I agree that requiring an explicit action is better than allowing a habitual action (double click) to do something potentially unexpected or dangerous.
Cautions:
. For some users, right-click menu actions are too difficult to discover, especially if they change with the context.
. For others it might be unavailable because of their hardware.
. It is easy to accidentally execute a wrong menu option, so some prevention there (Run this file as a program?) might be better than just executing.
. The wording of the command should be tested for comprehension.
Susan
On Jan 12, 2017, at 3:14 AM, intrigeri <intrigeri@???> wrote:
> hi,
>
> [moving this part of the discussion to a dedicated thread on
> tails-ux@, as IMO it reaches further than a support question, i.e.
> we need to decide how we want Tails to behave; it's rather about UX
> than about implementation details so I'm not adding -dev@ to the loop
> at this point.]
>
> Collin Sullivan:
>> PS - Apologies to ask a support question here, but, is there an easy
>> way for the user to change the default in Tails' file manager
>> preferences to ensure that it asks every time an executable text file
>> is double clicked?
>
> I'll assume this is about running a custom setup script *once*, and
> running the application set up by that script will be done in nicer
> ways, via the Overview or Applications menu.
>
>> I think the default is just to open the text file
>> and not execute, which is great for security, but asking seems
>> similarly safe, no?
>
>> From a purely technical point of view it would be similarly safe.
> But users tend to click through any warning that gets in the way of
> whatever they're trying to do, even if the phrasing is meant to be
> very explicit about the risks (many people simply won't actually
> *read* the text).
>
> I'm open to discussing adequate ways to ease executing custom
> programs, which can be useful e.g. for Martus users, but without
> putting all users at risk of doing something dangerous that they did
> not really mean to do. I'm not a designer, but one idea that comes to
> mind is to provide dedicated UI for the specific action we're talking
> about, i.e. allow the user to explicitly express "I want to execute
> the thing that's under my pointer as a program" whenever it is their
> intent (e.g. with something like "right click → Execute as
> a Program"). As opposed to asking for a confirmation after the user
> has requested a potentially totally unrelated action, I believe this
> solution would avoid, in most cases, undesired arbitrary
> code execution.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers!
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