Stealth vs. Clean

[fpelletier]

M^(2), interesting point...what exactly do we mean by stealth? It is true that traces of activity are easy to find while the apps are being run and Sysinternals tools will help to illuminate that activity and I believe that we'd all agree that these apps don't attempt to disguise that activity. The effort to make an application stealthy is aimed at not impacting a machine's performance, complexity, or stability with residue of various types after it has been run. Other than MRUs which are benign and quickly roll off last-in-lists, are there any other traces which bears mentioning--anything which might impact a machine's future no matter how insignificant? I guess, once we succintly define the concept, then choosing the appropriate term won't be as difficult. Generally speaking, once this site deems an application to be stealthy, I feel pretty secure in using that application from my jumpdrive on someone else's machine, knowing that I won't be screwing up their machine in any way--loading their registry, etc.

[m^(2)]

M^(2), interesting point...what exactly do we mean by stealth? It is true that traces of activity are easy to find while the apps are being run and Sysinternals tools will help to illuminate that activity and I believe that we'd all agree that these apps don't attempt to disguise that activity. The effort to make an application stealthy is aimed at not impacting a machine's performance, complexity, or stability with residue of various types after it has been run. Other than MRUs which are benign and quickly roll off last-in-lists, are there any other traces which bears mentioning--anything which might impact a machine's future no matter how insignificant? I guess, once we succintly define the concept, then choosing the appropriate term won't be as difficult. Generally speaking, once this site deems an application to be stealthy, I feel pretty secure in using that application from my jumpdrive on someone else's machine, knowing that I won't be screwing up their machine in any way--loading their registry, etc.

We're talking about the same thing. MRUs are the only allowed change on the host computer after the application quit. I'm 95% sure that it's what "stealth" in the database means as well.

Actually, myself I'd accept small files in temp as they get deleted at hdd cleanup, but to prevent confusion, I use the most common definition.

[Local]

This has been an interesting post so far but I want to turn it all on its head now.

Why are we discussing what to call natively portable apps?
To me it would make a lot more sense to call these apps portable and the "non-stealth" as it is now impolite/unclean/dirty/ or even trace-leaving just to be sure people know what we mean.

Logically it makes sense.

My personal preference is to keep calling apps stealthy, the way I see it if some smart arsed kid thinks he can use stealthy apps to break the rules on somebody elses machine I'd be glad to let him think it can work.
Let them get into shit for it.

If somebody wants a polite app to use on strange machines great get a
stealth marked one, if somebody wants to be sneaky, tough!

[m^(2)]

This has been an interesting post so far but I want to turn it all on its head now.

Why are we discussing what to call natively portable apps?
To me it would make a lot more sense to call these apps portable and the "non-stealth" as it is now impolite/unclean/dirty/ or even trace-leaving just to be sure people know what we mean.

Logically it makes sense.

It won't work. You won't force the creators of portable apps to add info that their software is lower quality. "Is it portable? It is."

Also it's more polite to honor features than make excuses for lack of them.

My personal preference is to keep calling apps stealthy, the way I see it if some smart arsed kid thinks he can use stealthy apps to break the rules on somebody elses machine I'd be glad to let him think it can work.
Let them get into shit for it.

If somebody wants a polite app to use on strange machines great get a
stealth marked one, if somebody wants to be sneaky, tough!

I get your point, but well...i don't like it. Even though I feel that there's something wrong when one feels a strong need to be sneaky, I prefer honest information.

[Local]

It won't work. You won't force the creators of portable apps to add info that their software is lower quality. "Is it portable? It is."

Damn, that's that emotion thing again.
As I said logically it made sense, I never thought about hurting anyones feelings

Are we talking about on this forum though or creating a universal term
In most of society I find that nobody uses terms for the intended uses no matter how correct the term is.
I can't count the amount of different names and "scenes" I've been pigeon-holed into because people just heard a new word.

Most probably the only way to get people to understand every time is to use an entire sentence. Not that I'm trying to put anyone off here.

