- MacOS Catalina Wallpapers As with any new version of macOS, this version also comes with a bunch of new wallpapers. There are a total of 2 official stock wallpapers to be precise and all of them are of a whopping 6016 x 6016 Pixels 6K Resolution.
- The best Matrix-style screensaver got better with v1.1. My review of v1.0 had a few minor suggestions for improvements, which have all appeared in this version! The display is still smooth, beautifully rendered, and very true to the effect it is based off of.
Click the “Desktop & Screen Saver” icon; Click the Screen Saver tab; Select any screen saver in the column on the left. For instance, I scrolled to the bottom and selected the “Word of the Day” screensaver. Just beneath that area, click the “Start after” drop-down menu and select “1 Minute”.
We highly recommend that you use the new Aerial Companion for install. It will automatically install, and update, your screensaver. Plants vs zombies heroes free gems. You can choose whether updates should happen automatically in the background, or if you prefer to be notified. You can also pick whether you want an icon in the menu bar to notify you or not! And you bet it's open source!
Installing this way is super easy, the Companion is now available in a more familiar dmg format and it's really just a drag and drop :
Good question!
If you have used Aerial for a while, you may remember that in version 1.5.0, I had introduced an auto-update mechanism directly into the screen saver.
Mac Catalina Screensaver
While this worked for a while, Apple introduced changes in how screen savers operate with macOS 10.15 Catalina. Those security changes are good and were needed, but they had the unfortunate consequence of breaking the auto-update mechanism.
While I still patiently wait for a new screen saver API from Apple, in the meantime, I ended up making this new Companion to fill the gap. It also makes the initial installation easier and gives you a quick access to your screen saver settings from the menu bar. And starting with version 1.2, you can also run Aerial fullscreen on one monitor while you keep working on the other one!
An ever better question!
The honest answer would be that there are never any certainty when it comes to security.
Some generalities, both the screen saver and the Companion app are signed and notarized by/with Apple, as its now required. They are signed with my personal Developer Apple ID (Guillaume Louel).
How does it work, technically speaking?
I store a manifest file on GitHub that contains the version number of the latest release, and also the sha256 of the releases. This is generated automatically on my Mac, after Aerial gets notarized for distribution and before I upload a new version on Aerial's releases page.
Free Matrix Screensaver Mac
Periodically, Aerial Companion checks the manifest to see if a new version was released. When you decide to perform an update, the following happens:
- Aerial Companion uses the version number from the manifest to infer the download link from Aerial's repository (the download links are always of the same format, so version 1.9.2 will be available at https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/releases/download/v1.9.2/Aerial.saver.zip)
- The zip file is downloaded to
~/Library/Application Support/AerialUpdater/ - The
sha256of the file is computed, and compared to the one from the manifest - The zip is unzipped in place, looking for
Aerial.saver Aerial.saveris verified (using macOS codesigning) to be using the correct Bundle ID (com.JohnCoates.Aerial>)Aerial.saveris verified (using macOS codesigning) to be signed/notarized with my Developer Apple ID.- If and only if everything checks out, then Aerial.saver gets copied to
~/Library/Screen Savers/(a directory that is created if you don't have it). This replaces your old version or install fresh if you didn't have any. At that point, the new version is installed and ready to go!
Mac Os Screensavers For Windows
While nothing is ever perfect, these checks add many layers of security to the classical methods of just downloading a zip from GitHub. If you think this method can be improved further more, please let me know, the code of the Companion and the update system is reviewable and is open source right here on GitHub.