Macworld June 2016

Longtime Mac users remember how software was distributed before the introduction of the Mac App Store five years ago. You could buy boxed software in retail stores, and you could download shareware that you could try out and pay for if you liked. There was also freeware that developers gave away. Some developers still practice the shareware model, but the Mac App Store has become the sole provider for much of the software people use on their Macs. This has its advantages: users are protected, since Apple validates the software; they don’t have to trust their credit card numbers to potentially dodgy websites; and it’s easy to redownload apps and get updates, all through a single app that serves as a storefront. Developers pay Apple a 30 percent commission, but…

A security researcher has created a free security tool that can detect attempts by ransomware programs to encrypt files on users’ Macs and then block them before they do a lot of damage. Called RansomWhere? (go.macworld.com/ransomwheretool), the application is the creation of Patrick Wardle, director of research and development at security firm Synack. It’s meant to detect and block the encryption of files by untrusted processes. The tool monitors users’ home directories and detects when encrypted files are rapidly created inside them—a telltale sign of ransomware activity. When such activity is detected, RansomWhere? determines the process responsible and suspends it. To limit false positives—legitimate encryption programs being detected as ransomware—the tool whitelists all applications signed by Apple and most of those that already exist on the computer when RansomWhere? is…

The new MacBooks (go.macworld.com/rosegoldmacbook) announced in April aren’t very upgradeable: You can bump up the processor in either model to a 1.3GHz Intel Core m7 for a $150 upcharge, and they both come with 8GB of RAM. But you can’t upgrade the storage. The $1,299 model has 256GB, and that’s all it will ever have. The $1,599 model has 512GB, and that’s as high as it goes. I love portable Macs, but I also have a lot of files, and managing them on my 256GB MacBook Air is a chore. The biggest offender is my local Dropbox folder, which I use to back up my iPhone’s Camera Roll, but I also can’t keep a big iTunes library on this machine, or even local iTunes backups of all of my iPhones…

Dropbox has a futuristic vision for how its users will be able to share massive files and have quick access to them on their computers, without their hard drives overflowing. The cloud storage company recently announced a new initiative at its Open conference in London called Project Infinite. It’s a push to create a new Dropbox interface that allows users to see all of the files they’ve stored in the cloud in their computer’s file explorer without requiring them to keep local copies of each document, image, spreadsheet, or other file. With Project Infinite, users will be able to manage their files in the cloud by moving them around inside the Mac OS X Finder or Windows File Explorer, just like they would any local files that are taking up…

THE TEXTEXPANDER UTILITY (textexpander.com) saves keystrokes by letting you type a short sequence that’s replaced by a longer one. That’s the heart of the app, which has expanded (sorry) its repertoire of replacement types over time to include form letters with fill-in and drop-down elements, a library of emoji, and a host of placeholders for date, time, the contents of the clipboard, and other elements. TEXTEXPANDER 6 PRICE WHEN RATED $5 per month for LifeHacker plan; $10 per month for Team plan COMPANY Smile Software The previous updates for OS X and iOS are less than a year old; we reviewed version 5 (go.macworld.com/textexpander5) of TextExpander for OS X last June, and our high opinion of the core software remains unchanged. However, the reason for this new review is a…

ANKER USB-C DOCK PRICE WHEN RATED $60 COMPANY Anker NO 12-INCH MacBook is an island; every portable of this line requires some kind of main connection. That’s at least a USB-C power adapter supplied by Apple, but more options have started to appear in the form of mini-hubs and full-fledged ones. I’ve been particularly waiting for affordable, portable alternatives to Apple’s $80 Digital AV Multiport Adapter (go.macworld.com/digitalavmultiport). The $60 Anker Premium USB-C Hub (go.macworld.com/ankersuperspeedspec) with HDMI and Power Delivery fits the bill nicely with more ports, better flexibility, and a lower price. The Anker hub has built-in pass-through power over USB-C, HDMI support up to the 4K resolution supported by a 12-inch MacBook (via DisplayPort 1.2/HDMI 1.4b), and two USB 3.0 Type-A ports. With a longer cord than Apple’s similar…