For anyone hand-wringing over this, this used to be normal. The hosts file was invented a decade before DNS. The end user, or app, would edit their hosts file purposefully after downloading a master copy from the Stanford Research Institute which was occasionally updated.
People editing hosts files for other reasons was normal (a long time ago-- and it stopped being normal for valid reasons, as tech evolved and the shortcomings of that system were solved). A program automatically editing the hosts file and its website using that to detect information about the website visitor is not the same thing; that usage is novel and was never "normal."
This claim strikes me as obviously wrong.
The fact that this is largely seen as acceptable or even sensible is rather silly in this day and age.
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Oh helllll no. Let's imagine an analogy for Adobe leadership:
1. You hired a night janitor to clean and vacuum your executive offices.
2. That janitor secretly stops at every desk-phone to alter the settings of voicemail accounts.
3. After the change, any external caller can dial a certain sequence to get a message of "Yes, this office was serviced by Adobe Janitorial!"
What's your reaction when you discover it? Do you chuckle and say something like "boys will be boys"? No! You have a panic-call, Facilities revokes access, IT starts checking for other unauthorized surprises, HR looks into terminating contracts, and Legal advises whether you need to pursue data-breach notifications or lawsuits or criminal charges.
* Is it acceptable because they had some permission to touch objects in the rooms? No.
* Is it acceptable because the final effect is innocuous? No.
* Is it acceptable because the employment contract had some vague sentence about "enhancing office communication experiences"? No.
* Is it acceptable if they were just dumb instead of malicious? No.
No person that would blithely cross those lines can be trusted near your stuff, full-stop.
> 3. After the change, any external caller can dial a certain sequence to get a message of "Yes, this office was serviced by Adobe Janitorial!"
Theoretically, it's not "any external caller." Only the janitor's department calling in can dial that sequence and get "Yes, you serviced this office!" If anyone else tries to dial the extension, the desk-phone pretends it doesn't know what it means. (Because it seems Adobe's server serving the analytics image checks the request origin and only serves the image if the origin is Adobe's own website.)
The origin "security" doesn't excuse the complexity and the potential for both exploits and human-error breakage in the future.
Is this the case though? Cannot any website use the same trick Adobe does to check whether you have Creative Cloud installed? Like, the entries in /etc/hosts are not magically scoped to work just on Adobe's web, no?
I must be missing something.
cromka•1h ago
I cannot stomach Thom's articles. So borderline judgmental, holier than thou, feels like he only writes whenever there's something to criticize.
No, it's not a stupid reason. Reason is OK, the execution is controversial.
gjsman-1000•1h ago
And even then, only controversial to nerds with opinions. Nothing else about it is controversial.
If anything, knowing whether the app is installed or not is kinda important? If you open a file shared with you in the browser, the option to "Open in Desktop" versus "Install Desktop App" actually works correctly?
rglullis•1h ago
- Registering an url handler?
- Asking the user?
gjsman-1000•1h ago
As for option 2; ask them every time, or edit their hosts file. Easiest decision in the world: Edit their hosts file, every time, no question. The 1% of nerds who care, and oddly enough don't buy Adobe software, are completely meaningless to the 99% of customers who experience the decision positively.
imiric•1h ago
Why does Adobe need to exfiltrate some information from my machine anyway? If I'm a customer, then they should know this when I sign into my account. They absolutely don't need this information if I'm visiting their website without logging in.
Modifying a global system file is something their software shouldn't be doing in the first place, but relying on this abuse to track me on their website is on another level of insidious behavior.
gjsman-1000•1h ago
imiric•1h ago
jacobgkau•1h ago
This is not an approach any other app on any platform has historically used, and it doesn't seem sustainable if every app you install has to modify your hosts file to use a hack like this to detect whether it should handle files or not.
If you want the browser to be able to give the OS a file handler and have the OS present an option to install the app if it's not installed, that should be handled at the platform level, not on the website using a hack like this.
Why can a file not simply be downloaded with a page displayed showing a link to install the app and also instructions to open the file, trusting the user will know if they already have it installed? At best, you're talking about a very small UX optimization. Emphasis on the "kinda" in "kinda important."
gjsman-1000•1h ago
Actually it's completely sustainable. DNS was invented a decade after hosts files. The idea of your host file being almost completely empty is a modern aberration from the days it used to be thousands of lines long.
Do I wish there was a better mechanism? Sure. Would HN ever agree on a OS-level app-detection API for the browser? Never.
> Why can a file not simply be downloaded with a page displayed showing a link to install the app and also instructions to open the file, trusting the user will know if they already have it installed? At best, you're talking about a very small UX optimization. Emphasis on the "kinda" in "kinda important."
A small UX decision, adding up to tens of millions of times per day, affecting 99.9% of people who don't give a darn - versus a matter of slight software engineering principles of "we just don't do it that way." Easiest decision ever.
jacobgkau•1h ago
There already is one. It just asks the user whether it's okay before it tells the website, as you acknowledged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47664546
What you're arguing for is not good UX. It's lack of user privacy & control. You just think you're being hip or whatever for being blasé about it.
naniwaduni•1h ago
How many apps are you installing that it becomes "unsustainable"? Host file entries are extremely cheap, and it's not like the app needs more than one. Of all the arguments against this, sustainability is a comically weak one. If anything, it's using less contested resources than the "hitting random ports on localhost" approach...
jacobgkau•1h ago
Do you really not see scripted editing of shared system-wide text files as a step back compared to the general containerization that app development has moved towards? This sort of approach would be explicitly incompatible with sandboxes. Adobe can only get away with it because they're already very entrenched with their own app store on their users' machines.
Steeeve•1h ago
tombert•1h ago
Also, I think writing only when you have things to criticize is a valid enough thing to do; what's the point of writing a glorified "I agree!" article?
I only ever blog when I have something that I think is unique to say, and as such a lot of the time my posts end up being kind of negative. I don't think I'm that negative of a person, I just don't see the point of flooding the internet with more echo-chambers.
pessimizer•47m ago
This is a muddled statement. It is a stupid reason to "execute" the act of silently modifying your host file.
If I murder somebody to keep them from stepping on my foot, and the judge says that it's a stupid reason to murder somebody, it's silly to say that the reason is "OK" because it hurts to have one's foot stepped on.