Even though I feel that there's something wrong when one feels a strong need to be sneaky, I prefer honest information.

I agree, kind of.
When I first came on this forum I didn't have a clue what stealth meant nor most other PC related words.
UPX'd???? what on earth was that?
Ripping??? I thought that meant destroying
burning?? I'm not gonna go there

Even things like Mobo's and Vista didn't make sense at first and that was straight out of college.
Although I guess Vista still doesn't make any sense.

What I mean is, just about any word will do if enough people are using it in the right context and on this forum everybody is using stealth.
There will always be somebody there to explain it to a newbie, all they have to do is ask.

[GeddichNixan]

As there is no genuine word which describes every aspect of a portable app's "stealthiness", we will have to (either or):

- create one and define it so that it fits our needs the best
- chose one of the proposals (stealth, clean, polite or whatever) BUT it will still be necessary to define it's meaning a way, so that it covers all meanings of "stealthiness" when used in the context of portable apps
- find another proposal, which covers most aspects and is somehow "not that misleading" (whatever that may mean), but the need for a special definiton for the usage in our context will still be persistent

What nobody should expect from a suggested terminus technicus is:

- That it fully covers all the needed aspects without adaptive modifications of it's meaning for our purpose.
- That, whatever term we finally chose, EVERYBODY (the portable apps freak as well as the one who turns on his computer the first time in his life) will understand what we mean by stealth/clean/polite/whatever WITHOUT knowing how we define our special term.

BTW most of the technical terms which are taken from the standard language will only become a technical term because their meaning is particularly defined for a special field of knowledge.

Considering all this, I don't think it makes much of a difference when we call a "stealth" portable app "stealth" or "clean" because not every aspect of this special feature is covered by either of those word genuinly. Their proper application is much more a result of a special definition. That is the reason why many of us prefer "stealth", because they know what that means in our context expecially that it is not the same thing as "complete-non-traceability".

[ashghost]

Well, the fine points made by local, fpelletier, and GeddichNixan have won me over (except that I definitely disagree with local's suggestion that only "stealth" apps be considered portable).

"Stealth" is good enough for me, and it's been used here on TPFC for so long now that it might as well be kept.

Though "stealth" means "secret" or "surreptitious", it doesn't mean "traceless" or "undetectable", and those meanings probably won't be inferred by most people.

[-.-]

could use the word sandboxed :S

since well sandboxie keeps the info sandboxes "self enclosed" and sandbox seems like a good word that's used a lot

[GeddichNixan]

I thought "sandboxed" implies a certain security aspect in addition to a mere "non-writing-outside-the-app-folder" behavior. I checked this word in Wikipedia with the following result:

SANDBOX

[...]

In computing:

Sandbox (computer security), a virtual container in which untrusted programs can be safely run

Sandbox (software development), an online environment in which code or content changes can be tested without affecting the original system

I guess it was the second definition which ashghost referred to. My problem with "sandboxed" is that due to it's first, security related meaning it could be very misleading, but as I wrote in my previous posting, it is a question of definition in the end.

The expression "self enclosed" IMO seems to be worth to be taken into consideration.

BTW, "stealth" would be good enough for me too as we have been using it at TPFC for such a long time. Nevertheless we will have to give it a clear definiton with special respect to it's limitations (i.e. no automatic non-traceability).

[m^(2)]

The expression "self enclosed" though seems to be worth to be taken into consideration.

This sounds like the best one so far.

[m^(2)]

Tidy?

[GeddichNixan]

Tidy?

Hm. Nice, short, handy, why not. But there is still a need for a definition as it is not that self-explaining or only for those who already know what we are talking about.

[I am Baas]

True? Genuine?

[Kranor]

How about Neat

Neat = Precisely or deftly executed

or

Antiseptic
Elegant
Harmonious

or my favorite Axenic

In biology, axenic describes a culture of a particular organism that is entirely free of all other "contaminating" organisms. The earliest axenic cultures were of bacteria or unicellular eukaryotes, but axenic cultures of many multicellular organisms are also possible.

[Kranor]

Oops Double post