Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Exceptions.plist: interesting tweaks, including Gatekeeper forced opt-in

The Exceptions.plist is quite interesting:
defaults read /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/Exceptions.plist
Apple is using it to force opt-in a variety of apps for Gatekeeper protection by setting "LSFileQuarantineEnabled = 1". The list of apps on mavericks as of today is:
com.microsoft.Entourage
com.microsoft.explorer
com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5
com.operasoftware.opera
com.panic.Transmit
jp.hmdt.shiira
org.gudy.azureus2
org.m0k.transmission
org.mozilla.camino
org.mozilla.firefox
org.mozilla.mozilla
org.mozilla.navigator
org.mozilla.seamonkey
org.mozilla.thunderbird
org.pythonmac.unspecified.BitTorrent
org.xlife.Xtorrent
Apple also applies uses Exceptions.plist to apply categories to apps that aren't distributed through the appstore (where categories are presumably applied to all apps) e.g.
        "com.Google.GoogleEarthPlus" =         {
            LSApplicationCategoryType = "public.app-category.reference";
        };
There's also LSMaximumVersionRequiringJava, which I think probably controls whether the OS should prompt the user to install Java for particular versions of various software:
        "com.adobe.Photoshop" =         {
            Java =             {
            };
            LSApplicationCategoryType = "public.app-category.graphics-design";
            LSMaximumVersionRequiringJava = "12.19";
        };
And miscellaneous tweaks, these for power management and display:
    AppNapOverrides =     {
        "com.apple.CrashTestDummy" =         (
                        {
                SoftDisabled = 1;
            }
        );
    };
    HighResolutionOverrides =     {
        "com.apple.AppleQmaster" =         (
                        {
                HighVersion = "3.5.3";
                SoftDisabled = 1;
            }
        );
Daniel's documented VMWare version blacklisting for 10.8 appears to be gone in 10.9.

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