Any one found a way to work around that ? It’s driving me crazy…

And it’s really hard to un-train them.

I’ve had several people come to me and as “Peter, it asked me ‘do you want to install a virus on your computer’ (or something equally scary) and I clicked ‘install’ before I noticed what it was saying, and now my computer’s acting funny”. The same people. Multiple times. Yes, really.

THIS IS NOT A SECURITY FEATURE. IT IS A SECURITY FLAW.

When Apple added “open safe files” to Safari I groaned. I knew some stupid thing like this was coming up.

The most fun I’ve had with this was when a screen saver tried to run a program, and LaunchServices came up with the stupid warning, AND I COULDN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT WAS UNDER THE SCREEN SAVER, AND THE SCREEN SAVER WAS WAITING FOR IT. I mean, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, Apple…

I can’t believe I didn’t try that. You just have to declare “public.item” as Neutral.

I also added a folder action script that puts a red label on applications that are moved into the download folder, and removes it when they are moved out of the folder. I preserved almost all of the security and removed most of the inconvenience.

I suppose you’re right though, it shouldn’t be default and Apple doesn’t like options. Although I have to say, a nag screen this annoying isn’t very “Apple”

Remember that by default, file extensions are not displayed. So for example, an application with a PDF icon will look like a PDF and not an application unless one examines it carefully (e.g. with Get Info). Even when file extensions are displayed, the “.app” at the end is a very subtle hint and easily missed.

Not a bad suggestion you make though: Perhaps when file extensions *are* displayed, the warning could be done away with. This could not be the default behavior, of course… but Apple is known for minimizing options, which may be why this is not configurable.

public.html
public.executable
com.apple.application
com.apple.applicaiton-bundle
com.apple.aplication-file

and I don’t get warnings for html documents anymore, but I still get warnings for applications. Maybe it’s impossible to override the settings for applications?

This warning is extremely annoying (and insulting) and I don’t even understand the security benefit. If it’s trying to protect me from executables that appear to be something else, why does it bother me about executables that appear to be executables? Seriously… at the very least it should be disabled for files whose only extension is .app

find . -print0 | xargs -0 xattr -d com.apple.quarantine

Anyway, when you get tired of the nagging:

find . -print0 | xargs -0 ~/Applications/etc/xabatch ~/Applications/etc/com.apple.xabatch {}

Although, honestly, .executable, .bundle and .application-file make for a very unwise set up.

Obviously, this does not prevent applications from quarantining themselves (as Safari does).

public.disk-image
public.archive
public.item
public.content
public.data
public.executable
com.apple.bundle
com.apple.application-file

to it and re-started Safari and download dmgs and still receive the “are you sure” dialog from Launch Services. This can definitely be me missing something, tho. Anything else I need to do?

http://mymacinations.com/2008/02/06/changing-the-systems-default-settings-for-html-files-safe/

@Justin: Very cool. Really good info. As I’ve said when working with Microsoft devs w/r/t code-signing: I just hope development teams have a good way to handle this so that keys don’t make it out of their control w/o knowing. Code-signing apps is not as simple as it sounds when you factor in employees leaving and how you integrate it into your build processes.