macOS

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Short description

macOS is an operating system designed by Apple for its Mac computers. It is a Unix-based system that provides a user-friendly interface, integrating seamlessly with other Apple devices and services.

Why I think this tool should be added

Considering that 1Password is still recommended because PG doesn’t really care that much about FOSS, I don’t see why macOS couldn’t be recommended.

macOS is a lot better than Windows, and sometimes it can even be better than Linux. It has the best security out of all three and also has the ability to have the best privacy from 3rd parties because of proper sandboxing.

The UI/UX is also miles better than Windows and most Linux distributions.

Section on Privacy Guides

Desktop/PC

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Apple tried to have image scanners on all apple phones earlier this year.

We can’t audit their security practice due to the proprietary nature.

This seems like an argument to remove 1password instead of approving MacOS.

As such, I don’t think this is in line with PG ethos

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Do you have a source on that. I don’t remember hearing about that at all.

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I’m not really sure this is necessary, we already have a macOS guide. The Linux distros are recommended because there’s so many different options if you need Linux, whereas there’s only one macOS. There are so many reasons someone might need a specific operating system outside of just the privacy and security features that it makes more sense just to give info about how to lock it down than to recommend one over another.

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Hey. Have a source. Sorry, I guess this happened a bit further back than I remember (2021), but this does prove it happened. Ars Technical has a LOT more articles on this if you want to read up

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Yeah that’s the one I remember. Still it was never implemented so it doesn’t really factor in.

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No, but they sure darn tried. They were quite stubborn on it for a while as I recall. Doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in apple

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It still didn’t happen.

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We wouldn’t be so forgiving of a FOSS organization, or Proton, if they pulled a stunt like that

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I think we would. Remember the Amazon Ubuntu thing where they would send all your searches to Amazon?

And that was actually implemented.

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PG never recommended Ubuntu.

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Just giving another example. I don’t think them previously having something like that would be grounds to not recommend it.

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Are we talking about the same Apple?
The same apple that:

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They really have no choice, they have to comply with the local laws.

This was a bug in gatekeeper not anything intentional it was just misreported. Gatekeeper is easy to disable anyway, there are no plans for them to disable side loading on Macs.

Looks like it’s just within the App Store which you can avoid on a Mac if you want. You also have a toggle for personalized ads it’s just enabled by default.

It’s mandatory to install new apps from the App Store but it’s not mandatory to use an iPhone, it’s just that you can’t sideload in the US for now.

Doesn’t seem relevant to privacy or security, other stores charge to get in them as well.

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Wasn’t Apple also caught not respecting people’s privacy settings? Just a bug?

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No basically there was a setting in the settings for telemetry or something but it didn’t cover all Apple apps which confused people.

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That’s not true. Google choose to stand up to Russia (after some PR backlash, true) by reverting it’s removal of anti-war videos.
Yes, they got banned for it. and that’s the right thing to do.

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The code to scan images still exists on iphones, it is just not used.

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Do you have a source for that?

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They enabled telemetry for targeted ads by default

CNIL found that v14.6 of iOS automatically read identifiers on the user’s iPhone — which served a number of purposes, including powering personalizing ads on the App Store — and that processing occurred without Apple obtaining proper consent, in the regulator’s view, as consent was being gathered via a setting that was prechecked by default. (NB: 2019 CNIL guidance on the ePrivacy Directive stipulates that consent is necessary for ad tracking.)