Bartender change of ownership—potential security issue?

Software
21

Right, but they didn’t state that there was a new owner. They just said the certificate had changed and left users to guess why that would be so, or to just accept that the certificate change “was to be expected.”

22

I think they are referring to this part of on the blog post:

  • The new update to 5.0.52 involved a one-time certificate change. This is valid & expected!

Not about the ownership change.

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23

Exactly.

24

If they were an established purveyor of Mac software or even an ambitious solo dev, you’d expect them to be crowing about being the new owners and stewards of the legendary utility that defined the category. But…crickets.

Maybe it’s okay and they’re just extremely shy or poor communicators. But it all looks very dubious.

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25

I wonder why they would ever think that…

if it were the only one…

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26

it came from MacUpdater originally. Reddit got the news out.

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27

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Hanlon’s Razor.

However, in this case there are a number of red flags. So while I’ll continue to use Bartender for now, I’ve set a Little Snitch rule to block all outgoing connections.

And I’ll continue to monitor the situation.

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28

There is some issue with posting images now (I can’t even post a screenshot of the error) so here is the copy/paste from the new owner.

We already have a subscription option - people can choose whichever they’re more comfortable with

@ismh86

29

I don’t want to have to attribute either one to the developers of my software. :wink:

3 Likes
30

Do you have a link to where you found that?

31

https://www.reddit.com/user/Ordinary_Delivery_79/

his most recent post from an account created 5 hours ago…

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32

I was surprised that Bartender 5 offered lifetime for a good price. So this is the reason.

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33

I’ll say it again, the forum so needs a laugh response.

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34

Panic Software does this a lot… They have gotten me three times and I am now waiting for them to give Transmit the Prompt subscription makeover to make it a hat trick +1

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35

Any idea where that subscription option can be found? Someone responded to that with:

No, you don’t. The app is available via the setapp.com service bundle but we both know that is not the same thing as potentially making Bartender 6 a subscription service. Which is what they actually asked about. You’re being extremely disingenuous right now.

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36

nope, nobody can find it but if he is talking about setapp, it makes him look even worse.

37

So far no one has convinced me that I should give this person wearing a metaphorical paper bag with two eye-hole cutouts the benefit of the doubt.

38

I hope they do go to a subscription. It will solve the issue for me quickly. As far as subscriptions are concerned, if its not Adobe or Drafts, I will eventually dump it. It’s only a matter of time.

2 Likes
39

The whole reason I use LittleSnitch and block network access to apps with major permissions (disk, clipboard) is to avoid this headache :smile:.

And subscription model for a menu bar product? Damn, subscription hell is real. There are so many free and multipurpose apps doing the same thing bartender does though. Vanilla, Ice, BetterTouchTool, and many more.

40

subscription hell is real
So I’ve been saying, in so many words, for a while. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like