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Comment by grishka | Hacker News Reader

By the way, Windows hiding file extensions by default must've contributed to people getting scammed more than anything. The classic technique of getting someone to download and open what looks like a benign file but is actually an .exe with that file type's icon would've not worked nearly as well if file extensions were shown by default.

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computer people are used to rigid syntax rules because unambiguity, and they are willing to accept "line noise" syntax because they hate ambiguity even more.

as you point out, a .exe hiding behind a .zip is a problem caused by hiding extensions. and if we still lived in the 16bit DOS/Windows world, btw, MICROSOFT.COM would be a super problematic thing to click "especially-whether" the "extension" is shown or not (in 16 bit MSDOS, .COM is just as much a .EXE as .EXE is)

I'm just writing to extend your thought to the hiding of http:// and also www.

That's what introduces these problems, not a .ZIP tld, and I suspect/know it's the same people with this same type of thinking (whackamole problem solving) who think hiding http:// is a good idea (thereby causing the problem) and then suggest to fix any problems with more regulatory agencies to control what TLDs get created, what words we're allowed to use where, etc. (thereby causing new problems)

I'm not saying computer people "know better" and therefore invent systems that are tolerable to normies, I'm just saying I can't stand when normies are in charge of things that matter to me.

The whole .COM/.EXE thing is not limited to 16-bit DOS and Windows. For a very long time now, Windows simply treats both extensions as the equivalent of chmod +x, but the way the binary is loaded does not depend on the specific extension. That is, if a .COM file has a 64-bit PE header, it will happily execute on Win11.

Indeed, a bunch of system binaries are themselves like that for historical reasons - CHCP.COM, FORMAT.COM, MORE.COM etc - because they originally had such names long ago in DOS, and someone somewhere might have a batch file that includes the extension.

> they originally had such names long ago in DOS

And DOS got them from CP/M before it.

Btw, you can even run a executable file which has been renamed to any extension (.txt or .whatever) in command line. (See PATHEXT env) It just recognized by the explorer (and shellexecute api’ third parameter). So that’s mean all files have “executable” permission by default.

but it would have had to be named MICROSOF.COM

You'll get access codes for Building 7.

the one with the VIP lounge, right?

I haven't used Windows in a while, but doesn't the OS track "mark of the web" and alert users when they try to run something they downloaded? Not to say that most users won't click continue, but that feels like the bigger, more visible warning than a file extension.

Users have been trained on Windows to click OK, automatically, without reading, on any pop-up that appears.

Not just on Windows. Modern web pages are full of cookie banners, sign-up-for-newsletter banners and please-sign-in-with-facebook banners. It's become a sport to ignore what's in popups and quickly find the right place to click to get rid of them (an OK button, a little "x" in the upper right corner, ...)

Which is a bit ironic since there was a time where browsers would routinely open popups in new windows, upon which it was immediately misused by ads, upon which browsers implemented counter measures. We're just in the next iteration of this.

There is no visible "OK" button on a SmartScreen reputation warning.

The way Windows handles these things almost makes you think they want to handicap their users to make the transition to something else more difficult.

A responsible OS should help educate and empower their users. Windows just want them to stay where they are, use Office and only install programs from their official store.

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