[HN Gopher] Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two...
___________________________________________________________________
Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to
uninstall
Author : chalmovsky
Score : 375 points
Date : 2026-03-29 20:55 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (chalmovsky.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chalmovsky.com)
| thisago wrote:
| It's comic when reading but for sure this is tragic. I _have a
| feeling_ that bloat will continue increasing in the next years.
|
| It makes me wonder why did large companies are investing so much
| in web and putting web devs to write disk utility desktop apps?
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| > It makes me wonder why did large companies are investing so
| much in web and putting web devs to write disk utility desktop
| apps?
|
| It's because in these environments where corporate cancer has
| metastasised, programmers are not in charge of hiring
| programmers, or much of anything when it comes to decision-
| making really. HR is composed of people who are not
| programmers. They are looking to hire people with a list of
| shiny hot new web stack keywords on a resume, because they have
| literally no other concept of how to filter candidate
| applications. So they end up with a bunch of hot React devs and
| nobody capable of making software that is fit for task.
| adrianton3 wrote:
| I don't follow - why do you think HR would be interested in
| shiny hot new web stack keywords over anything else?
| voakbasda wrote:
| Because they lack any better signals from within the
| company. At several places I have worked, hiring is almost
| fully detached from the groups that need the workers. They
| never could find good candidates for our teams. This kind
| of disconnect is what corporate cancer looks like, and it
| is endemic in big business.
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| To a non-developer, every application they read might as
| well be a list of buzzwords. They cannot comprehend a word
| of it. Web stacks offer the opportunity to list more and
| newer buzzwords. Do I set up an interview with the person
| who lists "C systems programmer" or with the person who is
| a "full stack React, Tailwind, Next.js, Node.js, Electron,
| Docker, Kubernetes, AWS engineer seasoned in Javascript,
| Typescript, HTML, and CSS"? Well, the latter certainly
| _sounds_ 10x more impressive. Into the trashbin the systems
| programmer application goes, they just don 't have enough
| skills for an enterprise of our scale!
| adrianton3 wrote:
| A C systems programmer can definitely make a list of
| buzzwords as well.
|
| Also, let's say team A (10 C app/systems programmers) in
| a company asks HR to look for a C developer and HR comes
| back to them with 10 great web developers to be grilled
| by the engineers of team A - what happens then? Does team
| A shrug and say "welcome to our C codebase, we shall now
| rewrite it in tailwind or whatever because you are now
| here!" - I really don't see how it can play out
| applfanboysbgon wrote:
| This supposes team A has 10 C programmers in the first
| place. By one means or another, teams of web developers
| are put together and made to do non-web-development
| projects, and now half of the Windows 11 userland is
| written in fucking React. I'm not the one making these
| stupid decisions, but probably they were originally hired
| to work on a web project, then later moved to a new OS-
| related project because they were the pool of idle
| employees available, and the fleet of React-in-the-OS
| programmers expanded as new hires were now being funneled
| directly into React teams working on OS projects.
| daneel_w wrote:
| "I took an 'app coding' course in college".
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It reminds me of a lot of Windows software, especially virus
| scanners and supposed antimalware tools, going back 20+ years.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| this reminds me, I still have an ancient version of iTunes on my
| old win7 box because something got corrupted at some point and
| now I can't uninstall it.
|
| Not being able to simply remove a program like you would any
| other program is next level evil in my book.
| Barbing wrote:
| I have a modern application from the macOS App Store in a
| permanent update purgatory. I dared drag to delete it, now it
| won't update nor open. But an update is always shown available!
| saagarjha wrote:
| I feel like the complaints here are...not really Samsung's fault?
|
| > So I've dug around and found a cleanup script buried six
| folders deep inside the app bundle. Let's try to run it:
|
| > sh ~/Library/'Application Support'/Samsung/'Samsung Magician'/S
| amsungMagician.app/Contents/Resources/CleanupMagician_Admin_Mac.s
| h
|
| > It ran. And my kitty exploded. Sweet kitty overflowed. Hundreds
| - literally hundreds - of lines of chown: Operation not
| permitted.
|
| I mean, if you read on, you'll find that most of the things that
| were removed were from system folders that are owned by root?
| Presumably this was run without sudo...
|
| > I rm -rf every Samsung folder I could find. The Preferences.
| The Caches. The LaunchAgents. The LaunchDaemons. The kernel
| extensions. The crash reports.
|
| ...that's where you put your stuff on macOS. Would you prefer
| that they picked some non-standard location you had to dig up?
|
| > Package receipts in /private/var/db/receipts/ (Samsung left its
| receipts behind like a burglar leaving a bunch of turds in the
| living room)
|
| This is again for your benefit so you know what was installed on
| your system
|
| > Cached processes in /private/var/folders/7v/<your username
| hash>/C/ (yes, Samsung is in there too)
|
| That's getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR
|
| > I shut down my Mac. Held the power button. Booted into Recovery
| Mode. Opened Terminal. Ran csrutil disable. Rebooted. Opened
| Terminal. Deleted the kernel extensions.
|
| That's just how kernel extensions are on Apple silicon
| bee_rider wrote:
| Yeah, the two steps:
|
| * going into some internal directory and running a script based
| on the name
|
| * deleting a bunch of directories
|
| Seem like pretty bad ideas. Especially for software provided by
| a hardware vendor, which is probably a little clunky and
| inherently touches deep stuff.
|
| But not including a removal script seems like bad form.
|
| Edit: On the other hand, I don't actually know for certain that
| the tool doesn't have an uninstall script. Just, that the
| author didn't find it. This seems worth noting because the
| author really wasn't giving them the benefit of the doubt on
| anything, see all of the irrelevant complaints about
| animations.
| rmunn wrote:
| I mean, there clearly _was_ an uninstall script. It was in
| the app 's Contents/Resources file, and it was called
| CleanupMagician_Admin_Mac.sh. Which means there was _some_
| intended way to trigger running it. Perhaps Samsung 's
| instructions or their menu system weren't clear and they
| managed to hide it from him. But there most definitely was an
| uninstall script, and if he had managed to find the intended
| button in the interface, it would have asked for admin
| permissions and then done all the cleanup for him. The very
| cleanup that he complained about having to do by hand.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think you are probably right. Although, with a name like
| that it could be some post-install cleanup of temporary
| files (which would explain why it was doing chown, rather
| than rm, although there are certainly other options!).
| kvuj wrote:
| > I feel like the complaints here are...not really Samsung's
| fault?
|
| I don't know man, the last time I uninstalled an app on macOS,
| all I had to do was drag it to the trash. If you find this
| procedure sane, then I don't know what to tell you.
|
| Samsung is responsible of how users interact with their app,
| including its install and removal.
| dawnerd wrote:
| And you probably have a lot of files still from removed apps.
| There's a reason there's a few app uninstaller / cleaner
| utils
| wpm wrote:
| Yeah but I don't actually _care_ if some orphaned cache or
| config file gets left behind if it doesn 't take up GBs of
| space.
|
| Clearing the package receipt database of stuff you want to
| uninstall is fucking neurotic, I'm sorry, but it just is.
| rmunn wrote:
| It's a .sh script, so he could have read it before running it.
| And when he saw "chown: Operation not permitted", he could have
| realized that the word Admin in the script was a clue that it
| needed, well, admin-level privileges, and he should try running
| it with sudo (after _reading_ it first, naturally). I 'm with
| you, I feel like this is someone who caused himself a lot of
| self-inflicted pain.
|
| I mean, if he had read the script before deleting it (that's
| the third time I've mentioned reading the script, do you think
| I'm dropping enough hints?), he might have found a handy list
| of ... ALL THE FILES HE WAS LOOKING FOR. You know, all the 18
| or so locations that he had to find by hand.
|
| But nope, he didn't ... yes, I'm going to say it for the fourth
| time ... READ THE SCRIPT.
