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Discussion on: What are your thoughts on 'Silent Installations'?

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codemouse92 profile image
Jason C. McDonald • Edited

I agree with all the comments so far. I always want to see what will be installed, and explicitly authorize it.

Deliberate malware aside, even "well-meaning" silent installations can go horribly awry. You may want to avoid something due to privacy concerns (e.g. most Google stuff), licensing ethics, security flaws you're aware of that may affect you, or a malicious dependency that otherwise valid projects unwittingly rely on (NPM debacle anyone?)

Thus, I never ever ever EVER want silent installation to touch my machine. I would consider such a thing to be inherently dishonest, if not outright malicious, as a matter of principle. I would always wonder what it is that someone doesn't want me to notice.

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missamarakay profile image
Amara Graham

Do silent updates make you feel the same way? I feel like I know the answer.

I think there is a container influenced mindset where people seemingly stopped caring about things like permissions, privacy, etc. because they are under the impression its self contained, well-meaning.

Or maybe its not the developers and technical folks that are looking for silent installations, its everyone outside that group... because they find the UX annoying and truly do accept the defaults, just clicking on through.

Everyone has me thinking now!

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codemouse92 profile image
Jason C. McDonald

Yeah, I don't like silent updates either.