Popular Mac app 'Bartender' acquired by new unknown developer

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Security & Trust Concerns After Acquisition

  • Users are alarmed that a widely used utility with Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions changed owners quietly.
  • A macOS prompt for new permissions was triggered by a certificate change, but the official support page framed it as a generic permissions “issue” without mentioning the ownership or cert switch; several commenters call this misleading and uninstall the app.
  • Comparisons are drawn to prior “silent takeovers” of browser extensions that later exfiltrated data or injected ads.
  • Some argue that for software with deep system access, users reasonably want to know who now controls it and see accountable, identifiable leadership.
  • Others respond that, legally, buying a license doesn’t guarantee insight into ownership or strategy, but still agree the communication here was dubious.

Open Source vs Closed Source Debate

  • One camp argues this incident illustrates the danger of closed source: incentives can change overnight and users have no recourse.
  • Counterpoints:
    • Open source is also vulnerable to maintainer changes, social engineering, and backdoors; recent high‑profile incidents are cited.
    • The key advantage of OSS is the ability to fork once trust is broken, though damage may already be done before issues are noticed.
  • Several examples are given of OSS projects sold or co‑opted, with communities forking to restore trust.

Alternatives, Workarounds & macOS Design

  • Multiple alternatives are suggested: Ice, Dozer, Hidden Bar, iBar, menu‑bar/date utilities, and using BetterTouchTool to manage status items.
  • Some report Ice and other OSS tools as promising but not yet feature‑complete compared to the original app, especially around smart auto‑unhiding and notch handling.
  • There is broad sentiment that Apple should provide robust, built‑in menu bar icon management or at least less invasive APIs so utilities don’t need screen recording.
  • More generally, several commenters see this as part of a pattern where macOS power users must assemble a toolkit of third‑party utilities to fix perceived OS shortcomings.

Business & Ecosystem Dynamics

  • Developers describe frequent unsolicited acquisition offers from “shady” buyers, viewing popular utilities as attractive attack vectors.
  • A tool is shared to detect certificate swaps on macOS apps, reflecting community efforts to monitor such risks.