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| And what about for users that either can't find this
| uninstall script or wouldn't know how to read it or what the
| contents mean? While I think you do have a point, we also
| can't assume that the uninstall script really would've
| removed all traces.
| rabf wrote:
| Those users have never heard of the word `uninstall` nor
| have any comprehension of what it would do. They will after
| a time, just buy a new computer because the old one is full
| up.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Also it doesn't take 18 steps to uninstall. The steps provided
| are the steps he took stumbling around trying to remove every
| trace of it, but it is in no way the optimal method.
| malfist wrote:
| This type of writing is very grating on the nerves. It's not AI
| slop, but it feels the same way, where AI slop is trying to trick
| you into thinking every sentence is the pinnacle insight of human
| endeavor of all history, this writing stops every single sentence
| to say "Are you outraged? I'm outraged! You should be outraged!
| This is outrageous!"
|
| Especially when the outrage is that the user didn't follow
| instructions to use sudo on an uninstaller that needs to touch
| root owned files.
| greazy wrote:
| I completely disagree. I loved this article. I could feel the
| authors frustration and disdain for the software.
|
| It was funny and helpful.
| atoav wrote:
| Well I once watched an sysadmin with 430 years of experience
| swear his way through an installation process. Until I, back
| then a intern, pointed out that maybe reading the install
| instructions would have been a good idea, since there were some
| steps in there that would have saved us some time. We scrapped
| everything and reinstalled following the instructions and 15
| minuted later it worked.
|
| I admit that I also often deviate from installation processes,
| but only when I really know why I want to do that. And I tend
| to read the instructions first.
|
| But I know people who are snuggly proud about not reading the
| manual and I really don't get it.
| close04 wrote:
| When all else fails, read the manual. It's a tried and tested
| practice among experts worth their salt.
|
| A lit of practices save you 10s each day but when they fail
| you lose 10 years' worth of savings.
| rmunn wrote:
| Was "430 years" a typo for "30 years" or for "43 years"?
| atoav wrote:
| [delayed]
| rmunn wrote:
| > But I know people who are snuggly proud about not reading
| the manual and I really don't get it.
|
| Agreed... but there seem to be more and more products that
| either don't have manuals, or whose manuals are so badly
| written that reading them turns out to be a waste of time. I
| feel like people are being trained not to read manuals
| anymore, so I understand the people whose first instinct is
| "that thing is going to be useless, I'm not going to waste my
| time reading it". But not the ones who are _proud_ of not
| reading manuals, that doesn 't make sense to me either.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Installing software should not require a manual. It should
| require one button click, or one drag action.
| malfist wrote:
| > It should require one button click, or one drag action.
|
| That is way to simplistic to be one size fits all.
| rmunn wrote:
| While I agree in the general case (e.g., software aimed
| at end users), there's also a good reason why the
| Archlinux Wiki is so good: because installing an OS
| _does_ require a manual if you want to be able to do any
| customization at all (yes, you can just install the
| defaults, but if that 's what you wanted, you probably
| wouldn't be running Arch). And the same applies to
| systems software not quite as broad in scope as an OS:
| there can be multiple different customizations you might
| need to apply, or you might need various dependencies.
| atoav didn't mention whether the software the sysadmin
| was installing had a distro package (it might not have
| even been on a Linux system, no particular reason to
| assume it was Linux rather than FreeBSD or AIX or Solaris
| or...), but I kind of assume it didn't, precisely because
| there were installation instructions. The sysadmin
| wouldn't have been "swear[ing] his way through an
| installation process" if the installation process was
| "sudo apt install some-piece-of-software", after all.
| raincole wrote:
| The writing style has a name called ragebaiting. The gold:
|
| > Localization files for every language on Earth
|
| Yeah because English is the only one language that matters.
| Let's fuck up all the non-native speakers to save, I don't
| know, 50kb of text files? How could one frame this as a bad
| thing?
|
| > Help documentation with 40+ screenshots in 10 languages
|
| Seriously how Anglocentric could this author be? Even physical
| products have multi-language manuals nowadays.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Isn't the normal convention to ship all the language files in
| the installer, but for it to only install the ones that are
| actually used on the system?
| malfist wrote:
| In the past I've certainly seen that, but more and more I
| see all the language files being installed. You never know
| when someone is going to change their language, add another
| one, or add a new user.
| dcrazy wrote:
| No. Language resources are part of the app bundle, which
| means they are part of the bundle's code signature.
| Removing or altering them breaks the signature.
| rsynnott wrote:
| The joke is that the software doesn't work, so providing more
| languages is strictly worse, as it allows more people to
| experience the broken software.
| calin2k wrote:
| samsung magician managed to help me clone a hdd to a ssd on
| windows with ease
| daneel_w wrote:
| https://clonezilla.org/
| 0xAFFFF wrote:
| Parts of that article are just downright terrible.
|
| First, the criticism of Electron is moot. Yes it's not sleek, but
| it's sufficient. This app is not supposed to be used heavily on a
| daily basis. Run it once to setup your drive, run it a few months
| later for a firmware upgrade or a quick health check and that's
| all. And when you had a taste of the absolute UX monsters some
| hardware vendors can produce on the software side, really an
| Electron app feels nice.
|
| But it gets more ridiculous. Embedded fonts? God forbid companies
| enforce their own design guidelines in their software.
| Translations? Fuck non-English speakers. User guide with
| _screenshots_? The audacity.
| bobbob1921 wrote:
| While your point is valid, it makes an even stronger case that
| it should be easy to uninstall
| esafak wrote:
| Please tell me you're a Microsoft customer.
| internet2000 wrote:
| I hate how Mac OS makes it harder to delete than to add stuff to
| system folders. I forgot what was it, but adding something worked
| with sudo, removing it required disabling sip. Is there a reason
| for that?
| r_lee wrote:
| it all makes sense if you know how Korean software is like.
|
| buttons being jpegs is the norm
| g947o wrote:
| I empathize with many of the complaints, but some are a bit
| ridiculous. Using custom fonts in software UI is completely
| reasonable and normal, even if you don't like it.
| stavros wrote:
| I remember a time when UIs looked consistent, instead of
| custom-branded, and I still think the "completely reasonable
| and normal" state is the former, not the latter.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| When, Windows 3.1?
