Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge More Adventures in MacOS — this time in the Mojave

Mojave (MacOS 10.14) is installed on my MacBook Pro and so far it is running perfectly. The 5.67GB download took over an hour, but I suspect the beta download server was hammered. Installation went smoothly except there was a freeze during the initial setup and I had to reboot. The change that really smacks you in the face is dark mode and IMHO it is GORGEOUS. The desktop picture of a sand dune that changes through the day is neat, but no where near as striking. I haven't had time to do much experimentation yet but there is at least some Good News and some maybe not so good…

GOOD NEWS: for all of you clinging to beloved 32 bit applications they should still run in Mojave.

BAD NEWS: based on the warning messages when launching 32 bit applications Mojave will unquestionably be the last MacOS to run 32 bit applications. Now we have a definite hammer to hold over the head of those developers who have been dragging their feet on updates.

ASIDE: I know there are at least a few developers, who are taking advantage of the necessity to go to 64 bit and starting over with a clean sheet, which is almost always for everyone's good. (I have had to look back at some of my earlier code and wanted to somehow deny any relationship with it.)

NOTE: I have had a couple of minor 64 bit applications crash reliably every time I attempt to open them but that is what betas are supposed to ferret out.

DISAPPOINTMENTS: Time Machine is still limited to drives formatted MacOS extended (Journaled) — at least for now.

What's the big deal?! I can't understand the hype behind this feature. Once I set my screen brightness, I have never changed it — day night, night day — it's all the same.
So, if there's something I'm missing which would also extend my healthy lifespan by a couple decades, let me know.

Dark mode will not extend your life span or mine. Neither does it have anything to do with screen brightness. It shifts from a light background with dark text to a dark background with light text as in this sample of the General preference pane in Mojave. To my eyes the darker background causes less eyestrain and the light content really pops. I won't swear to this yet, but dark mode also seems to be far more eye friendly when working in bright sunlight. The downside is that for the moment only Apple apps such as Keynote, Pages, and Numbers are dark mode capable. Recently several apps have instituted a dark mode on their own but that does not mean they have tapped into Apple's dark mode API. From the response of the developers at WWDC I suspect that will be appearing in new apps and upgrades very soon.

Did I mention dark mode saves battery power on laptops?

Dumb Question (?) : How does one know if they are running 32-bit or 64-bit applications?

Go to the Apple menu, click About This Mac, and then click System Report. Expand the Software triangle and then click Applications. It will take several minutes to load everything so be patient. Then, you'll be able to see which apps are 64 bit and which are not.

Followed the directions and it looks like 95% of what I have is 64-bit.

By any chance, are you running Entourage 2008? That's a 32-bit app that runs OK in High Sierra (with some minor glitches) and I would like to continue using it.

Given developers have had at least two years warning already, the only thing that should be surprising about that is that you still have 5% that have not been updated. Look carefully at those apps and see how long it has been since they were last updated. It may well be the app is no longer actively supported and you need to start looking for a replacement.

Or, as in the case, with the apps that support my scanner. When I contacted the manufacturer about their plans for a 64bit update their response was basically, "Huh?" Turns out they were unaware of any need for an upgrade as they are 100% PC in house and had allowed the contract with the third party software house that developed the software for Mac to lapse and had not heard of the upcoming 64bit only support. They were grateful for my heads up and asked if I knew of anyone who might be interested in the project.

App Store apps are safe as Apple no longer accepts Apps unless they are 64 bit and actively supported. NOTE: There are one or two Apple Apps in High Sierra that are still 32 bit. Those are replaced with 64 bit versions by the Mojave installer.

I have no Apple software but Entourage will probably continue to work in Mojave but definitely not its successor. Given it is an EOL product it won't ever b fixed either.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: The security experts are now recommending all email and texts should be end to end encrypted. We may all be looking for new email and messaging clients.

