Filed under: OS, Software, Tips and tricks
On Saturday, I posted a bit about the problem with Safari's auto-installation of Widgets. Today, Dori Smith of Backup Brain has written an article for MacCentral on the topic, called Dashboard Widget (In)Security that offers a more detailed view of the situation along with a good dose of what to do and what not to do. To find out what version of Mac OS you are running, go to the Apple logo in the top left corner, click it and choose About This Mac. From that window you will see the version number, processor, memory and chosen startup disk. Clicking Software Update will check for updates, and More Info... will open up an extensive list of everything on your machine.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brock Batsell said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
I think that everyone is blowing this widget "insecurity" business ridiculously out of proportion. Widgets are mini-applications, and they should be treated as such. It's no secret that an errant application can easily be destructive; this is well-known. Any self-respecting user will not download an application without knowing what it does first, which is exactly the same precautions they should apply to widgets. As noted in this article, even if a widget is downloaded without your permission, it cannot do anything unless the user intentionally activates it.
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Jonathan Schroeder said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
thanks for the heads up on this one, you guys... just another reason i love tuaw
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teksno said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
does this happen only if you run sfari, or does this happen if you run a 3rd party browser like firefox?
i havent installed tiger yet cause i wanted to see what security issues popped up first...
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Travis said 4:18PM on 6-16-2005
Apple needs to spread the "are you sure you want to run this widget" popup across all widgets. And create a Widget Manager-esqe app to remove/move/play with widgets. This isnt as big of a security flaw as people are creating it.
This is Apple Land, people update their OS's unlike Windows Land. Apple will fix this problem in 10.4.1 or atleast a Security Patch soon. 10.4.1 is already seeded to dev's, although i haven't heard much of a change list.
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John D said 10:34AM on 8-21-2005
why to the widgets take up so much ram?
a 500k widget shouldn't need 10 to 15mb of ram
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