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| 3.0 to server 2008 which makes that period 18 years.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Microsoft Office abandoned the normal Win32 UI
| conventions for the Ribbon interface before 2008.
| pndy wrote:
| Office 2007 introduced it, then it was implemented in
| Windows Live Essentials suite and in W7 applications. If
| I'm not mistaken LibreOffice got it not so long ago but
| with a different name to avoid any _problems_.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Each version up thru Win8 had a style guide. If you wanted
| the windows sticker on your box you made it consistent. Why
| would you want that sticker? If you did not have it it was
| much harder to get floor space at many of the big box
| stores.
|
| It was at win8 where everyone just noped out and just
| started doing whatever they wanted. XP/2000 was the last
| era where anyone really cared.
| grishka wrote:
| Windows apps that skinned everything have existed since at
| least Windows 95. But they were an exception rather than a
| rule.
| ryandrake wrote:
| We never pushed back on it when we could, because we
| thought WinAmp was sooooo cool, and now every application
| you run on your machine has a different look and feel and
| does not respect your desktop themes or customizations.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Oh, longer: http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/shame.htm
| michaelt wrote:
| As I remember, that was before the rise of multi-platform,
| web-based and mobile apps.
|
| You'd get Office 2003 and it'd follow the Windows XP style
| with lots of blue [1] and you'd get Office 2004 for Mac with
| the brushed metal styling [2] - and many applications only
| targeted a single platform.
|
| Whereas in the modern age you get Slack for Web, Slack for
| Windows, Slack for Mac, Slack for Linux, Slack for iOS and
| Slack for Android - and it tries to be consistent across
| different platforms, instead of being consistent _with_
| different platforms.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2003 [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_2004_for_Mac
| 16bitvoid wrote:
| Reasonable? That's subjective. I don't think it is, personally.
| Normal? Unfortunately, yes.
| Shank wrote:
| I think the most obscene thing here is that macOS is now littered
| with permission prompts for camera, background execution, etc,
| but makes no effort to stop even industry partners from spraying
| the disk with dozens of files that can't be removed easily.
| functionmouse wrote:
| That's because this particular sort of cyber security is merely
| theatrics with the goal of reducing user agency and increasing
| paranoia and vendor lock-in. The user facing friction is the
| goal. There will always be scams and viruses; the only
| practical outcome will be that you have less control over your
| computer, and Apple/MS/Google have more. See: Sideloading,
| Wayland, UWPs, iOS JIT, Windows XP and 7 still being used for
| accessibility
| nerdjon wrote:
| I strongly disagree.
|
| I often have apps on my Mac or iPhone that ask for permission
| to see my camera, microphone, contacts, etc etc that I don't
| want it to see. But I do want other apps to be able to access
| those things.
|
| Being able to stop those apps from accessing before they do
| instead of trying to fix it after is incredibly valuable.
|
| Sure some users just accept everything, but that is not an
| argument against them existing in the first place.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Those examples are very reasonable. However I also had Mac
| OS suddenly treat _all_ m4a files on the system as
| potential malware and it blocked any attempt at opening
| them. Why did it do that? Because I checked the "set as
| default app" option, one minute after I had already opened
| the same file using the same application. The only way to
| open the files was by entering the password in the settings
| app each time - but re-setting the same app as default in
| the file's Get Info dialog got rid of that "protection"
| system-wide without any password prompts or extra
| permissions. I don't see how that was supposed to help with
| security.
| Kaliboy wrote:
| Maybe I don't understand your point, but why is Waylabd in
| your list?
| lpcvoid wrote:
| >Wayland
|
| I can see the rest, but why did you mix in Wayland, a open
| source display protocol?
| grufkork wrote:
| I think there's some controversy regarding that programs
| are limited in what extent they can access each other. You
| need sudo to do global hotkeys/keylogging, probably
| accessing pixel contents of other apps, etc. I suppose they
| mean it only prevents some specific threats while leaving
| open goals in other, even more easily exploited places
| ryandrake wrote:
| We are moving away from the old world where you can trust the
| applications you are running on your computer, to today's
| world where you can't. The unix permission model is based on
| apps running as your user having access to every device and
| file you, the user, have access to. The threat was "other
| system users trying to access your files and devices" but now
| the threat is "applications you run trying to access your
| files and devices." OS vendors have been slow to adapt to
| this new threat model.
|
| Even today, any rando application I download and run can read
| and/or write to any file on my system that I own and have
| permission to read and/or write, unless I go out of my way to
| run it in a chroot, a container, a jail or whatever. That's
| just poor security in a world where nearly every commercially
| developed application is an attacker.
| anthk wrote:
| Namespaces in 9front (actual ones, not second hand ones
| like under Linux) makes isolating software trivial.
| AlienRobot wrote:
| To be fair, this is partly because of the internet.
|
| If you install random apps and it destroys your PC, you can
| fix that by having backups. By contrast on work computers
| with important data, everything is supposed to be locked
| down and you can't install random apps. But then we started
| to increasingly connect devices to the internet.
|
| Now gaining access over a smartphone essentially means
| being able to send payments via the banking apps. People
| are sending money with crypto so they are susceptible to
| simple clipboard swap attacks that are almost impossible
| for the user to detect until it happens. Then there is all
| the personal data that can be stolen that can be used for
| other attacks in the future.
|
| Essentially the amount of damage you can take by losing
| access has increased much faster than the security devices
| meant to prevent.
|
| To make matters worse, the security devices that are
| marketed to the average user tend to be exploitative rather
| than trustworthy (e.g. OneDrive).
|
| It feels like instead of protecting users developers seem
| more interested in creating something that only does half
| of the job and then blaming the user for not knowing how to
| do the other half, so a comprehensive solution for the
| problem is never created.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think there are a lot of things that users can be
| protected from:
|
| 1. Protect users from attackers external to the computer
|
| 2. Protect users from attackers who are other users on
| the computer
|
| 3. Protect users from applications run by other users on
| the computer
|
| 4. Protect users from applications they themselves run on
| the computer
|
| 5. Protect unprivileged (non-root) users from their own
| actions
|
| 6. Protect privileged (sudo/root) users from their own
| actions
|
| OSes have been historically OK at 1-3. Not great or even
| good. There have been a lot of remote code
| vulnerabilities and local vulnerabilities over the years.
|
| OSes have pretty much ignored 4 until maybe a decade ago,
| and are making token progress toward it, but I don't
| think many of them take it very seriously.
|
| OSes have instead started to crack down on 5-6, which I'd
| argue isn't even the job of an OS.
| dcrazy wrote:
| macOS now implicitly sandboxes your Documents, Downloads,
| and Desktop folders. Random apps can't read from those
| locations without triggering a security prompt.
| Zak wrote:
| I think we're on the same side in principle. The ability for
| people to interact with the wider world using general purpose
| computers that they fully control should be sacrosanct, and
| attempts to interfere with that such as remote attestation,
| app store exclusivity, and developer verification are evil.
|
| Sandboxing apps by default is not that. The principle of
| least privilege is good security. If I vibecode some quick
| and dirty hobby app and share it with the world, it's better
| if the robot's mistake can't `rm -rf ~/` or give some creep
| access to your webcam.
|
| The user should be able to override that in any way they see
| fit of course.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > this particular sort of cyber security is merely theatrics
| with the goal of reducing user agency
|
| Literally all security features carry the hazard of being
| used for oppression and being ineffective or counter-
| effective. That's how constraints work.
|
| You need two things for a security feature:
|
| - a segmentation under which a behavior is considered unsafe
| / unsecure (arbitrary, subjective)
|
| - a technical solution that constrains the behavior of
| <thing> in <usage context> so that the aforementioned is
| mitigated
|
| So something being "a tool of oppression" or "a tool of
| safety" is a matter of your alignment with that segmentation.
| And it being a theater or not is a matter of functional
| soundness given a threat model. So is its tendency to become
| counter-effective.
|
| Constraints are just constraints. Whether they're effective
| and whether you're disadvantaged by them are both separate,
| independent matters. Empirical too.
| 404mm wrote:
| It's like they went backwards on this. The utility that handles
| .pkg files used to have a command line uninstall option.
|
| Anyway, I kinda like PearCleaner for removing the cruft. It's
| not perfect but it's open source and one of the better options
| imo.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| You often cannot even tell what the permission prompts are for.
| Sometimes they have generic names like a programming language
| is requesting something. Not sure what that's about.