How to get free, built-in end-to-end encryption for your email:


1: browse here and sign up. you don't have to provide your real name but you might want to. https://secure.comodo.com/products/frontpage?area=SecureEmailCertificate

2; you will receive an email in a few minutes. click the Collect url

3. download the certificate.

4. Collect.p7s will download and SHOULD automatically go into your user's keychain under Certificates. You can store the p7s file in something secure or you can throw it away. you have it in your keychain, and you don't want ANYONE to have access to that file or they could impersonate you in email. I store my certificates in an encrypted disk image, along with my password list and license keys.

5. quit and relaunch your email client (mac mail)

6. compose a new email message. if you have more than one email account configured, select the email account that you entered for the certificate

7. you will now see two new buttons near the upper right of the email. an unlocked (and grey) padlock and a blue selected check.

the blue check indicates the email will be signed. you can click it to unselect it and not sign the email. users receiving your email that are not signature-aware will show the signature as an attachment and it may confuse them. (can you say "Windows Users"?) Signing is the default action for emails that you have a certificate for.

Users with signature-aware email clients will show the email received as signed, and will automatically import your public key into their keychain. they can then reply to that email (or make a new one to that address) and they will see the padlock also, but this time it will be enabled. if they select it, the email will be encrypted and only you will be able to read it. they DO NOT have to apply for an email certificate to send you encrypted email, but if you then try to reply to them, you won't have the padlock available because you don't have a public key from them.

If the user already has done this and has a key, when they reply (whether or not it's encrypted) you will receive their public key and can then reply back to them with the padlock locked.


Mac OS Mail makes this process SOOOOOO easy. Even compared to add-on packages like PGP, this is just effortless and built-in.


your certificate will only last one year, you have to re-apply for it again after that. I think I'm on certificate number 12 or so. My first few were from Thawte, and when they stopped offering free personal certs for email I switched to commodo. I don't know if it's possible or easy to find that sign-up link from their main page, they may have made it a bit hard to get to since it's free. I think you can pay for a longer (3 or 10 year?) certificate from them if you'd rather.

IN THEORY, they don't keep your private key after you collect it, so IN THEORY nobody can read stuff you encrypt. But that all depends on whether or not you trust Comodo.

I had to use this a few years ago at a place I worked because they required us to email our mileage claims signed. This makes it impossible to argue over mileage being altered by either party, since only the employee could have sent the email, and the employer could not have altered it.


After the first time you send someone a signed email, mac mail will verify future email signatures. Unsigned emails I think are not flagged. However, if the email is signed, and the signature does not match, it will pop a notice. New signatures will NOT replace existing ones unless they have expired. It's not very aggressive this way, but it does work. It's more intended for encryption than for aggressive signing.


Sometimes geeks will get together in person for a "key signing party" aka a key exchange, where everyone has their flash drives and is handing out copies of their public key to each member of the group. Getting a key from someone via email is insecure by design, as you don't know for certain that's the person you think it is, unlike meeting them in person. This method of automatically adding keys the first time you see them just being hopeful that the first time you interact with them you can trust them to be who you think they are, which is good enough for most people.

Mac Mail WILL NOT WARN YOU if your certificate expires, it will just stop signing emails. You have to keep tabs on this and remember to renew your certificate (get a new one really) every year.


Lastly, if you want to see what the encryption checkbox looks like immediately, just try to send an email to yourself. As soon as you enter yourself on the TO line, the blue encrypt check will enable and select because of course you have your own public key in your keychain. (it's always included with the p7s private key in the certificate)

(MFIF may want to consider making this process a Sticky somewhere)

Most of my time with Mojave so far has been confined to testing my critical applications to be sure they run under Mojave. So far the only one that does not is Evernote (and of course I use it several times every day)*. I have also been trying out the crossovers from iOS: Home, Stocks, & Voice Memos.

