Adobe Desktop Service

[Hmcamccc]

I got this pop-up about Adobe Desktop Service when updating to the newest version of PSCC.  Can't remember if I have gotten this before.

Not sure which I should choose.  Is this necessary?

Mac Ventura 13.7

[Lumigraphics]

Apple requires applications to ask permission to access files on your computer as a privacy and security measure.

[Hmcamccc]

Sorry, could you explain a bit more.  Why would I want to do this?  Is there a benefit?  Will PSCC work differently if I don't allow this?

[Lumigraphics]

(removed by moderator)

https://www.apple.com/privacy/control/

[Hmcamccc]

While the response above addresses Apple's privacy policy, it doesn't explain: 

"Why would I want to do this?  Is there a benefit?  Will PSCC work differently if I don't allow this?"

 This was the part of my question that I had hoped would be explained.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

Sorry, could you explain a bit more.  Why would I want to do this?  Is there a benefit?  Will PSCC work differently if I don't allow this?

By @Hmcamccc

Unfortunately Adobe doesn’t seem to provide a description of what Adobe Desktop Service does exactly, but it might be reasonable to assume it does something like the other background processes that Adobe does provide descriptions of.)

Apple has significantly tightened security recently, so it’s much more common to get these alerts.

Now you want to answer the question, allow it or not? For macOS in general, it’s difficult for us non-programmers to understand every one of these processes individually. It’s more practical to decide by company. For example:

If you open Activity Monitor and scroll down the list of running processes, if you’re like me, your Mac could have 600–700 processes running during a normal day, mostly Apple processes. Running all these processes doesn’t slow the Mac, because most are idle most of the time and use little system resources. But do you know what all of these are? Your Mac is running WindowServer, if you don’t know what that is do you kill it by default? (No, because if you kill WindowServer your macOS user session will immediately stop without warning, and you lose all unsaved work.) Why does macOS run many multiple instances of distnoted? (Turns out it’s for notifications.) The point is, it isn’t practical to distrust hundreds of processes by default and manually kill them all. So we have to handle it at the company level. If you trust Apple, then you accept that those hundreds of Apple background processes are probably legitimate (even if you have no interest in many of the features they support), and you move on.

If you trust software by Adobe, Microsoft, etc., then you click Allow on those alerts, because if you don’t trust those companies’ apps then you should be uninstalling their software immediately.

The alerts are there only so that if a process wants to control things on your Mac and it is not from anyone you trust (because it’s malware), you have a chance to stop it. Then you click Don’t Allow. But under normal day-to-day operation of software by companies you recognize and trust, the practical thing to do is to click Allow.

There are a lot of complaints about the excessive nature of security notifications in recent versions of macOS.

[Hmcamccc]

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question in detail.  You have provided the kind of response I was hoping to receive.  I don't think I am alone in not understanding all the technical aspects of using the computer and appreciate your positive approach in addressing my question.

[Peru Bob]

If you have auto updates or sync enabled, that is what is happening.