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ifh-hnyesterday at 9:44 PM1 replyview on HN

I'm not a Mac user, and have no.comment about the drag to application folder thing. But as a Linux and windows user, I always liked how windows could have portable apps. These dmg files seem similar to having a portable app. Back in the day I had a usb with my favourite apps and distros on it.

I might be wrong since I've never used a Mac before.


Replies

d3Xt3ryesterday at 9:51 PM

> I always liked how windows could have portable apps.

Linux has portable apps too - AppImages and static binaries.

As for Macs, dmg files are not apps, they're just archives like zip files. The apps go inside the dmg files. And these "apps" are actually just plain old folders with extra metadata that makes macOS treat it like it was an executable. But you can infact navigate to the inside of an app if you use the terminal, like you can literally `cd` to it and treat it like a folder that it is.