> Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software?
I imagine that being completely unusable for a lot of people, and a total disaster of social engineering and malware exploitation.
Don't get hung up on the "copy and paste an url" technique. It could easily be a digitally signed "RepoData.pkgsrc" file that is opened by some aspect of the built-in windows installer mechanism. It could include branding and all sorts of other ways to verify it's identity.
The real win is empowering developers to reliably communicate these updates to users, and make it simple to update, w/o inundating the user's system tray with 5 different bespoke updaters that act out in different ways.
I imagine that being completely unusable for a lot of people, and a total disaster of social engineering and malware exploitation.