| milkshakes wrote:
| those are interpreters, the language is interpreted by a
| binary called `ruby` or `python`, for example, so that
| happens to be the process that's requesting the permission
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I worked on a disk utility in the 90s called PartitionMagic that
| was one of the first ones to let you dynamically resize disk
| partitions.
|
| Maybe Samsung used that when naming their product.
|
| I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was copy
| _._ to /<appFolder> and the uninstall process was delete
| /<appFolder>
| riffraff wrote:
| I remember that! It was awesome!
| kaonwarb wrote:
| Ditto. Worked perfectly and nice UI. Great work!
| rvba wrote:
| Windows is the same now.
|
| Due to "new and better" approach, each program puts its data in
| 5 different folders for "multi user" reasons.
|
| What is infuriating that all those folders are hidden and all
| of them are on C: drive. So your C: drive gets clogged.
|
| This makes it impossible to track how much space each program
| uses.
|
| (On a side note its been years since floppy drives were the A:
| drive... and yet we are still stuck with the primary disk being
| called C:)
| dylan604 wrote:
| > (On a side note its been yeara since floppy drives were the
| A: drive... and yet we are still stuck with the primary disc
| being called C:)
|
| The logic behind that is pretty obvious isn't it?
| klez wrote:
| Unless you mean retrocompatibility, no it's not that
| obvious to me.
| maccard wrote:
| I think it's clearly back compatability.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| If you plug a USB floppy drive in, and put a diskette in
| it, it's still A:.
| mikestew wrote:
| On a similar note, I wondered if my week Mac still called the
| main volume "Macintosh HD". Yup. When is the last time Apple
| marketed their computers as "Macintosh"? And when's the last
| time they sold one with a "hard drive"?
| noAnswer wrote:
| What is infuriating is that programmers that make 6 figures
| not knowing the diff between AppData\Local and \Roaming.
|
| I'm the ass that gets the support call. I'm getting accused
| of delivering shit. I'm the guy that needs to write
| workaround scripts.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Lots of Mac software is still like this minus possible
| leftovers in a few other folders for uninstall.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow you
| to drag the app into the applications folder to install, it's a
| red huge red flag.
|
| Personally, I'd look for another alternative from a company
| that better understands the Mac.
|
| Chrome, for instance, previously used an installer that had to
| run with administrative permissions and famously ended up
| rendering systems unbootable.
|
| System utilities and drivers are the exception, since they have
| to modify system folders to install.
|
| Partition Magic was pretty awesome, BTW.
| everdrive wrote:
| >When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow
| you to drag the app into the applications folder to install,
| it's a red huge red flag.
|
| And the companies that make such products _never_ care about
| making sure an uninstallation is actually clean.
| ryandrake wrote:
| "Does it have a way to uninstall, and does that
| uninstallation clean _every_ application artifact? " is
| such a great litmus test for just how much a software
| company actually cares about having a proper finished
| product that respects the user. Nobody forces a company to
| do it, but when they don't do it, you can probably bet that
| they're cutting corners and disrespecting the user's
| machine in other ways, too.
|
| It's like "Do you return your shopping cart to the cart
| storage or leave it in the carpark?" You're allowed to just
| shove your cart away and drive off, but people who do that
| are highly probably assholes in other ways, too.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Well said.
|
| I would add an appreciation for companies producing non-
| bloated, native software.
| al_borland wrote:
| In the file menu of the installer, there is generally an
| option to see all the files it is placing on the system
| with full system paths. I generally note this down so I can
| make sure to clean things up completely if/when needed.
|
| For app that just get dragged into the Applications folder,
| they end up doing all this additional file creation on
| first-launch instead of via an installer. That actually
| makes it harder. For those I tend to search the ~/Library
| folder for the name of the app and the company that made
| it, hoping I find all the remnants to delete. There are
| apps, like AppZapper and AppCleaner, which try to automate
| this process. I still think it's ridiculous that Apple
| never solved for this. It's one of the reasons I always do
| a manual migration to a new Mac. It feels like the only
| real way to clean things up.
| xp84 wrote:
| I'll have to check that installer trick the next time I
| use one.
|
| Isn't the "Receipts" folder that so angered OP kind of
| that same thing? I thought those included the list of
| files installed.
|
| In general, I think _some_ worries about removing "every
| trace" are overblown, though. The receipts, for instance,
| are inert and they're not filling up the disk or
| consuming RAM.
|
| Of all the things Apple does in the name of "security"
| it's funny to me that they've never even tried to build
| uninstallation functionality. Even though a majority of
| apps with "Installers" use, not arbitrary installer
| executables like Windows, but .pkg files that open with
| Apple's "Installer" app. That means it's Apple's code
| placing most of those files in place, and even if the
| install includes a "script" portion, it seems like a
| solvable problem that Installer.app could monitor the
| files being added or changed by the script process, to at
| least let you view a log of what happened if not reverse
| the changes.
| prerok wrote:
| There are two cases: I am uninstalling because I never
| want to use the app, or I am uninstalling because I know
| I currently don't need the app and will reinstall after 6
| months when I do.
|
| An example of first is a trial of an app but you don't
| like it in the end, an example of the latter is a game
| that you might want to play with the same settings later.
|
| Now, I want the option. In the first case I don't want
| these inert files taking up disk space and in the second
| I want to have those files.
| al_borland wrote:
| I stopped trying new apps as often, because I don't like
| how I can never really go back to a state before it was
| installed, unless the developer actually put effort into
| not spraying files everything and not leaving a trace
| once gone. I appreciate these developers very much, and
| am more likely to keep using their apps. The most junk an
| app install puts on my system, the more likely I am to
| want it gone.
| gopher_space wrote:
| > In general, I think some worries about removing "every
| trace" are overblown, though.
|
| It's impossible to overstate how little I want random
| crap on my machine.
| Someone wrote:
| > I still think it's ridiculous that Apple never solved
| for this.
|
| I think that problem, in general, is unsolvable on the
| Mac. The OS cannot know whether a file that an
| application creates is a user file that should be kept on
| uninstall or an application one that, maybe, should be
| deleted on uninstall.
|
| ( _Maybe_ because Apple's guidelines say (or at least
| used to say) uninstall ers, if you have one, should keep
| preferences files around, in case a user reinstalls the
| app later. Also, applications may ship with files (e.g.
| fonts, sounds, picture libraries) that users may want to
| keep around)
|
| > For app that just get dragged into the Applications
| folder, they end up doing all this additional file
| creation on first-launch instead of via an installer
|
| For quite a few things that an installer can install,
| applications cannot do that, as they want to install them
| into protected directories.
|
| I think most of the leftovers whose locations you cannot
| gauge from looking at the file list in the installer are
| for caches, preferences, logs, etc.
| al_borland wrote:
| Yeah, it's usually plist files for preferences and maybe
| an Application Support folder with whatever the app
| needed. Occasionally some other things. More recent apps
| end up with a container in there.
|
| The upgrades process for some apps almost necessitates
| that the those files/folders are decoupled from the app
| and can live on, as the app upgrade ends up deleting the
| existing app and dropping a new one in it's place.
|
| I get wanting to keep user preferences around in spirit,
| but in practice keeping them forever can sometimes be
| problematic. If I tried an app, then installed it again
| in 8 years. I usually want to start over. For users who
| don't know about the ~/Library, this is hard. Especially
| now that Apple hides it in Finder.