HOME: I have a lot of Homekit enabled gadgets including door locks, Video Doorbell, Apple TVs, light switches, lamp controllers, wall plugs, light bulbs, lawn sprinkler, etc. and IMHO Home is long overdue on MacOS. It took a while for Mojave Home to populate with all of the devices, but populate it did with no input on my part. Apparently getting its settings from my iOS devices via iCloud. It didn't get the photos I used to illustrate the various rooms, but all of the devices, scenes, and automation routines came through nicely. It looks and works pretty much the way the Home app works on my iPad and that is very good.

STOCKS: has been available on iOS for a long time. Like HOME it populated itself based on what I had on my iOS devices but it is new and improved on iOS 12 and that carries over to Mojave. I don't spend a lot of time following the market, but the improvements may induce me to watch a bit more closely. It is well done.

VOICE MEMOS: There is no reason voice memos won't work as well on MacOS as on iOS and being able to share those across devices makes all kinds of sense to me. I don't know how much I will use it — that remains to be seen heard — but I suspect my wife, who is more orally oriented than I (as a minister she did a lot of preaching to me and her congregation) will ver likely love it!

NEWS: is not new to MacOS but this iteration feels new and a LOT better to me. Apple is spending a lot of time, money, and effort curating content and perfecting the app. I have never been a fan of News Reader apps but this may change the way I get the bulk of my news. Only time can tell, but so far I am impressed.

FOOTNOTES:

* Apparently it takes a beta to work with a beta: Evernote 7.3 beta 1 does work with Mojave, but you have to know where and how to find it and Evernote does not make that obvious. Betas are available through Evernote itself, but in this case the app would not stay open long enough to check for availability. 🙄 I had to launch the Evernote beta three times before it stabilized but now it appears to be working as it should.

I don't see how a dark background is better, not worse, for your eyes. I see web sites and software doing this, too. Why are we returning to 1980?

Market demand. It is an option and certainly you do not have to choose it.

THIS IS A CHANGE

After years of getting MacOS updates via the App Store there is a change in Mojave. Updating MacOS has moved from the App Store to System Preferences > Software Update and optionally (don't panic all you late adopters) can be set to Automatically keep my Mac up to date. You have the choice of…

• checking for updates
• downloading new updates when available
• install MacOS updates
• install app updates from the app store
• install system data files and security updates

For the betas this is the ONLY update source for Mojave. I don't know if combo updates will be available, and I suspect OS updates will not appear in the App Store but only time will tell about that.

An FYI to those of you who eschew the use of iOS devices this is the way iOS devices have always received their OS updates and although automatic app updates have been available for a while in iOS the two processes and App Stores are now pretty much the same. NOTE it appears both MacOS and iOS will attempt to perform the actual installation late at night if possible.

LIFE IN THE STACKS

Another new feature in Mojave is desktop Stacks. Desktop Stacks are a variant of stacks in the Dock. Stacks are activated from the View menu in Finder and the rest is automatic. When desktop Stacks are switched on all the files on your desktop of a particular type are moved to a stack containing all the files of that type. For example when I turned it on I immediately had two stacks appear one labeled PDF Documents and the other Images. Images includes a host of different image formats including HEIF, JPG, GIF, etc. Unlike Dock Stacks the Desktop variant does not include folders and as far as I have been able to determine there is no way to customize the contents or name. Stacks certainly clean up a cluttered desktop in a hurry. Not necessarily a show stopper, but useful.

Personally I like Stacks because it cuts down on visual clutter and I have more than enough of that on my physical desktop. My wife on the other hand puts everything on her computer desktop and likes it that way. I'll give her credit — she knows where everything is and I often have to resort to Spotlight.

SNAPSHOTS

Snapshots — a feature of APFS — have been available since High Sierra, but there has been no convenient way to use them. But Michael Bombich has added a feature to Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1 that makes it a first class Snapshot manager. So what the H____ is a Snapshot? Snapshots...

