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Why We Should Stop Hiding File-Name Extensions
An anonymous reader writes 14 years after the Anna Kournikova virus took advantage of users' ignorance about file-name extensions in order to wreak worldwide havoc, virus writers and hackers are still taking advantage of the tendency of popular consumer operating systems to hide file-name extensions: Windows users still need to activate extension visibility manually – even though email-transmitted viruses depend most on less savvy users who will never do this. Additionally applications on even the latest versions of Apple's OSX operating system still require the user to 'opt in' to including a file-name extension during an initial save. In looking at some of the eccentricities of the modern user experience, this article argues that it might be time to admit that users need to understand, embrace and responsibly use the only plain-text, obvious indicator of what a file actually is.
The problem isn't not looking at file name extension. It's trusting them. .txt name extension. Looking at the name extension will tell you absolutely nothing.
File name extensions are just a convention, and are not prescriptive except on very immature operating systems. There is nothing that prevents a JPEG file from being saved with a
I have a web server set up at home that serves html files with a .gif extension, and expects images to have a .html name extension. It works great, because the file name extensions are only advisory.
And then there's the Amiga, where you have prefixes, like mod.filename to signify a music score file with embedded samples. Again, it's just a convenience, and should never be trusted.
That always baffles me.
I'm kind-of-sort-of willing to concede to the demands by that fuckstick hipster who works in marketing who thinks that aesthetically filename extensions make the product too technical for other fuckstick hipsters who are also wound up about appearances. I don't agree, but I'm tired of arguing about it, at least when it comes to the consumer desktop OS.
But WHY IN THE FUCKING FUCK does the server operating system have the same goddamn "hide everything that might be confusing to marketing types and the mentally retarded" settings out of the box? What shithead, or group of shitheads, made that decision and WHY? As far as I'm concerned this is a deeper, more profound and transcendental stupidity than making Win Server use the Win8 start menu.
I find it particularly ironic given the Microsoft push to capture mindshare from CLI propellerheads with PowerShell Everything.
When I did Windows XP images for clients, I always set the Default User profile to display extensions.
I did this without asking, without any discussion beforehand, and only had to defend the decision once near the end of the design project... my defense was, "This is the right way to do it, so that's what we're doing." End of discussion.
Whenever I see a Windows desktop with file extensions disabled, I always try to explain to the person that they should be switched back on, and most people are quite happy to do so (they only had them off because that was the default).
However I was quite dismayed when I looked at my mother's laptop (which I had installed Linux Mint on for her), and she had no file extensions either. It turned out that she thought they looked untidy, and had gone through and manually removed the extensions from every single file in her home directory!
Fortunately the file and mmv commands made short work of fixing this, but I was surprised to say the least.
You also never actually know whether that image (or at least, the file you *think* is an image) is actually an image. Using the file extension hints to you that it is an image and tells the system to treat it as one, so you don't end up with a file that looks like an image, but actually formats your hard drive. If your file has the wrong extension, you change it in Finder or on the command line, just as you would change it in Explorer or on the command line in Windows. As an added bonus, there is no executable file extension; it's a permission that gets set, and the file extension still takes precedence. That is, if you set notanimage.jpg to be executable, then try an open it in Finder, it'll open it in your image viewer, ignoring the execute bit entirely; only when you remove the extension does it actually attempt to execute.
The way OSX does it is correct, IMO. And 4 years ago I never thought I'd be saying that.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.