no way of making these risks publicly available only to "power users". How would you disciminate the good actors from the bad actors in this category?

One time when you do want to get badgered about something, macOS hides it!

This is a contentless spam advertisement for "XProtect Remediator"

edit I stand corrected, I regret the error. Probably Apple should not ship software named "XProtect Remediator."

XProtect Remediator is part of macOS

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/08/31/apple-xprotect-is...

https://support.apple.com/en-il/guide/security/sec469d47bd8/...

not only is the article heavily criticzing the app, xprotect is built in macos software.