• are a feature of APFS
• are enabled by default when a volume is formatted APFS
• are created automatically at "senisble" intervals
• Originally Posted By: Mike Bombich

  Snapshots are read-only copies of your volume. Not only is it impossible to modify the content of those snapshots, but it’s also not possible to delete those snapshots without a special entitlement granted by Apple. What that means is that malware and ransomware can't delete your snapshots. So if you were somehow affected by ransomware and it started encrypting your files, you could remove the ransomware, then restore your files from the snapshot. CCC backups could literally save you thousands of dollars!
• are relatively small -- on my system they average 237.8MB, are taken at roughly hourly intervals and only the last 15 are retained.
• restoration to a previous version — even restoration to a previous OS version — is virtually instantaneous
• are NOT a replacement for either Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper
• a useful supplement to Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper

Hopefully Snapshots won't be needed very often, or at all, but they may be very useful if they are. I can envision Snapshots being combined with Time Machine as a seamless backup system.

Thanks for that.

FINDER ADDITIONS

Changes to Finder were talked about at the WWDC, but for me at least they have been easy to overlook. You can see the additions here.

Adding the ability to select 3rd party Action menu items, Finder Extensions, Photos editing, Share options, Today list, and FInder Quick items and Preview pane to the quick view panel seems a curious choice. Obviously those various menus are all subsidiary functions of Finder but I would have expected the options to appear on the Finder Menu or even in System Preferences not as an icon in the quick view panel.

I had forgotten the Markup feature until I was preparing this post and realized how easy and convenient it is to access and use. It is easy enough that there is almost zero learning curve for someone with only a modicum of experience with graphics editing. There is nothing here that threatens Graphic Converter or Affinity Designer, but it could potentially replace Evernote's Skitch (which I use a lot) and several document signing apps that simply add an image of your signature to a document. All in all I think it will be very useful in the future. I did encounter a couple of minor glitches, but this is still a relatively early beta.

DARK MODE

I just noticed that each beta update it seems there are additional Apple apps that support Dark Mode. Finder and Safari are the most noticeable in beta 4.

DYNAMIC DESKTOPS

By now, everyone has probably seen the Mojave desert dune dynamic desktop that slowly changes during the day. There is also a new dynamic desktop in beta 4 called Solar Gradients. No picture just a color gradient with sky blue at the top shading to what I would describe as sunrise yellow/orange at the bottom and slowly changing through the day. I haven't seen it at night yet, and I am curious what it will look like after dark.

Neither is a deal maker, but both are nice eye candy.

Do you know how that reconciles with

Ask Mike Bombich. He is the source of both statements.

The "Help" file for CCC 5.x says: "CCC starts with sensible defaults, but you get to decide how frequently CCC creates snapshots and precisely how CCC will retain snapshots over time."

To me that sounds as if CCC is creating its own snapshots. piggybacking off of Apple's new feature.

I guess that as with all things beta, things change.

So how would you rate those instructions? It's a somewhat difficult process to walk someone through / to make bulletproof instructions.

....and particularly difficult in writing. It takes time and thought, which you clearly invested. The instructions are quite clear to me. I haven't used them yet but have pasted them into a note for future use. I've recently been thinking along these lines.

If I run into any bumpy spots, I'll seek direction.

MISSING IN ACTION

GRAB is gone having been replaced by SCREENSHOT. Functionally they are similar, but when activated Screenshot displays an icon bar with selections for…

• Capturing the whole screen
• Capturing the selected window
• Capturing the selected area
• Recording the entire screen
• Recording the selected area
• Options
  • Where to save the image
  • Timer:
    • None,
    • 5 seconds,
    • 10 seconds
  • Capture/Record
  • Options (yes this is a second set of options appearing on the Options menu 🤷‍♂️
    • Show floating thumbnail (it appears on the screen for several seconds and then disappears🤷‍♂️)
    • Remember last selections
    • Show Mouse pointer
• A camera icon shows Screenshot is ready to take a picture
• Screenshot Keyboard Shortcuts
  • ⇧⌘3 — Save a picture of screen to the clipboard
  • ∧⇧⌘3 — Copy a picture of the screen to the clipboard
  • ⇧⌘4 — Save Picture of selected area as a file
  • ∧⇧⌘4 — Copy picture of selected area to the clipboard
  • ⇧⌘5 — Screenshot and recording options

I still haven't found a convenient way to change Screenshot's image format other than that is Marcel Bresink's Tinkertool that is.

