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PSA: Bartender Mac App Under New Ownership, But Lack of Transparency Raises Concerns (www.macrumors.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/apple_enthusiast

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been a paying user since 2015. This makes me sad, as it's one of my most beloved utilities and this isn't a good look. I'll keep running it without updating until it stops working or I find a replacement that I like. Also:

https://sixcolors.com/link/2024/06/bartender-has-a-new-owner/

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

@some_guy A few people in Reddit recommended Ice (https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice). If you are concerned that Ice doesn't (yet) allow adjusting the space between icons like Bartender does, see https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice/issues/67 - there the developer says it's on the roadmap but in the meantime there are a couple of links that show how to change it from the terminal.
#MacOS #Bartender5

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you! For me, ice is the perfect replacement for bartender even though it doesn’t have all those features yet

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I'm not shy of command line config, so that's good to know. I copied both Ice and the other recommendation from SixColors to my RIL apps. I'll check them out when I start seeing reasons to move off of my present install of Bartender. Until then, it still does everything I want in ways that I like. Thanks for the heads up!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm more concerned that it requires Accessibility and Screen Recording privileges to do the same job that Hidden Bar does without any of those.

Not that I don't trust the author here, since the source code is open after all – I simply do not have the time to audit it myself. And even if I did, I'd have to turn off auto update in order to prevent a similar switcharoo sneaking by without my knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

@MacNCheezus Hidden Bar definitely looks interesting. Unfortunately, as with Ice it also does not include a way to change the spacing between the icons, so you would still have to use the terminal commands to do that, but I do appreciate the fact that it doesn't require those permissions. I have no idea why a program that only manipulates the visibility of items in the menu bar would need those permissions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

It works for me. I used to be a paying customer of Bartender until I upgraded to Sonoma and was asked to pay yet again.

Hidden Bar may be somewhat minimalistic but it does the part I really need well enough. The extra features were nice but not really necessary.