How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac

It looks like in 10.12 Apple has added TCC.db to SIP, so this will no longer work — Dropbox will, hopefully, actually be forced to request accessibility access like they're supposed to. I'm sure they'll still demand your admin password via a dialog that tries super hard to look like a system one to use for whatever other more or less nefarious purposes. Would be nice if there was an alternative that actually syncs as reliably and performantly, but in my testing that's very much not the case.

I appreciate the trend of Apple forcing Dropbox to stop doing dumb shit, though. (Previously, of course, the SIMBL-style Finder hacking)

That last comment is ironic, given that Dropbox would literally not exist today without the runtime patching of the Finder.

There was no other way to do what they did. The only reason Apple added API was because Dropbox came up with an idea that demonstrated the need for such an API to exist.

Their only feature which necessitated that, as far as I know, was the sync status badge display which is hardly necessary to the product.

Seamless "filesystem integration" -- which includes the Finder badging -- was central to what made Dropbox a novel product.

It's also a very useful feature that served people well.