Is it possible to annotate the screen shot and what is the format of the image?

To reiterate a previous post in this thread...
Markup currently has a few bugs, but it is still in beta. IMHO it is a great tool for annotating image and PDF files. (I just realized I don't know what formats Markup works in other than most image formats and PDF. I will get back to you on that after I conduct a few trials.)


to reiterate another previous postUsing Tinkertool the following screenshot formats are available:

• Optimized system default
• PNG✔
• PDF
• TIFF✔
• JPEG✔
• JPEG2000↻
• BMP↻
• GIF↻
• PSD
• TGA

Screen recordings are MOV⚡️ format.

NOTE:

• Formats marked ✔ can be annotated using Markup
• Formats marked ↻ can be converted to PDF by Finder
• Format marked ⚡️can be Trimmed by Finder
• I suspect HEIF (High Efficiency Image File) format may also be available for both stills and screen recordings as it is on iOS, but Tinkertool is not yet updated and certified for Mojave and I don't know how to get to it.

Golly gee, I'm expected to read, let alone remember, all previous posts in the thread? Picky, picky.

I just found out how to take a screenshot and save the image in HEIC (another name for HEIF)

• Open Preview
• Go to File > Take Screenshot
• Select...
  • From Selection
  • From Window
  • From Entire Screen
• Click on target
• Go to File > Save... or File > Export
• Select the desired format…
  • HEIC
  • JPEG
  • JPEG 2000
  • OpenEXR
  • PDF
  • PNG
  • TIFF
• Click Save

Now that I know HEIF/HEIC is available that means it may be set as the default Screenshot format using Terminal and entering the command


NOTE: HEIF/HEIC is not Markup compatible 😢

And what's more annoying... apple "depreciated" the saving of markup information. You can mark up a tiff, png, or pdf, but markups are saved in "flattened" format, burned into the image, and cannot be edited once you close the file.

I had a somewhat lengthy call with apple on this issue and it came down to "that part of markup support has been removed from preview".

Hopefully that would is one of those “features” that gets dropped in a reshuffle of functions and then r appears in a later update or upgrade. At least we can hope and in the meantime be sure to request it via Feedback.

Huh? I wasn't aware that you could ever save markup info, and it's functionality that I'd have made much use of. (I did a pretty good job of cruising Preview's menu bar options and never saw it.)

When did it disappear from Preview, and how was it accessed?

Thanks.

I'm in Mojave beta 10 and I am struck how dark mode has improved beta by beta. Apple has obviously spent a lot of development time improving the dark mode display. The light/dark contrast is much greater and to my eyes the crispness of the characters has dramatically improved on both the 13" Retina display and 27" Thunderbolt display. Even if you are allergic to anything new, IMO you owe it to yourself to give Dark Mode a try.

Joe: Do you have any comments about the content of Mojave’s New Security and Privacy Protections Face Usability Challenges

I occasionally run into these file level security features, and it has occurred to me that some users may find them very annoying, but...

• This came up elsewhere late last week and as I looked at the risks and potentiall solutions, I came to the conclusion this is a reasonable and proportional response to the threat on Apple's part. It may be occasionally annoying, but it would be a lot more annoying and potentially damaging to find my private data for sale all over the internet.
• The internet is an increasingly hostile environment and too often even the "good guys" are obtaining and misusing our personal data for their own quasi-licit or outgight ilicit gain. It takes security measures such as these to stay safe — or getting off the internet altogether and I am no about to go there.
• At the present time I do not have any apps that have requested any special access privileges. Whether this is because of my predilection for App Store offerings and their sandboxing I don't know, but I did delete a top selling App Store advertising blocker this weekend after a researcher revealed it was illicitly capturing and phoning home user browsing data.

