Re: Hide extensions [Was: Nautilus]

[Andy Hanton <andyhanton comcast net>]

On Thu, 2005-12-22 at 09:26 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Iau, 2005-12-22 at 10:36 +0200, Tor Lillqvist wrote:
> > capable of seeing the reasoning behind it... and can certainly believe
> > it if somebody tells me that it in fact has been shown to reduce
> > confusion among novice users.)
> 
> Extensions are very much a windows property rather than a non-windows
> tradition anyway. In terms of confusion the large number of attacks
> based on extension hiding clearly indicate that it does confuse users to
> a large degree and in dangerous ways

I think a large part of the problem is that windows doesn't hide
extensions everywhere.  The users can be tricked because they expect to
see extensions.  Mac OS X uses extensions and hides them by default in
all programs.  I haven't heard of anybody running a directory named
exploit.jpeg.app.  Since convincing every desktop application developer
to follow a hide extension preference would be impossible, adding one is
probably a bad idea.