Unless I’m not reading things correctly it doesn’t seem that the other options will show the hidden items under the menu bar.
I’ve downgraded to .48 and will keep it at that until it doesn’t work any longer or one of the competitors implements something like bartdender.
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I had issues updating to the latest version. Bartender had lost all its permissions in MacOS and I had quite some trouble to get it back working again. I wonder if those issues are related to this notification thing.
Be it as it may, I am testing Ice right now (thank you for mentioning Ice) and I am quite pleased (yes, its feature set is more limited in comparison to Bartender, but I did not really use all the features anyway).
As Jason Snell has pointed out:
Software companies don’t owe their users complete transparency, and it’s possible that there were extenuating circumstances in the transaction (from either side) that led to the lack of communication. But the inverse is also true: customers don’t owe software companies their loyalty.
And no, the sky is not falling. But… Ice looks promising and I like open source when available and working for my needs. 
Note to myself:
I should consider giving Little Snitch another try…
It asked for all permissions again with v 5.0.52 because it was sneakily signed with an entirely different developer certificate so it looked like an entirely different app to macOS. I went back to .48 now and I also had to approve all permissions once again.
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An update from the developer of BTT:
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I have Keyboard Maestro. Can KM manage icons on the menu?
It’s in the roadmap on the Ice GitHub
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Unfortunately not. KM can only add macro groups as menu bar items.
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Not to derail, but it doesn’t surprise me concerning the new owners (I don’t use the app personally). What impresses me are the MacUpdater folks for catching this and warning its users. Impressive.
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I’m not sold on switching apps yet because the current one meets my needs so well:
- Bartender hides the battery icon once my Mac is fully charged
- when plugged in to a Studio Display, all my icons are automatically visible all the time
Those are the killer features for me, beyond the obvious stated function of the app. I’ll do some research into the alternatives to see if any of them do the same.
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Is (the apparent new owner) Applause really the same company that tried to pull this?
Rumor(?) source:
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If true, the concern switches from nefarious intent to that of benign neglect.
Update: based on @rob 's post directly above, perhaps not so “benign”.
In which case I’ll continue to use Bartender, with the Little Snitch rules I mentioned above inplace, while auditioning other tools.
Thanks for finding that tidbit of information.
Update 2: This post, also from @dario , which I missed, suggests a different owner.
And while this bit is reassuring, “note that we’ve hidden Bartender 5.0.52 from MacUpdater users for more than 2 weeks while we gave professional security investigator Patrick Wardle time to look into the issue. he did not find any signs that Bartender 5.0.52 does have malicious code, …” the remainder is not. (Patrick Wardle is the fellow who develops the aforementioned LuLu.)
Cheapskates like me can do the same thing with LuLu.
I don’t trust this new owner at all, but I’m going to keep using Bartender 4 (which predates the certificate change and addition of the spying code) for as long as I’m still using Ventura, for the reasons you mentioned. After that, I’ll probably switch to Ice.
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It’s probably the same Applause. They say in their FAQ that they buy apps so they can accelerate growth and not focus on development that much. Bartender will be a subscription app in no time. Pricing has already quietly gone up.
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I’m using Sonoma and didn’t upgrade to Bartender 5. I’m still using 4. It still works albeit getting a warning which I can click to never show again. Just want to say that 4 still runs well.
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After reading Applause’s history, they will never get a dime from me. One thing I learned from this fiasco is that there are a lot of things in my menu bar that I don’t really need there (spotlight, alfred’s hat, km icon etc). Once I cleaned those out, I didnt really need bartender anymore. I may try Ice just to organize them though.
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This is interesting, because reading Applause’s website they present themselves definitely as pros in the business of acquiring indie apps. But one would expect better customer relationships.
I’m stepping off the Bartender train for now, moving to Ice (tip: command-drag icon to configure menu bar items). I also removed my positive rating in Setapp.
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Took me some fumbling to get this!
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