In short I am already putting up with ever more secure passwords, two factor authentication, VPNs, and TSA check, so this is only one more security annoyance in modern life.

Which app was that?

Adware Doctor

Interesting: Your link leads to a page that says "Mac Rumors - Page Not Found". I wonder if Mac Rumors pulled it deliberately?

When I looked at that page earlier this morning there was an addition indicating Apple had pulled another App from the same developer — now it is gone altogether. ❓❓❓

All well and good, but why wouldn't you use uBlock Origin?
From the blurb for same:
An efficient blocker: easy on memory and CPU footprint, and yet can load and enforce thousands more filters than other popular blockers out there.
Illustrated overview of its efficiency: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-efficiency-compared

There are 40+ competitors in line ahead of it, all with similar claims of glory. Frankly I don't have either the time or money to spend purchasing and testing each and every one of them.

Another improvement to Safari, coming up in Mojave: How Apple's Safari Browser Will Try to Thwart Data Tracking

Take that, FireFox. Oh, oh....gotta run. I see Grelber coming up the road.

No need ... although I thought about it 3 days ago.
Firefox has more than effectively dealt with the issue(s).
Safari's just a johnny-come-lately ... and there's no indication that its improvements will be as good as those Firefox has already attained.
So ... meh.

HOORAY!

It has taken a good while but I just ran the latest version of Etrecheck and for the first time in over a year, I have no 32 bit apps remaining on my system! Some old standbys have been replaced by essentially brand-new apps from the same developer and have required some learning and some adjustment to my workflow, some I had given up on suddenly reappeared on the App Store in 64 bit format, some I really didn't use and were deleted as excess baggage, and in one case I found a far better app from a different developer to replace it.

The number of "unsigned" apps is greatly reduced as well and those remaining are reported as "identical versions were found on the whitelist and are probably okay."

In spite of the unending stream of betas my system is probably cleaner and more stable than it or its predecessors have been in years.

Techtool Pro 10 still reports and has little to do with SSDs and even less to do with APFS although it will provide S.M.A.R.T. values for the SSD on my MacBook Pro which Disk Utility will not. It will perform volume or partition repairs but no optimization of any kind.

Drive Genius 5.3.0 will do a "physical check" of SSDs but other than that its volume repair and rebuild for some drives (I haven't figured out whether the stopper is SSD or APFS) and there are no volume optimization functions remaining.

Hãh?! EtreCheck has been 64-bit for over a year. The version I'm using (3.4.6) was installed 13 months ago; it also has the option of being openable in 32-bit mode.

Part of EtreCheck's functionality is scanning for ANY 32 bit apps on your Mac.

You would not recognize today's Etrecheck and as Artie pointed out I wasn't worried about Etrecheck being 64 bit it was a variety of other apps and portions of apps that Etrecheck was reporting as being 32 bit.

I tried to download EtreCheck 5 from etresoft.com and etrecheck.com. No longer any way to do so apparently. App Store is not available to me (as I have repeatedly noted).
And I won't download an app from a third party (such as macupdate.com or insmac.org unless I can be assured that such would be safe and unaccompanied by additional 'stuff').
'Twould appear that I'm stuck with versions 3 and 4 for the duration.
Any ideas?

For what it's worth, I just d/l'ed EtreCheck from MacUpdate, it was a safe d/l with no "additional stuff" accompanying it, and there's no need to worry about the "leaving MU" pop-up.

(There was a splash a few years ago abut MU "encumbering" d/l's, but while I may have experienced it once way back when, it was a unique experience, and I d/l from MU frequently. I'm not even certain that they're still doing it, but as I recall, the encumbrance was clearly marked as an option the last time I saw it.)

Thanks for that.