|
| When having issues with an app, deleting those files (or
| simply moving them somewhere else like the desktop as a
| test) is a great troubleshooting step to see if its an
| app problem or something corrupt in your settings or
| support files. When most users reinstall an app as a
| troubleshooting step, they aren't doing much of anything,
| with all those files sticking around.
|
| UTM buries their VM disks away in a container inside the
| ~/Library. I have a 20GB disk in there. It's not always
| trivial small files. If someone deletes UTM and forgets
| to check for old VMs first, that's a big hit.
|
| What I'd like to see is a something, maybe in the
| Settings app, that lists all the applications on the
| system and 3 options.
|
| 1. Remove Application, keep Library data 2. Remove
| Application and Library data (have it give into on what
| files are in there) 3. Remove Library data only (this
| could be used to refresh an app to start over with it)
|
| Maybe in addition to that, as part of the Optimize
| Storage feature, it could crawl through all those old
| orphaned application support folders and containers, and
| list all the ones without an app installed, show the
| size, and the user can choose to get rid of them.
|
| Looking at how much junk I have out there now, I may just
| do a re-install of my OS to clean things up soon. I
| usually wait for a new system, but this M1 Pro is lasting
| a long time. I recently migrated off 1Password and it
| seems to have a bunch of junk out there, including 4 year
| old weekly archives of all my passwords that it took for
| a few months for some reason. The files are encrypted,
| but who knows how long that will actually be good for.
| eviks wrote:
| Almost never, indeed, so you need some 3rd party trash
| utilities with databases and heuristics. Though that's also
| on the gardener and his bad OS design where forced
| compartmentalization is's trivial, the weeds will never
| want to root themselves out!
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Mac apps often do various things on your computer. Just
| because you dragged it to Bin, doesn't mean there are no
| leftovers on your computer. I'd prefer proper uninstaller any
| day.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Are you under the impression that Windows uninstallers
| don't leave files and registry settings behind?
| PearlRiver wrote:
| I use this
|
| https://github.com/Klocman/Bulk-Crap-Uninstaller
|
| The nice thing about Windows is that people have been
| writing software for it for decades. A very
| underestimated advantage.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > The nice thing about Windows is that people have been
| writing software for it for decades. A very
| underestimated advantage.
|
| AppZapper has been doing the same thing on Macs for
| decades.
|
| https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppZapper
| SpaceNugget wrote:
| Sorry an advantage over what? What desktop operating
| system in common use _hasn't_ had decades of development
| of pet projects on obvious problems like system cleanup?
| Literally every operating system has these kinds of
| things
| jimmaswell wrote:
| The Macintosh came first, technically.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| They certainly can clean everything after them. And I'm
| pretty sure that many of them do. When macOS user drags
| application folder to the Bin, application does not have
| a chance to clean after itself.
|
| Just because some Windows uninstaller are bad doesn't
| mean that all of them are bad, or that uninstaller
| concept is bad.
|
| Now I'd welcome for operating system to be built in a way
| to let user to delete everything related to the
| application. Maybe android or ios are built this way, but
| not macos.
| fragmede wrote:
| apt purge _software_ on Debian does a pretty good job of
| that, but it 's got limited adoption.
| gopher_space wrote:
| > And I'm pretty sure that many of them do.
|
| My AppData disagrees with you.
| collabs wrote:
| > Mac apps often do various things on your computer. Just
| because you dragged it to Bin, doesn't mean there are no
| leftovers on your computer. I'd prefer proper uninstaller
| any day.
|
| I think I know what you're talking about. There are likely
| files inside the ~/Library/Application Support/ or
| ~/Library/Caches/ folders for example.
|
| What is the proper, Apple way to make sure these get
| deleted when we delete apps? Because I fear there is no
| universal solution here. There are some files that an app
| creates that some of the time I would probably want to
| persist uninstalls. But then these files should be in a
| user home directory, not in application support according
| to XDG, right? I feel like the OS should detect dragging of
| an app to the trash can and clean up its app support
| folders? I don't think it does this today but I think it
| should.
| pndy wrote:
| It wouldn't be hard to display "remove configuration and
| cache files?" modal during uninstall/trashing process.
| But it would be hard to go against own simplicity of
| platform usage idea - that's _the_ problem.
|
| KDE's Discover after you uninstall a flatpak application
| shows small infobar (still really easy to miss) saying "
| _appname is not installed but it still has data present._
| " with " _Delete settings and user data_ " button.
|
| But then, all sort of software even on Windows leaves
| some kind of traces of own presence.
|
| In a perfect world we'd have a standardized application
| uninstall procedure - either by dropping icon on trash
| (which is something still many people do - especially on
| Windows) or by bringing similar to mobile solution with
| "x" on longer click. All of this controllable by options
| for advanced users including optional configuration and
| cache files removal.
| molszanski wrote:
| Mobile apps handle app data better. They have their own
| well defined jail to work with. Simple to locate "stuff"
| itsdesmond wrote:
| I got bigger problems.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Same applies to Windows or UNIX based packages, other than
| systems like iDevices, Android or UWP, where applications
| are sandboxed.
|
| However people around here hate sandboxing on their OSes.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| This problem has been around for decades. An application
| installer doesn't just copy some files to a few
| directories. It may put them in hundreds of different
| places. In addition, it adds entries to the registry or
| other system files. Even the best uninstallers or
| cleaners miss something when deleting the app.
|
| This is one of the many issues my side project is
| designed to address. Imagine if installing every
| application meant just dropping it on the computer. The
| software 'package' was just a list of data objects the
| comprised all the files, config settings, etc. Needed to
| run the app. All these objects would be copied to the
| storage drive(s).
|
| Imagine further, that the operating system did not have a
| central registry. Instead, all configuration was managed
| via a set of configuration objects, spread all over
| (preferably in the app folders). The configuration
| manager was just a program that could find every
| configuration object and make them appear to the user
| (and the OS) like they were in a unified file.
|
| If a configuration object was copied anywhere in the
| system, it looked like its contents were just appended to
| the configuration store. If you deleted an object, all
| its settings just disappeared.
|
| Uninstalling an application would mean just deleting all
| the objects in its package. The files would be gone and
| any configuration settings with them.
|
| This is just one of the features my 'file system
| replacement' project is designed to handle.
| noAnswer wrote:
| > Uninstalling an application would mean just deleting
| all the objects in its package. The files would be gone
| and any configuration settings with them.
|
| Applications developers of the world. Please always make
| "keep configuration" an option with your uninstallers! I
| don't like the mobilification of PCs. For example,
| because of some issues, I wanted to try a different
| version of Thunderbird. I had the Snap version.
| Uninstalling it meant losing all its mails. I wasn't
| expecting that. Like at all!
| nottorp wrote:
| I think it's a snap "feature".
| jdeibele wrote:
| Me, too.
|
| There is Mac Cleaner https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/
| which does a good job of removing preferences as well as
| the application.
| smallstepforman wrote:
| Haiku package system has an unparalleled installstion,
| deletion, boot into previous states, data integrity (read
| only packages) and dealing with conflicting library policy.
| Its a technical crime that other systems are not copying
| Haiku packages ... they're several decades behind. IOS is
| half way there ...
| ValentineC wrote:
| I use AppCleaner: https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/
|
| Raycast has a built-in uninstaller as well.
