Ventura "allow in background" add-ons?

[stefanmaine]

This morning my iMac successfully upgraded itself to Ventura 13.2.1.

When it was done, there opened System Settings>Login Items>Allow in the Background, that displayed 14 items, all OFF, among which are a few I do not recognize. It looks like some of these are “30 days free" advertisements. Having these installed by default seems unusual for Apple, more like Microsoft. Am I misunderstanding?

I believe the most “sinister” of these is the last one called “open” about which please see the attached “mac forum help.pdf” file. (In that file, I wrote "item from unidentified developed” where I meant "... unidentified developer".) As I note there, it is a long list of files labelled "Unix...able file" which I take to mean "executable". I have not opened or clicked on any of them. All I did was CMD A the full page of them, then CMD C, then CMD V into LibreOffice and finally Export as PDF

* AMZN Mobile LLC – It seems to be an Amazon app, which makes it “safe,” I presume. I have never seen it before. Why is it here — has Apple contracted with Amazon to offer it?

* Carbon Copy Cloner — This too looks like an advertisment.

* com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper — When I switched from Windows to Mac, I had Word and Excel on this iMac. But I have replaced them, and thought I had deleted all of them. I presume this is something left over, to be deleted?

* Google Updater — I often use Google as a search engine. Does this enable me to do that, or is it an advertisment?

* iMazing — Is this another advertisement?

* Marcel Bresink — Is this another advertisement?

* Objective-See LLC — There website says “We're a non-profit foundation, creating free open-source macOS security tools, books, and the #OBTS conference.” Does that mean Ventura needs it for security?

* Open — “item from unidentified developer” Please see attached “mac forum help.pdf” file (on that PDF file, I wrote “item from unidentified developed” where I meant "... developer"

 

[MacInWin]

They are NOT from Apple. They are from your apps that may or may not need to be running, but which tried to do so. They may be from apps you had before, tried to remove, but which left behind some debris like a plist or kext that is trying to load. Some may be important and needed. They are NOT advertisements, they are what are called "helper" files that allow some apps to respond to your installed apps properly. For example, if you have a schedule for CCC to make a clone, the CCC "helper" keeps that schedule and launches the scheduled backup. The Microsoft license helper file is used when you try to launch any Office product and verifies that it is a valid installation. The rest are similar. You will need to go through each one to determine if you want it to load at launch or not.

Some comments on how to do that review: Start with a search for what might be the app triggering the loading. For example, do a web search for "Marcel Bresink" and you find a website that offers TinkerTool System software, among others. If you ever installed TinkerTool, that may be where that item came from. You will have to take the time to go through each item to search for it to determine if you want it to install or not. Some are from Apple, so you can't just blindly stop them all or your system won't work properly.

You should note that these items loaded every time you booted/logged in before Ventura, it is just now that Apple is allowing the user to decide if they want that to happen.

 

[stefanmaine]

Glad to hear they are not from Apple.
As you suggest, I will search them.
I do not recognize their names but I suppose some of them may have been there since the leap from Windows 12 years ago?
Thank you for the help.

 

[MacInWin]

Probably not from Windows. Windows apps don't run on Macs. But it's amazing the amount of junk that can accumulate if you install, then remove incompletely, apps over time.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

These are all macOS apps and have nothing to do with Windows.

iMazing, for example, is an app that allows you to manage your iOS/iPadOS devices separate from the Apple provided applications (Music, Podcast, Photos) to manage data on the device.

You've installed these apps on this Mac or installed on previous Macs that were brought over through migration if you did that.

 

[MacInWin]

One more thought. The only ones you need to research are the ones you see in Settings. Don't worry about what else is in the folder you referred to in the pdf file. They are system files that are kept in usr/bin by the system and which are important to the operation of the machine. Third party items that want to load are shown in the Settings location where you found them. Those are all you have to research.

 

[stefanmaine]

"The only ones you need to research are the ones you see in Settings."

At "System Settings>Login Items>Allow in the Background" there is the item named "open" (see attached "settings 1.jpg") that when I click on the circled "i" (see attached "settings 2.jpg") opens to the list on "mac forum help.pdf" (see my first post above).

It is "item from unidentified developer" that's discomfiting. Should it be?

 

[MacInWin]

if you don't trust it, remove it. If your system needs it, it will eventually let you know by either an error message or failing to do whatever you asked it to do. I have a couple I have not allowed to load, and on each of them is an "i" in a circle that then takes me to the actual item trying to launch. One I have blocked from loading is from an app that I used to send files to be sent to my Kindle account. I don't do that any more, so I removed the app, but the shell script that prepped the files for transmission is still in usr/bin. It's only 5K and I'm just to lazy to worry about it, so it's blocked from loading. One of these days I may get around to cleaning it up, maybe.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

You must have used some application that had a script or something and opened itself using Open since that program sits in /usr/bin and is part of the operating system.