Adding to the mix: Etresoft advises to download EtreCheckPro (directly from the etrecheck.com website) instead.
I was under the impression that that option came with a cost for purchase (license). I'll try that first to see what gives.

I looked at etrecheck.com, and it directed me to the App Store.

The basic d/l is free; there's an in-app option to purchase advanced features for Ca $20+.

The basic d/l is the same functionality as you've got now (which I'm still using because I hate the new GUI).

If you use MacUpdate, d/l from EtreCheck Pro 5.0.7. They offer a d/l option on their search page, but I'd be wary of it.

That's true for EtreCheck 5, but not for EtreCheckPro (5.0.7).

I am running EtreCheck Pro 5.0.7 and I am trying to recall how I got it. Etrecheck.com no longer offers a direct download and as Artie505 says the web site directs you to the App Store which has EtreCheck 5.0.1.

If memory serves, I originally downloaded EtreCheck directly from the developer when it was not available though the App Store. Thanks to the ubiquitous "check for updates" feature I went through several updates/upgrades in the form of direct downloads from the publisher, until at one point an upgrade to Etrecheck Pro was offered and I took it — for a price. EtreCheck Pro still checks for updates each time it is opened and eventually migrated from version 5 to 5.0.7.

I am still trying to determine what the path is for new users to obtain EtreCheck Pro????? ADDENDA for $13.95 you can purchase some "power user features" but that still does not get you all the way to the Pro version,

NOTES:

1. There are functions and features in EtreCheck 5.0.1 that are only available after a $9.99 in-app purchase.
2. Sandboxing prevents EtreCheck 5.0.1 from accessing all the data about all the files.
3. EtreCheck Pro in addition to some additional in-depth analytical features has some "may I help you correct that" features as well.
4. EtreCheck Pro 5.0.7 requires the user to grant full disk access to EtreCheck Pro in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy in order to get around the sandbox and perform all of its checks. This alone may be the reason EtreCheck Pro is not available through the App Store. Never the less IMHO EtreCheck Pro is worth the price.
5. Grelber, FWIW I share your aversion to software aggregators and limit my downloads to the App Store or the developer's web site.

As I noted, I queried the developer directly:
"I tried both your sites (etresoft.com and etrecheck.com) in order to download EtreCheck 5. Both cases redirect to Apple's App Store. I do not have access to the App Store (because of lack of broadband/high-speed internet access). Any suggestions as to how I might download EtreCheck 5 safely off the internet?"

The developer's response was:
"You can download EtreCheckPro instead. Here is the download link: https://etrecheck.com/details".

It does. So I did.

The downside is that for most of the features of version 5.0.7, it is necessary to make an in-app purchase of a so-called Power User package (which is $23 CAD, which is ca $17.50 USD vs joemikeb's quote of $13.95 USD).

Under the circumstances, for my purposes EtreCheck 3 and Etrecheck 4 suffice. So I'll stick with those.

• EtreCheck Pro, current version 5.0.7 (Quote from "here" link: EtreCheckPro: Full powered. Up-to-date.), is available directly from EC, here, as well as from MacUpdate.
• The App Store is currently offering EtreCheck 5.0.2. (Quote from "here" link: EtreCheck: Sandboxed. Probably an old version.)
• In order to get anything more than the most basic report from v 5.0.7 you've got to buy the Power User Package, which I guess is what gives you full "Pro" capability. (The PUP is required to access the Hardware, System, Storage, Network, Software , and Performance tabs of a v 5.0.7 report.)
• Although a v 5.0.7 report provides more info than one from v 3.4.6 which grelber and I are running, the latter actually provides free functionality that's part of PUP in v 5.0.7. (The red text in this v 3.4.6 report isn't visible in a v 5.0.7 report.)

(Note: The only d/l aggregator I use is MacUpdate; they've cleaned up their act, and after years of use I've got complete faith in them. True that a couple of their apps were hacked a while back, but it was an isolated incident to which developers' sites are also vulnerable.)

(We crossed.)