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| Pear cleaner is the successor, you're welcome :)
|
| https://github.com/alienator88/Pearcleaner
| ValentineC wrote:
| What's new with Pearcleaner? I don't see a comparison
| chart in the GitHub repo, and I don't care for features
| other than completely uninstalling an app.
|
| AppCleaner still works fine for me in Sequoia.
| asdff wrote:
| If you are aware of this not hard to manage. Grep. rm -rf.
| Done. Usually its pretty tiny folders at least. Heavier
| stuff usually software makes a directory under Documents.
| Kinda nice in a few cases having it set up like this. For
| example I can delete the app but preserve my config. Drop
| the app right back again and no setup its turnkey and
| works.
| fragmede wrote:
| grep for what? How am I supposed to know that the Foo app
| installed stuff under ~/Libraries/Application
| Support/com.bar.corporation?
| asdff wrote:
| Sorry you'd use Find not grep and you'd search for "Foo"
| or "corporation".
|
| But if you know to do this you know that these things are
| stored where they are under Libraries.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Yeah. But mac is still and I mean BY FAR the cleanest of
| all operating system when you got to uninstall stuffs.
|
| Windows is as bad as Linux, leftovers everywhere without
| any sense whatsoever. Some company use a directory, other
| use another, makes no sense.
|
| On Linux, at least there is some kind of uniformity but
| since all apps install with sudo permissions, they get put
| everywhere and you never really know where.
|
| On macos, you got 2 folders to look for, all in the user
| directory (app, application support) and that's it.
| post-it wrote:
| I started developing for my Mac a few weeks ago and I'm blown
| away by how easy it is to make an app that feels Mac native
| and includes quality of life features like CloudKit sync
| across all your devices. It's become clear that most
| companies don't give the tiniest shit about any of that.
| xp84 wrote:
| It's obvious why they wouldn't give a shit about that,
| though - the Mac is not their main focus. Most companies
| that make software for PCs are obliged to make at least
| Windows and Mac versions, and to build an application "The
| Apple Way," using SwiftUI, and things like "CloudKit" etc.
| would mean a whole dedicated Mac-experienced design team
| and Mac-experienced engineering team. This would result in
| an app that fundamentally works and behaves differently
| than their app would on Windows, because these operating
| systems have different conventions and standards.
|
| Now, that would make people like you and me very happy --
| but consider it from the big company's perspective. Now
| instead of supporting a piece of software which has a
| single set of features and a single consistent (and
| 'braaanded,' _eyeroll_ ) Electron UI (and, mostly, a single
| set of bugs), you're supporting two completely different
| apps with completely different UIs. Building a new
| Important Feature means building it from the ground up
| twice, and QAing it twice. And customer service needs to be
| trained to walk customers through both of these different
| apps which work differently, and some of the customers are
| so confused, they can't even tell you if they're on a Mac
| or not.
|
| 25 years ago, before cross-platform frameworks existed
| (other than Java, which wasn't often used to these ends
| then), that was sort of how they had to do these things,
| and in practice, the results were either that a ton of
| hardware shipped with no Mac support whatsoever (wasn't
| worth it) or with a bare-bones Mac version on the CD that
| was incredibly low-effort, and clearly still written by
| people who barely knew how the Mac was meant to work.
|
| This very real phenomenon is why we are cursed with cross-
| platform everything. The difference between a single cross-
| platform codebase and even _two_ dedicated good-citizen
| apps is a vast chasm.
| asdff wrote:
| >This would result in an app that fundamentally works and
| behaves differently than their app would on Windows,
| because these operating systems have different
| conventions and standards.
|
| Not always the case. Sometimes the gui app is just
| wrapping some script written in a general purpose
| language. Button just calls a function. Yes writing the
| function to draw the ui button element might take a
| different syntax, but they might go on to run the same
| underlying function.
|
| At least that is how I like to write my gui software.
| molszanski wrote:
| I maintain a pretty complex app to draw 2D graphics for
| 3D objects. For packaging productions. Basically draw
| your packaging design with 3D preview. So this is
| basically a 2d3D editor with TONS of business and
| material knowledge.
|
| It's powered by react.
|
| But it so decoupled from react you can slap mini gui in
| any other form / framework in a day
| Aurornis wrote:
| > When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow
| you to drag the app into the applications folder to install,
| it's a red huge red flag.
|
| The applications you drag to the Apps folder can do the same
| things when you run them the first time.
|
| Being able to drag into the Apps folder doesn't mean it won't
| do things outside of that folder.
| longislandguido wrote:
| > When a user mode application on the Mac doesn't just allow
| you to drag the app into the applications folder to install,
| it's a red huge red flag
|
| But a lot of Apple first-party applications require
| installation. Packages for me and not for thee.
|
| As do Chrome/Edge/Teams/Etc
|
| It's 2026 and Apple still doesn't have an equivalent to MSI +
| the Add/Remove Programs control panel Windows has had for 30+
| years.
|
| Windows always saves a copy of the uninstaller package stub
| so if you trash the media you can always nope out (usually--
| unless the developer went out of his way to break it).
|
| And no, the App Store is not a fix-all for this.
| sneak wrote:
| This application is a custom one to use custom features on
| specialized hardware. There are zero alternatives.
| Sarkie wrote:
| Thank you for such a great product
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Glad you liked it. I still have fond memories of working on
| it.
| shantara wrote:
| Partition Magic was among the first utilities recommended to me
| by my more experienced water I got my first PC. It served me
| well for many years since!
| izacus wrote:
| > I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was
| copy . to /<appFolder> and the uninstall process was delete
| /<appFolder>
|
| I don't remember this ever being the case, even in times of
| DOS.
| maccard wrote:
| It still is for a lot of Mac Apps. You download a DMG, and
| you get somethinglike [0] where you drag the icon over, and
| it installs. The last app I uninstalled also removed the
| matching Library Support folders, which was neat!
|
| [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8680132/creating-
| nice-dm...
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I remember software, tools and some games shipping like this
| forever, typically they have a "portable" label slapped on
| them, bet you can find Windows software/games still shipped
| like this today, if you look for "-portable" or "-archive"
| rather than "installer".
|
| One quick example, offers an installer or a ZIP archive, the
| "installation process" for the ZIP archive is basically "copy
| files out from archive && ./executable", installer does a
| bunch of other stuff:
| https://www.openttd.org/downloads/openttd-releases/latest
| izacus wrote:
| Yes, but that was never really a default. Even DOS software
| came with installers and messed with AUTEXEC.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Sure, but it was (and still is, in some circles)
| relatively uncommon. I wouldn't claim "that was never the
| case", unless if you're only talking specifically about
| DOS I suppose.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| https://portableapps.com
| postalcoder wrote:
| > I worked on a disk utility in the 90s called PartitionMagic
|
| PartitionMagic was a S-Tier windows utility. Thank you.
| natebc wrote:
| hey, thanks for partitionmagic, it was amazing.
| whatsupdog wrote:
| PartionMagic was not A disk utility, it was THE disk utility!