You can certainly remove it from the list and if any of your applications begins to misbehave, you'll know who which app is the culprit.

 

[stefanmaine]

Once again, thank you all. I am taking your advice.

I have said this before, and here I say it again, for those of us who came to Apple from decades at Windows (I started at MS-DOS and PC-DOS), this forum is as essential as oxygen.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Once again, thank you all. I am taking your advice.

I have said this before, and here I say it again, for those of us who came to Apple from decades at Windows (I started at MS-DOS and PC-DOS), this forum is as essential as oxygen.

I came from MS DOS 3, DR DOS, Windows 1, Windows 3, Windows NT, Windows XP, Linux to macOS.

 

[IWT]

I came from MS DOS 3, DR DOS, Windows 1, Windows 3, Windows NT, Windows XP, Linux to macOS.

And you're still learning, Ashwin

Ian

 

[Raz0rEdge]

And you're still learning, Ashwin

Ian

Learning?? Pssh! I already know everything.

 

[Rod]

The text below the heading Allow in background pretty much explains what these items are;


These items are or were added by an application you installed at some time. Most of them if "ON" will appear in your Menu Bar and their actions will be apparent if you click on them. If you have removed their "parent" app by simply dragging the application icon to the trash they may be ophaned leftovers. The only thing you can do is turn them off or do a search for them using a 3rd party app like Find Any File and trash them from there.
The best method is to ensure when uninstalling an app you use a good (free) uninstaller like AppCleaner or Trashit to get rid of the extras.

This is also another argument for an occasional "clean" instal of macOS.

 

[stefanmaine]

Rod, thank you for those ideas.

"use a good (free) uninstaller like AppCleaner or Trashit to get rid of the extras"
Thank you for those names. I have used AppZapper.

"an occasional 'clean' install of macOS"
Wow! I have never done that. How is that done?

Finally, just to be sure, at "Allow in the Background" am I correct in assuming having the ON/OFF switch to the right is OFF? That is, in the attached, is "Logitech Options" OFF (it is not in the Menu bar)?

 

[MacInWin]

On my system, that position ALLOWS the item. When the window has the focus, the oval is blue. That means the object is allowed to load in the background. With the button to the left, the oval is grey and the object is blocked.

 

[Jimmysb]

Some interesting comments and thoughts here. As you may well be aware, I am new to the Mac, and as a result of trying to find the apps that suit me, I have downloaded, and installed quite a few in the last two months, and then removed by going to "Finder" / "Application", the move to bin, am I correct in assuming this is the correct way to uninstall an app.

 

[MacInWin]

Some interesting comments and thoughts here. As you may well be aware, I am new to the Mac, and as a result of trying to find the apps that suit me, I have downloaded, and installed quite a few in the last two months, and then removed by going to "Finder" / "Application", the move to bin, am I correct in assuming this is the correct way to uninstall an app.

Sometimes. Sometimes not. If the app has an uninstaller, you should use that. You can look through the menu items to see if "uninstall" appears anywhere. If the app created a folder in the ~/Applications area, look in the folder to see if there is an uninstaller. Dragging an app to the bin may (and usually does) leave behind some debris in the form of preferences (plist) files and maybe other bits and pieces. A good app remover is AppCleaner, which will try to clean up all that debris for you. The debris is generally small, so it isn't really an issue, usually, but I like to clean up using AC.

 

[Jimmysb]

Sometimes. Sometimes not. If the app has an uninstaller, you should use that. You can look through the menu items to see if "uninstall" appears anywhere. If the app created a folder in the ~/Applications area, look in the folder to see if there is an uninstaller. Dragging an app to the bin may (and usually does) leave behind some debris in the form of preferences (plist) files and maybe other bits and pieces. A good app remover is AppCleaner, which will try to clean up all that debris for you. The debris is generally small, so it isn't really an issue, usually, but I like to clean up using AC.

Jake many thanks, makes sense, I am still learning.

 

[stefanmaine]

MacInWin: "With the button to the left, the oval is grey and the object is blocked."
Here too. Thank you again!

Jimmysb: "removed by going to 'Finder>Application'"
I used to do that, too, then went to AppZapper, and now learned to use AppCleaner which I really like ... it is far more clear!

In the words of former UN SecGen Kofi Annan "... we are never too old to learn."