Google Chrome Users On Apple MacOS Get Enhanced Safe Browsing Protection (betanews.com) 55
BrianFagioli quotes a report from BetaNews: As more and more consumers buy Mac computers, evildoers will have increased incentive to write malware for macOS. Luckily, users of Apple's operating system that choose to use Google Chrome for web surfing will soon be safer. You see, the search giant is improving its Safe Browsing initiative to better warn macOS users of malicious websites and attempts to alter browser settings. "As part of this next step towards reducing macOS-specific malware and unwanted software, Safe Browsing is focusing on two common abuses of browsing experiences: unwanted ad injection, and manipulation of Chrome user settings, specifically the start page, home page, and default search engine. Users deserve full control of their browsing experience and Unwanted Software Policy violations hurt that experience," says Google. The search giant further explains, "The recently released Chrome Settings API for Mac gives developers the tools to make sure users stay in control of their Chrome settings. From here on, the Settings Overrides API will be the only approved path for making changes to Chrome settings on Mac OSX, like it currently is on Windows. Also, developers should know that only extensions hosted in the Chrome Web Store are allowed to make changes to Chrome settings. Starting March 31 2017, Chrome and Safe Browsing will warn users about software that attempts to modify Chrome settings without using the API."
Please hide MacKeeper (Score:4, Interesting)
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It would be good if Chrome would filter out all popups advertising that horrid MacKeeper crapware.
You can solve that problem by activating Chrome's built in 'safe search' porn filter ** ducks **
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Hardly. Lots of low-quality ad services serve those crapware ads. And sites that don't have lots of traffic can't get access to any of the decent ad services because they don't qualify. The result is that every small site has to choose between no ads or that garbage. I tried enabling third-party advertising on my website. The experiment lasted exactly ten seconds until I got the first ad. Now, apart from individually vetted Amazon ads, I don't touch third-party advertising. The quality is just way t
Trust Google? (Score:1)
Google is one of the major evildoers. I would never install their spyware on my machine.
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Re:weird article (Score:4, Informative)
More and more consumers? am I missing something? I thought OSX marketshare had nearly halved in the last year or so, after reaching almost 10% it has been in gradual decline ever since.
Yes, this has been discussed has been discussed here [slashdot.org] not too long ago. For the record, TFA read "Mac sales dropped roughly 10% and personal computers overall dropped 5.7% for the year", so this must be some definition of "more and more" I wasn't previously aware of.
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Sales and marketshare have nothing to do with users.
Most Mac users use their Macs for 5 years and longer, so chances are a new sold one goes to a new user, who had no Mac before.
Relevant is user base and not sales. And the user base for Macs is increasing steadily.
Re:weird article (Score:4, Informative)
Sales and marketshare have nothing to do with users [...] And the user base for Macs is increasing steadily.
Fair enough, but then according to your reasoning the user base for PCs is also increasing? Fine, but we warned: don't let Phil Schiller hear you talking about keeping "Macs for 5 years and longer" or he will poke fun at you [thenextweb.com] mercilessly. Yes, even when a " brand new" Mac Pro is 1169 days old [macrumors.com], a Mac mini is 868 days old, an iMac 506 days old, etc. Talk about double standards!
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but then according to your reasoning the user base for PCs is also increasing? ...
The user base of windows PCs is increasing only in third world countries (and yes: I mean third world, not developing countries), in other countries PC users simply replace old PCs with new ones or switch to a Mac. As the replacement rate for PCs is much quicker than for Macs (and the userbase is bigger anyway) they have more sales
In general sales are shrinking as people either have PCs/Macs and don't need new ones and/or are
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" brand new" Mac Pro is 1169 days old,
No they are not. The design is old. The hardware is new.
Uh? We could talk about the other things you wrote, and I would even agree with some of them, but you are wrong on this one. This is the very same Mac Pro that has been introduced on December 19, 2013 and is still sold at the same price for the same components: Ivy Bridge E Xeon processors, Dual AMD FirePro GPUs, etc. Note that even the full roundoup [macrumors.com] from my first link reads:
Chips appropriate for an upgraded Mac Pro have been available since 2014, so it is unclear what Apple is waiting on before introducin
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You're ignoring the difference between proportional market share, and absolute numbers.
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You're ignoring the difference between proportional market share, and absolute numbers.
Okay, but then your are splitting hairs. Or just ignoring reality, I don't know. That's okay, though. I do it a lot myself. Ignoring reality, that is. Does me no end of good too! ;-)
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Again, this shouldn't NEED to be said, but you really seem to miss it: more and more people are born each year. This is an observable, provable fact. That means that even if the market share for mac users stayed exactly the same or even decreased, you're still getting more mac users every year. Duh, much?
Oh, boy. You sure can spin it with the best of them! Are you working for Apple by chance? If you don't, you should.
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Spin? Name a single untrue thing I said. Do it.
I'm not sure that replying to some AC is the best way to spend my time but, for the sake of the discussion, I'll oblige anyway.
You state that "more and more people are born each year", which is clearly a fact, but then you follow up with "if the market share for mac users stayed exactly the same or even decreased, you're still getting more mac users every year" which makes no sense whatsoever: if there are more people (fact) but less macs are sold [9to5mac.com] (another fact) how can there be more Mac users?
In other word
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That's precisely what I said WAS changing, which was my entire point. The phrase "more and more people are born each year" means U *is* changing you dumb fuck!
Well, how could I possibly argue with such fine reasoning? *grin*
Make a fool of yourself in public if you like, but U doesn't automatically increase just because more people are born. Unless you give each of them a Mac as a present, that is. I'm sure babies would love that!
But wait, you're posting as AC, which means you don't even have the balls to make a fool of yourself in public, so I'll stop feeding the trolls.
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AC here is being an asshole, but really does have a point. The concrete numbers here do matter, and by the looks of things none of us actually know them.
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AC here is being an asshole, but really does have a point. The concrete numbers here do matter, and by the looks of things none of us actually know them.
Fair enough, but jumping conveniently between market share and absolute numbers depending on the point you want to make it's the very definition of "putting a spin on it". Anyway, I just answered [slashdot.org] to the AC in question and you can take a look if you're interested in my reasoning.
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Good on you for digging out the real figures -- hadn't realised Apple really are seeing declining sales, not just declining market-share.
(Aside: I don't get why anyone would post as AC for their 'privacy'.)
Or an alternative approach... (Score:2)
... would be not to allow the user settings to be changed by javascript in the first place! What clueless head in the clouds dreamer thought it was a good idea in the first place?
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Honestly, IMO, as a general rule no javascript or web page content should be able to change anything outside of its own content and display. I think browsers should do away with anything that allows a page to change settings, resize windows, create popups, or anything else. If you want a link to open in a new window, you can right-click on it and say, "Open in New Window".
I know some web applications make use of some of these features in valid ways, but they should just find a different design for those
Wha? (Score:2)
How would either of those stop you from clicking and following through an email link your sysadmin specifically said is safe?
sounds like a headache for management (Score:2)
From someone that manages computers, not being able to do things like set the default homepage would be a problem for me. Windows admins can change things like this using Group Policy. That doesn't "use the gui" but I bet it still works with chrome.