It’s been over a year with these macOS pop-ups and I still have any idea why an app is asking, what should I say, what is the penalty for choosing Don’t Allow, etc. What a frustrating experience.
(Edit: I’m showing Chrome here but I am getting them for so many other apps without seemingly any rhyme or reason.)
@mwichary I think you put your finger on why it's so awful in your first post: 1) It's a deeply ambiguous permission that's very hard even for an expert to build a mental risk model around (compare to the Documents example). 2) The connection between your action and the dialog is very obscured. 3) It's very unclear what happens if you say no! Can you change your mind later? if so, where?
I love the idea of programs having to ask for consent, but the practical form of it can be deeply exhausting.
@mwichary I'm always reminded of this ad when I see those warnings.
@bitnacht Thanks. The details are in my other posts under the original. But just to wrap up this one:
- this notification happens at a strange moment (after I put it aside) that adds more questions rather than providing answers
- this is Apple’s own app, so they know exactly what it’s doing
- even for other apps, there is a better way to describe it
I understand how this all works in principle. I just think a lot of details are wrong.
@mwichary @bitnacht Wasted opportunity. One of my own side projects (https://github.com/numist/Switch) is also affected by this (and does capture window contents, though it doesn't record them) and I'm sympathetic to the system's problem where it knows an app has access to the screen's contents but no notion of what that information is being used for.
You kinda *have* to assume the worst. Is this free colour picker app sending my bank balances to phishers as part of their mark selection? Who can say!
@mwichary I’ve written an app that can inspect & capture parts of the screen to zoom in on them. The permission being granted does permit the app to grab anything on screen.
It’s honest kind of a frightening level of access & you really need to thoroughly trust any app you give this permission to.
@causticmsngo I understand the system… I just question any system that tells me a built-in app for sampling colors is “capturing” the screen, and that it tells me that after I stop using it.
Whether it’s the permission system, the UI around it, or the timing around that UI, it just doesn’t seem that it’s working well. And that on top of the original, even more annoying “local network” permission.
@mwichary I think you just press Yes and then it never prompts again. I see it happen once after install and never ever again after that.
It must prompt you after every version upgrade since you keep pressing No. and now you have lots of entries from previous versions where it prompted and a No was recorded.
Unless there’s a browser flag you can set to disable the Chromecast stuff (I think that’s why it prompts for this) or switch to something Firefox-based, chrome will continue to be a POS.
@mwichary May be of interest to you- I went looking for answers in 2023 when I bought my M1 MBP only to see Chrome hogging 20% of CPU, and I found this site.
@mwichary in the photo you showed it tells you why it wants permission: „This will allow you to select from available devices and display content on them.“
I am rather happy about these pop-ups, since it allows me to decide if I want to provide more data for the app in question.
I do get that it is frustrating to get them often, but if an app has that pop-up very often, for me it is also an indicator to look for an alternative that isn’t as data hungry. It also should be possible to reduce 1/2
@mwichary to reduce these pop-ups by choosing the things the app is allowed to do in settings.
That is also the place where you can change your decision of the pop-up later, if you want to.
After you chose it normally tells you something along the lines of „you can always change this by going to „Settings -> Chrome“ in a short pop-up for a second or two.
And if I don’t know why an app asks that, I search for the answer on the internet. I want to know what the apps do that I have. 2/2
@mwichary I *think* what happened here is that an extra permission was retroactively added to access that apps used to just have by default and now they haven't specified to the OS that they *don't* (or do) require this permission so it pops up no matter what.
For the most part I don't allow, unless I specifically want the app to have knowledge about other devices on my network. Haven't found any issues with this strategy so far!
Why isn't there a
> Never ever allow. And don't ask me again
button
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