Security Update bundles were released for Catalina and Mojave as well.

The list of security fixes for the Big Sur update 11.3 has three entries mentioning Gatekeeper: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212325

...whereas the list for Catalina has only one: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT212326

How did you ever survive all that time where you had to decide for yourself whether to run a program or not, without Gatekeeper holding your hand?

I just think this is how the PR/Media flow goes with these things.

I usually hack the hackers first

We may be technical, but we are beholden to products we use as well. Being technical can also mean we are more aware of the dangers of upgrading too soon.

Right, but do you know if there is a command to actually turn off quarantine? I mean really turning it off, not just removing it from already existing files. To my knowledge, that doesn't exist.

Nothing stops you from putting the same label on multiple boxes in real life.

You're living in a beautiful bubble.

That I can't answer. The most recent version of macOS I've used for any length of time was High Sierra, because even Mojave broke something essential for me—Apple Events need to be authorized once for every combination of (1) the app being controlled and (2) the app sending the event. Combined with the fact that my authorizations were often reset when I edited a script, this made most of my Applescripts effectively useless.

But it's a very different problem from Gatekeeper. And from iOS, where the user legitimately has no control. If SIP is turned off, you could write an app that strips out every macOS behavior you dislike, because without SIP apps can patch whatever they want.

It's F4 on my MacBook Pro 2018 Catalina. :)

I don’t use Big Sur but I don’t think it has any affect on logs. Without SIP, you could patch the kernel or something and change whatever you want, but that would of course be nuts.

I share your curiosity. If your computer isn't already managed, installing an MDM profile in order to view logs is ridiculous. I don’t even think there’s a way to do it without paying money.

That has nothing to do with log redaction. That's to prevent private data escaping apps and either being sent to Apple or readable by others. You want that on.

It works exactly the same way in macOS Finder as in Windows Explorer. Extensions are hidden by default. You can enable to show extensions (either by individual file, or globally). If a file has it's extension shown, you will get a confirmation prompt warning you of the consequences by changing the file extension.

I've learned to never underestimate users' ability to shoot themselves in the foot. People will click through any popup dialogue which might suggest that their decision to perform an action was wrong.

The warning is a massive inconvenience. It reverts the file name if you cancel, so if you spent any effort on the new name, it will be wasted. Moreover, people often expect to change the file type by changing the name, and they get confused when it doesn't work (or it works for them in some case and they expect it will work here too). Lastly, users often don't read error messages, let alone understand them ("file extension" is hardly an easy concept...), so it's not necessarily helpful to them. Really, the number of cases where you'd need to change a file extension are so small compared to when you don't that I completely understand why they made this choice. It's imperfect, but I don't know of a better solution.

Users are well-trained to ignore warnings.

Like browsers, file navigation UIs could also just grey out the file extension.

What you're describing is just Finder caring. Linux doesn't care at all about your file extensions but Nautilus sure does.

In GNOME for example gio handles opening files in the "correct" application by way of the MIME database in /usr/share/application/mimeapps.list and ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list.

Is this an Xcode project, or something outside of it?

I regularly build both and have run them in the same way you're talking about here, without issue... the latter migth be a bit more nuanced, but when set up properly does work fine, so I'm inclined to think this is more a problem with how you're doing things.

I've always found it to be extremely consistent and never does anything strange like you're describing. Works for me.

Unix-based has almost always used internal metadata, and the "dot" is just another character. I thought Windows was unique in relying on the suffixes, but Wikipedia suggests MacOS inherited some form from NextSTEP.

That's... unusual.

I use Homebrew constantly and have never seen such a thing in my life, in any version of macOS/OSX over the past several years. Not in building from source, not in casks.

Like another commenter the only security change I have is "Allow apps downloaded from" set to "App store and identified developers" -- which I'd assume virtually every Mac user on HN has also set.

Perhaps you have some kind of unusual configuration? Or there's some very specific subcategory of Homebrew packages that encounter this problem?

I use Homebrew daily. In System Preferences, I have Security & Privacy > General > Allow apps downloaded from: App Store and identified developers, and I don't remember the last time I got a Gatekeeper alert.

I'm using homebrew all day long, and I don't remember ever having this issue.

Homebrew apps only ask for permissions when they get updated because gatekeeper treats it like a fresh install, I guess.

This is because Homebrew Cask explicitly adds the quarantine attribute to things it downloads. Perhaps there is some easy way to disable it or patch out this functionality?

Ctrl+right click to get the option to open it.

Homebrew and MacPorts don't add the quarantine flag to the software they're installing. If you're getting Gatekeeper alerts for software installed this way, then something else must be going on.

You need to disable gatekeeper like shown in another of the comments. It’ll permanently create a new option in your settings to allow installations from “anywhere” too.

Did you install homebrew via a Rosetta Terminal?

M1/ARM code is treated more strictly than Intel, so I guess all my command line stuff is Intel.

A simple right click on the app and selecting the open dialogue and it works fine.

Macports doesn't give you any headaches, it follows Unix principles.

Homebrew is a keg of worms, if you excuse the bad pun. Sadly (because it seems to be easier to get started?) many developers prefer it over Macports...

You have to Ctrl+right click the app, then click Open.

Slightly educated guess: did you install the x64 emulator between when you had the problems and when they went away?

I can see brew trying to run x64 code while the emulator isn’t there blocking code from running in weird ways.

Alternatively, it might be that package updates fixed the packages that behaved incorrectly. Again, just a slightly educated guess.

Apologies for misreading you, I'm just frustrated and accepted the fact that it is by design.

I been reading other comments and as someone (xrisk) pointed out that it is Homebrew Casks which it made sense since all of the gatekeeper alerts is coming from 'Cask-ed' apps. I could disable Gatekeeper but I rather not because MacOS is not my daily driver. I rather to keep Gatekeeper active to protect itself from moronic me.