The Gimp is a GNU (freeware) image manipulation program. Available from http://www.gimp.org/. The program is built-in around plug-in's and PG interprets each plug-in as a new, individual program. All together, after installing this program, I had to answer approximately 170! sequential prompts of the form: "Always perform this check" / Permit, over and over and over. Very annoying. I was ready to beat up on the PC after this. PG should provide a way to wild card prompts like this, so everything in a particular folder could be marked OK with one click.
I don't like learning mode because any and everything gets accpeted without any warning. You lose all control. In this case, the software should be able to recognize that you replied yes (accept) to the last X prompts and they all were in the same folder, therefore offer something like "Do you want to accpet all prompts from XYZ folder for the next X minutes?". Or if that is too difficult to program, then add a selection to each and every prompt to the effect "accept all prompts related to XYZ program?". My cookie management program does this with cookie presenters (accept all cookies from say, "cnn.com").
What else would be trying to start at the same time as your install? Learning mode is there to take care of the issue. If you think that Learning mode will expose you in the brief time that GIMP installs/runs the first time then you must think that there's already a 'baddie' on your PC that somehow is lying dormant (but running, so you must have allowed that), just waiting for you to turn off Learning mode so it can somehow spread even more. If you're really paranoid, disconnect from the Internet, shutdown everything else while using Learning mode. Let DCS get on with bringing out the new stuff.
That's a completely different thing. Please define "related to XYZ" program. In The Gimp, the executables are the plug-ins, but they are all standalone ".exe" files. If you are concerned with switching to learning mode while booting The Gimp for the first time, but think that "allowing all the files from a folder" is safe, please tell me this: if a malware copies itself in the Gimp plug-in folder, how would you know?
Exactly. If the malware copies itself (or one of it's children) into the Gimp folder, by definition, you're already infected. And how did that happen? If you never use Lerning mode, you must have allowed it.
Well, there isn't any malware and that wasn't the focus of the question anyway. Windows can run multiple processes. "I" may be single-threading the install but who knows what else might be going on in the background? One of my other apps might decide it is time to go check for a new release and then maybe downloads it and begins to install something? We can get all hypothetical here with meaningless chatter. As I said, I don't like learning mode. I left it on when I originally installed PG and a lot of garbage got added in and accepted that I didn't want. I then had to manually go through everything and fix it up the way I wanted it. So I won't use learning mode again. Period. The question at hand is: Is there any other viable way to deal with apps like The Gimp that are built on plug-ins so that one doesn't have to individually handle 170 prompts WITHOUT using learning mode? Frankly, in the 6 months I have been using PG, it has caught nothing and stopped nothing from happening. I just check permit for everything that is presented to me anyway. From my perspective, I'm wondering if an app like this is worth the overhead and maintenance in the big picture.
I have the same issue with the GIMP, and I also use cygwin, which has even more standalone exes. I would like something beyond learning mode, too. Like, explorer integration (you select exe in a folder and get an entry in the contextual menu to update the signature db), or automatically accept children of a given process. Most security tasks are like this: nothing happens for months/years, and then they save your *ss big time one day. Whether it's worth it or not is up to you. -RE
