Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Last week, a number of Mac users had trouble opening apps — a problem that seemed to be caused by an Apple security protocol responsible for checking that software comes from trusted sources. The slow-down prompted some to criticize Apple for collecting too much information about users’ activities; criticism which the company has now responded to with promises that it will change how these security protocols work in future.
Apple announced the changes via its support pages, adding a new “Privacy protections” section to a page entitled “Safely open apps on your Mac” (as spotted by iPhone in Canada). Apple says a service known as Gatekeeper “performs online checks to verify if an app contains known malware and whether the developer’s…