Comment by veselin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by veselin | Hacker News Reader

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A new Mac comes with something like 30 apps in the bar. I clicked and disabled every single one of them except Finder and used Safari to download another browser. If it was any other manufacturer, this mess would be quickly denounced by reviewers as crapware. But because it is by Apple, it is not a problem at all.

I am not expecting this to fix by itself. Maybe some major review blogs should first not parrot how magical the whole thing is and change the tone as such things are not only annoying, but also a security risk even if you don't actively use the app. I am not an expert on development for MacOS, but I would be surprised if there is no way to trigger the mail app from another app or a link. I just hope the bug is not exportable this way.

I'm not sure I could classify any of 23 items in the default dock as as crapware.

None are demos or trialware. Hell, I use all of them except for FaceTime, Podcasts, Pages, TV and Launchpad.

I do remove most of them from the dock since I use spotlight to launch things, but removing System Preferences from my dock hardly makes it crapware.

They lure you into using services you wouldn't use otherwise. I don't see how having FaceTime or TV is any different than when Google was bundling Google+ in Android.

I assume you mean the Dock? I am with you there, on a new install of macOS I drag pretty much all their apps out of it (to be fair, I do the same thing on a new Ubuntu desktop install too...). Of course in a sense the Dock is an anachronism, I find it useful once in the while to drag a file onto an app there, but generally for launching apps I prefer Spotlight (actually Alfred).

Yes. The term dock came out of my mind, thanks. And yes, I emptied the dock. But obviously taking stuff off the dock is the minor inconvenience, but the idea that all this was preinstalled. Package managers and app stores should be where almost all of this belongs.

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