this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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True that. But it was to be expected that my statement pissed of many mac-lovers :-)
I’m not a Mac lover, it’s just the term; Spyware is data gathering in secret without the user’s knowledge. Apple seems to have it all documented and controllable vs say Windows where you can’t turn off telemetry gathering, just set it to “Basic/required”.
More a semantics thing. I assumed you meant there was something you can’t turn off in Apple shit and it’s done secretly (another commenter has highlighted a daemon that’s doing exactly that!).
I wasn’t part of the downvote brigade either. I don’t get why people downvote stuff that’s more a point of discussion. You didn’t say anything shocking nor blatantly incorrect.
On purely semantics, yeah sure. it's no spyware by definition. But neither is windows or android.
BUT everything closed-source, especially the OSs, send data back home. Basically they all do it openly, if you would bother to read the TOS. So unless you tinker, data gets send home. And be it only for updates, or "malware detection" or whatever else. And you have no idea WHAT exactly those data contain. Or where exactly it goes, or what is done with it henceforth.
So yes, someone could choke on the word "spyware", as this is done secretly and in the shadow. Usually. And maybe I came across provocative, but...well. Why not, it's a topic so often just ignored. I don't care for the votes, I just would wish people would say WHY they seemingly disagree instead of just leaving a worthless vote. As you said, more a point of discussion.
Totally - it got us discussing! And if we didn’t, that daemon wouldn’t have been flagged.
Cheers for the thought provocation.
Got that fart sparkled? :-)
Effluently shining!