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I also headed up a disk imaging product for the same company
| called Drive Image. It wasn't quite as popular, but it was
| fun to develop as well.
| user3939382 wrote:
| You were competing with Norton Ghost at the time IIRC.
| Partition Magic was an amazing piece of software. It was so
| good when you explained "called Partition Magic" I was like
| "called"? It was so clearly the best of its kind it didn't
| even occur to me that these years later people wouldn't
| know of it, it felt like reading "I worked on a search
| engine called Google". Anyway thanks for the great
| software.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I mainly mentioned it that way because once the company
| (PowerQuest) was bought out by Symantec, the product was
| mostly abandoned. Unlike Google, most programmers younger
| than 30 have never heard of it.
| ncr100 wrote:
| [ Thank you for "PartitionMagic" - crucially important for home
| / personal computer users, at least in my own history. ]
|
| And, I wonder if a (corporate) development organization's
| overall cultural friction around critical / negative feedback
| -- in this case integration issues in the technical sense of
| pulling together modules built by subteams to compose a final
| product -- could be worth investigating when challenging
| metrics like the above are identified?
|
| This "18 steps" seems like a problem. And I wonder if it's a
| prioritized concern at SAM.
|
| SNARK: The "magic" could be how corporate culture is
| communicated to users merely through usage of Samsung Magician.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Thank you and to all the others who remember and liked
| PartitonMagic. It makes an old programmer feel good to know
| that something he worked on 30 years ago made a difference.
|
| BTW: I am currently working on a hobby project called
| Didgets. It is an object store that does a lot of cool file
| system stuff and relational table manipulation and analysis.
| It is available for free download at http://www.didgets.com
|
| The install process is to unzip the downloaded file to a
| directory. The uninstall process is to delete that directory.
| DougN7 wrote:
| I LOVED Partition Magic. It really was magic!
| ahartmetz wrote:
| It was pretty important at the time to make room for
| dual-booting Linux. Linux setup tools couldn't do it back
| then, particularly shrinking FAT let alone NTFS
| filesystems. PartitionMagic made it super easy. It felt
| slightly wrong to need a Windows software to install
| Linux, but great tool.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I joined the startup making PartitionMagic after I saw a
| prototype. I had just wasted another half day
| repartitioning my 80MB hard drive so I could dual boot
| OS/2 while working at Novell.
| krsw wrote:
| PartitionMagic saved me so many times. Fantastic software
| to fix whatever Disk Management broke.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| PartitionMagic was one of the first programs to make me
| feel like I was in control of my computer. I don't think
| about it much but looking back it was an important part of
| my development as a technologist. You made a difference in
| lots of lives I'm sure!
| 10729287 wrote:
| What a blast from the past. Partition magic was a huge part
| of our journey discovering and loving computers here with
| my friends. Hello and thank you from France !
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Merci
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Thank you for PartitionMagic.
| acheron wrote:
| I read the HN title and literally thought to myself "'disk
| utility'? What, like PartitionMagic?"
|
| Then this was the top comment.
|
| Thanks for PartitionMagic; what a great program.
| alkz wrote:
| Oh I used that all the time, it was so awersome! back in the
| day it really felt like magic...
| pimlottc wrote:
| PartitionMagic was in every geeks toolbox back in the day,
| amazing and always reliable, saved so much time! Thank you!
| harikb wrote:
| Thank you for PartitionMagic!! I remember using it to undo
| whatever disk partitioning mistake I did when originally
| setting up a machine :)
| wrxd wrote:
| Partition Magic was indeed magic. Thanks for the great work you
| did on it!
| EliRivers wrote:
| Thank you for PartitionMagic. In the late nineties I cut my
| teeth repeatedly building and breaking windows PCs.
| PartitionMagic was a core tool. I regularly see its echoes
| today in GParted.
| VMG wrote:
| blast from the past - peak of UX!
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Partition_Magic#/media/...
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _I am old, but I miss the days when the install process was
| copy . to /<appFolder> and the uninstall process was delete
| /<appFolder>_
|
| .app 'files' on macOS are like this.
| efitz wrote:
| That was an awesome app, I loved it. Thank you.
| zerr wrote:
| This is HN, so please share same war stories, tech stuff,
| etc... Thanks!
| patentatt wrote:
| I recently tried to install Samsung magician on Windows 11.
| Tried. It flat out doesn't work, tried some basic remediation and
| internet searching to figure it out, but could not get it to run
| at all. Completely nonfunctional. Seems to be an issue with some
| electron configuration or command line args. I gave up because it
| wasn't worth more effort, but I believe it when I read that the
| software is a dumpster fire.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Years ago I shipped a MacOS product. If you deleted it, you would
| get an error emptying the recycle bin (or force-deleting the
| application bundle if you did an rm -R to it.)
|
| Why? Well, at the time Windows Explorer had an API for
| extensions, but MacOS didn't for Finder. We needed to add some
| menu items to the context menu, which on MacOS required reverse
| engineering Finder and injecting code into it. This then meant
| that Finder had an open file handle into our application bundle
| until you either restarted Finder or restarted MacOS. Then, as
| long as you didn't start our application, you could cleanly
| delete it. (Thankfully MacOS cleaned this up with the Finder
| extension API about a decade ago.)
|
| Having gotten familiar with internals of both Windows and
| MacOS... MacOS has its own set of gremlins too.
| Rohansi wrote:
| > MacOS has its own set of gremlins too.
|
| You can't really blame macOS for this one. Interesting to hear
| this isn't just a Windows thing though.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| You really can, considering that a Windows program would not
| have had that issue.
| Aperocky wrote:
| As a mac user for 10+ years that cycled about 7 macs for
| personal and professional use, I've used Finder about biweekly
| to click on the airdrop button..
| sheiyei wrote:
| Please enlighten me on the alternatives (I hope it's not just
| iTerm2)
| nottorp wrote:
| Midnight Commander inside iTerm2 :)
| devnullbrain wrote:
| You seem to be blaming the OS for how you broke it?
| Someone wrote:
| I don't understand. Any MacOS Finder that had an open file
| handle into an application bundle runs on the Unix version of
| MacOS, and that allows deletion of open files (the inode stays
| around until the process exits), doesn't it?
|
| Or did/does the Finder check whether to-be-deleted files are
| open? Or did I forget how older Mac file systems behaved?
| ksherlock wrote:
| If "years" means decades, it would have been classic MacOS
| which played by a very different set of rules.
| dcrazy wrote:
| Shell extensions are the single most common cause of Explorer
| crashes according to Raymond Chen.
|
| When you realized that Mac OS X didn't have an equivalent API,
| did you perhaps consider that it was for a good reason and that
| you should redesign your application to fit the conventions of
| the system? How did you conclude that your UI was oh so special
| that it deserved horking up the Finder experience for your
| users?
| ryandrake wrote:
| > I shut down my Mac. Held the power button. Booted into Recovery
| Mode. Opened Terminal. Ran csrutil disable. Rebooted. Opened
| Terminal. Deleted the kernel extensions. Ran find to confirm
| they're gone. Shut down AGAIN. Booted into Recovery Mode AGAIN.
| Ran csrutil enable. Rebooted AGAIN. All this just to delete four
| dead files and their mirrors from a disk utility.
|
| This one is _entirely_ on Apple. It was Apple who decided that
| "root isn't good enough" and that you, the user, shouldn't be
| able to administer your own goddamn system as root, without
| performing backflips while singing Happy Birthday.
| Aurornis wrote:
| You can just turn that off once and leave it off if it bothers
| you.
|
| Even most power users leave it on except for temporary
| situations like this because it's a helpful security
| protection.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Yup. I leave it alone. As much as it's a hassle every 2 years
| or so when I need to do some voodoo on my laptop, it's even
| more of a hassle for potential attackers. For me, for my risk
| profile, I believe it has a good return on investment.
| sneak wrote:
| This is 100% by design and 100% a good thing. "root" aka uid=0
| should NOT have unlimited privileges to permanently modify the
| deepest parts of the OS, as assuming uid=0 is done daily for
| routine operations. Modifying kernel level stuff should not be
| possible from this daily use privilege level. It's an ancient
| holdover from unix time sharing systems that are approaching a
| hundred years old.
