PrivacyTests.org
Arthur Edelstein (via Hamed Haddadi):
PrivacyTests.org is an open-source testing program that measures browser privacy characteristics, and a website, https://privacytests.org, that renders the results for human consumption.
Archive for October 14, 2021
XPC Service’s Methods Not Necessarily Run on Main Thread
After subsequently moving them into an XPC service and thinking it would “just work”, I found that it didn’t. At least not reliably. Maybe every 8th or 9th time, yes, it did all it was asked to do, but every other time, it outright refused to execute Apple Scripts.
After two days of desperate attempts to get it working correctly, and almost giving up on the XPC privilege separation entirely for this, I figured I’d check to see if the Apple Scripts were being executed on the main thread.
Update (2021-10-15): Thomas Clement:
It is documented that
NSXPCConnectioncalls back on the connection’s internal private queue.
I was tinkering with creating an app with an XPC service around 2013 and gave up cos it was flakey. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure this was the problem.
XcodeNueve: Running the Xcode 9 Tools
A hack allowing the use of Xcode 9’s toolchain on macOS Catalina, Big Sur, and Monterey.
Xcode 9.4.1 and the macOS 10.13 SDK are the last versions capable of building 32-bit Intel (i386) binaries.
Due to internal frameworks that reference private AppKit instance variables (removed in macOS Catalina), Xcode 9 and its included toolchain fail to run on any macOS version past Mojave.
For projects which need to build i386 binaries to support macOS 10.14 and earlier (like Wine), this requires keeping around a 10.14 build machine, which is undesirable for a number of reasons (no more security updates, requires older hardware, can’t also run latest Xcode, etc.)
The Xcode 9 app itself still doesn’t work, but this lets you use its compiler and other tools.
