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Old 07-04-2006, 08:05 PM   #1
solipsism
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FYI: How To Disable Apple's "Dashboard Advisor"

How could you? With the recently released maintence update Mac OS 10.4.7, the company has added a background daemon that reports information about your computer to Apple every time you launch the Dashboard.

Called the Widget Advisory, the invisible program checks which widgets you have at activation, as well as their version information, and submits the info to Apple, which checks to see if they're all up-to-date. If not, you get a prompt to update your software.

It would be fine if Apple released a widget that would allow users to voluntarily submit such information (that's basically what the system-wide Software Update program does), but making it automatic and seamless means most users don't know how to turn it off. It feels like the work of Microsoft.

However, the program can be disabled with a little work on the OS X Terminal.

Launch a window and enter:
Code:
sudo mv /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist /etc/mach_init.d/dashboardadvisoryd.plist.disabled
And then reboot. It's out of your hair. Not that it ever should ahve been there.

(source)
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Old 07-04-2006, 09:54 PM   #2
Mikey-San
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Mountain, meet molehill. Mac OS X machines already are pre-configured to ping Apple's servers to check what versions of what you're runningl, anyway. Software Update checks are only manual if you specify it, and you're not asked at first boot.

Looks to me that someone simply neglected to implement a UI switch for Dashboard update checks. I imagine that'll get corrected soon enough. (Edit: It'd better. There should always be a UI toggle for this sort of thing.)

Can't wait to see the Mac sites FREAK OUT about this, though.

Postscript: Love the phrase "invisible program", though. Makes it seem really sinister.
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Last edited by Mikey-San; 07-04-2006 at 09:57 PM.
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Old 07-04-2006, 10:20 PM   #3
voldenuit
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The fact that Apple does it, does not make it any better, and they just don't get it. Remember the iTMS mini-store phoning home ?

And Software Update should definitely ask politely whether it shall do its thing weekly from now on.

Expecting more from Apple seems quite natural to me, otherwise I could just start doing business with slimy, data-collecting, spyware infested competitors.

For those who're allergic to typing or even pasting commands in the terminal, here's the above command as a zipped, double-clickable shell-script that will open the terminal, then ask for an admin password and move what starts up the deamon out of the way - at least until the next system update.
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Last edited by voldenuit; 07-04-2006 at 10:43 PM.
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Old 07-04-2006, 10:41 PM   #4
Mikey-San
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Here we go, out-of-proportion commandos swarm! "They just don't get it"? It really just looks like an oversight. They're checking to see if software is up to date. Don't freak out. Stop assuming the most sinister intentions possible.

The second half of that last sentence of yours is NOTHING but inflammatory conjecture, by the way. You sound like Cory Doctorow.

Edit: Like I said, there needs to be a UI switch for it. Since there is for every OTHER software update system that ships with Mac OS X, it is specious reasoning to assume Apple's trying to pull one over on anyone.
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Last edited by Mikey-San; 07-04-2006 at 10:45 PM.
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Old 07-05-2006, 03:25 AM   #5
pink
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One would have thought that Apple would have learned something from the iTunes story. But again, they cause maximal harm for minimal benefit (for the user and the company).
And besides, one would have to explain to the naive user, why such a process could not be included in the standard software update process, where no one would have bothered ...

cheers, pink
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Old 07-05-2006, 09:17 AM   #6
swanksalot
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To the original post: I use Little Snitch, which stops outbound connections to ask first. Wasn't sure what dashboardadvisoryd was, so blocked it.
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Old 07-05-2006, 09:32 PM   #7
ThreeDee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikey-San
Can't wait to see the Mac sites FREAK OUT about this, though.

Already have :

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Old 07-10-2006, 10:42 AM   #8
ThreeDee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by voldenuit
For those who're allergic to typing or even pasting commands in the terminal, here's the above command as a zipped, double-clickable shell-script that will open the terminal, then ask for an admin password and move what starts up the deamon out of the way - at least until the next system update.

Even better: http://bigpixel.macintoshdevelopers....ad/dtdad10.dmg

GUI app to enable/disable it. Called DTDAD (disable the dashboardadvisoryd).
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