|
| If you think it's bad, you don't know why it was built - google
| Chesterton's Fence. You, the user, still have 100% ability to
| modify your system however you choose - if you first clearly
| indicate that you ARE the user, and not just some random-ass
| installer running under admin privs, which is a completely
| normal and common occurrence. A higher privilege level that is
| used to protect OS integrity is a wonderful thing. If you think
| there is a better or safer way to access it, please submit your
| suggestions to Apple, but don't assume the guardrails around
| System Integrity Protection (1TR etc) are slapdash or
| unreasonable or poorly thought out.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Phrased a little more harshly than I would've, but I agree.
| SIP keeps any random process running as the device owner from
| running amok and paving over the system. You have to jump
| through just enough hoops to disable it that a rogue process
| can't automatically do it against you.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| i get this is annoying, but any of this supposed to be some
| kind of safety measure for users against malicious actors?
| gchamonlive wrote:
| But the system is proprietary, it's not yours. I don't get it
| with apple users. It's fine to purchase apple devices, they are
| gorgeous, well built, stellar performance and the UI is nice.
| But they never promised to keep an open system and to give you
| access, so why expect it? Even if you had an specific liberty
| with the system before, you were never entitled to that feature
| you lost after an update because the system just isn't yours.
| germandiago wrote:
| This is a great reason to choose an alternative.
| tracker1 wrote:
| The last time I booted to a windows drive on my prior desktop was
| to update the firmware on a Samsung NVME SSD drive to prevent
| premature failure. Was kind of a pain for even that task as I
| hadn't been running Windows for about a year at that point... in
| fact my insiders build of windows was so out of sync it wouldn't
| even update anymore. Meh.
|
| Since then I've been using Corsair and WD Black drives, since
| Samsung has gotten overpriced and hasn't seemed as reliable the
| past few years. That application was one of the reasons.
| mmastrac wrote:
| If you're installing Samsung Magician for firmware updates, keep
| in mind that you can always update your firmware without using it
| and it's just as safe.
| kiddico wrote:
| How?
| freak42 wrote:
| For personal reasons I am avoiding all Samsung products and over
| the years it seems like I unintentionally dodged one annoying
| issue after another.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| My in-laws bought a Samsung TV, and I swore them off when I saw
| ads on the menu.
|
| Then I stayed in Hawaii for a while and my rental had a Samsung
| washer... it had a DOWNLOAD setting on the dial so I could hook
| up the app... for... washing clothes... it didn't clean
| anything, it had a minutes long process of shaking my clothes
| about to get a feel for them before it bothered adding a lady's
| thimble full of water... nope. I had never missed my speed
| queens so much.
|
| Then I was at a big box store and their Samsung fridge with a
| tablet on the door locked up and hung.
|
| That was three personal strikes.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| The days of quality Samsung products are long over.
| SkiFire13 wrote:
| > Localization files for every language on Earth - [...] -
| Samsung really wanted to make sure everyone on the planet could
| experience this suffering equally
|
| Why are you considering localization as bloat? I bet your
| reaction wouldn't be positive if your native language(s) were
| missing instead.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Zero percent of users require 100 percent of languages at all
| times.
| SkiFire13 wrote:
| Sure, let's go back to the old days where you had to download
| language packs for windows and office.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The alternative would be the installer only installing the
| languages that match the system settings. Which yes is
| imperfect, but not nearly as bad as separate downloads or
| god forbid the two tier base language and modification pack
| system Microsoft came up with.
| radicality wrote:
| Absolutely agree I hate that software. Last I remember I was
| trying to upgrade firmware I think of either a usbc drive, but
| could have been some m2 nvme drive via usb4. Software looked so
| nasty that I think I managed to get it somehow working in a VM
| for firmware update.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| On Windows, you run the uninstaller, click once, and a few
| seconds later everything is uninstalled. You reboot to remove any
| remaining files immediately, or you can just wait until the next
| time you naturally reboot and it happens then.
|
| This has been how it works in the Windows world for _several
| decades_. Surprising that Apple still hasn 't figured this out
| yet.
| tuetuopay wrote:
| Ever tried to uninstall an antivirus on windows? Or any program
| that does not want to be uninstalled? I've had programs whose
| uninstall.exe was no different than /bin/true.
|
| On this point, Windows is no better than macOS: the OS relies
| on the goodwill of the developers to provide working
| uninstallers. The only protection is a world where the OS
| provider does the application packaging: Linux repositories,
| Mac App Store, Windows Store. And even then, apps are _still_
| free to litter your filesystem at runtime, unless they 're
| heavily sandboxed. Then FlatPak it is, or iOS apps or Android
| apps. Not great.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Yes, I have uninstalled antivirus. The uninstaller removed
| most of the files, except those in memory. I turned off the
| computer at the end of the day, and after startup the next
| morning the remaining files were gone.
|
| The only remaining files were the "user space" like custom
| preferences or files created by the user using the program.
| The uninstaller rightfully leaves it up to the user to decide
| what to do with those.
| Leomuck wrote:
| Man, that is actually hilarious. Also reminds you that "Big Tech"
| doesn't necessarily build great stuff. They sell well, but are
| they built well? I don't even want to know how Microslops stuff
| looks behind the scenes :)
| forentix wrote:
| It's always the dummies who don't know what they're doing who
| write long screeds about how bad something is. The first
| indication the OP is a dummy was using "sh" to run the Samsung
| uninstall script instead of just invoking it directly, then not
| realizing he should've sudo'ed it. This is not a defense of
| Samsung, their software sucks, but this over the top.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > The first indication the OP is a dummy was using "sh" to run
| the Samsung uninstall script instead of just invoking it
| directly
|
| Well that's a novel way to gatekeep.
|
| Stick to the part about realizing it needed sudo, because the
| other complaint is just ridiculous.
| fhn wrote:
| Uninstalling malware takes extra steps and multiple reboots
| whackyMax wrote:
| Having experienced exactly this situation, I was lucky I kept
| automated backups and went back an hour or two after I installed
| it. TimeMachine ftw.
| xnyan wrote:
| > What kind of fucking name is that anyway? "Samsung Magician" -
| for a disk utility? Who greenlit this? Who sat in a meeting and
| said "yeah, Magician, like it does magic"
|
| I agree with all your points except this. Disk utilities have a
| long history of magic-themed names: PartitionMagic, Disk Wizard,
| Magic Partition Resizer, the list goes on. Samsung is doing
| whatever everybody else does and is naming their tools based on
| user expectations.
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| Is my understand correct that if I install an app with homebrew
| cask and then uninstall it everything should be gone, or not even
| with the homebrew cask would everything be uninstalled?
| rsynnott wrote:
| About ten years ago, I bought a low-end Samsung TVZ, intended to
| hold me over until OLEDs got into a non-silly price range.
|
| Based on that TV, I will never buy anything from Samsung again.
| It had, get this, a _variable audio lag_. Audio might be nearly
| in sync, or might lag by a couple hundred ms, depending on the
| TV's mood at the time. Just incredible that they ever thought
| this was a reasonable thing to sell.
| nottorp wrote:
| Was electron available back then? Maybe they did sound
| processing with it.
| subscribed wrote:
| Hey, I'm only 3 months into attempts to clearly uninstall MSI
| software form my laptop, so i can reinstall it (it refuses to
| install atm), because it seems to be the only way to...... set
| the battery charging limit.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| > An entire Electron framework - yes, they embedded a full
| Chromium browser engine to show you a pie chart of your disk
| space
|
| Ram is cheap and unused ram is wasted ram
|
| - Samsung management
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