Block the “Upgrade to Tahoe” alerts

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Concerns about Tahoe and Upgrade Pressure

  • Many see Tahoe as a clear downgrade from Sequoia/Sonoma, especially for “workstation” use.
  • Strong dislike of being nagged into upgrading; some describe macOS as behaving more like malware or adware.
  • New Macs shipping with Tahoe and being effectively non-downgradable is pushing some to delay purchases or seek used/refurb machines with older OS versions.

Performance, UI, and App Regressions

  • Reports of jittery animations, laggy Finder, choppy Quick Look, and degraded desktop switching, even on M4/M5 hardware; others say it’s smooth on M1/M2.
  • Complaints about increased padding, low information density, left-aligned window titles, and new icons; Tahoe perceived as “iPhone-ified” at the expense of productivity.
  • Apple Music gets particular criticism: worse miniplayer, harder seek bar, odd playback behavior from search, and reduced glanceable info.
  • Some report display glitches, FireWire removal, and long-standing bugs (e.g., Spotlight indexing behavior) persisting across releases.

Strategies to Block or Avoid Tahoe

  • Use of configuration profiles (e.g., the referenced GitHub project) to block major updates; discussion of understanding the .mobileconfig rather than blindly running scripts.
  • Other tactics:
    • defaults trick for update notification date (often ineffective).
    • Switching to the Sequoia beta channel to suppress Tahoe prompts while still getting 15.x updates.
    • Network-level blocking via Little Snitch/LuLu or Pi-hole (even blocking all apple.com in extreme cases).
    • Focus/Do Not Disturb to suppress popups.
  • A TOS-decline trick worked for one person but failed for another, flagged as unreliable.

Security vs Stability Tradeoffs

  • Apple doesn’t backport all security fixes to older macOS releases, so staying back means accepting known CVEs.
  • Counterpoint: new major releases also ship with new bugs; some prefer staying on N–1 as a compromise.

Broader Sentiment and Alternatives

  • Long-time Mac users feel the UX has steadily declined since pre-iPhone days; animations and “Liquid Glass” aesthetics are seen as adding latency and distraction.
  • Several are now seriously considering Linux (KDE/GNOME) or FreeBSD desktops; others argue macOS still has better overall UI/shortcuts and far superior hardware/battery.
  • A minority report Tahoe as stable, snappy, and mostly a cosmetic change, and think the backlash is exaggerated.