MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design? (sigpipe.macromates.com)

Article summary

The article discusses several issues with macOS 10.15 that cause noticeable delays and stalls, including notarization checks, privileged file system locations, keychain access, and application launch delays. These issues can be mitigated by disabling internet connectivity or System Integrity Protection. The author reports that Apple has responded to these issues, stating that they are 'by design'. The delays are caused by synchronous network activity before returning to the caller, which can be a concern for both privacy and speed.

Main themes

• macOS performance issues
• notarization and security
• privacy concerns
• System Integrity Protection
• workarounds and mitigations
• Apple's design decisions

What commenters say

• The notarization process is a significant privacy concern as it may send information about executed scripts to Apple's servers.
• Disabling internet connectivity can mitigate the delays, but this is not a viable long-term solution.
• The 'Developer Tools' category in the Security and Privacy preferences pane can be used to exempt certain applications from notarization checks, but its behavior is not well understood.
• Some users are concerned about the potential for Apple to collect data on users' app usage and script execution.
• Others argue that the notarization process provides some security benefits, but the trade-off in terms of speed and privacy is not acceptable.
• A few users have found workarounds, such as adding their terminal application to the 'Developer Tools' category or blocking requests to Apple's servers.
• There is disagreement about whether the issues are primarily related to speed or privacy, with some arguing that the latter is the more significant concern.