A surprising number of "file formats" these days are really just zip files with a standard for the filenames and folders contained within. There's likely a ton of wonderful secrets like these to be found in the collective dataspace of humanity.
It is literally a zip file. If I remember correctly you have to write some xml which describes the layout of the skin and then include any images you need, you then zip it and change the file extension to wsz. So really you could put anything in a skin.
Winamp uses a pattern called package management for its skins. Same as chrome extensions, etc etc. Most of the time we don’t call it that because the term is more reserved for package sets which provide a wider array of functionality. The iOS app store is a package management system.
The packages, much like boxes being handled by FedEx, contain standardized elements which allow that package management system to find and install the package. Much like how when you ship a box through FedEx the first thing they do is put standardized labels on that contain all the different barcodes that different parts of their process use to route the package.
Like with Chrome extensions, there are certain files that must be there (iirc something like a manifest.json file) and others which can be anything. If you need an image for a button, that image becomes part of the package. If you need a complex set of rules then maybe there’s a little sqlite file or csv file containing all the rules. Or font files, or whatever.
Thing is, the package format is defined by the “box” as opposed to by the “contents of the box”.
Seriously though, it’s been some time be afaik any microsoft product file that ends in x, .docx, .xlsx, .pbix are all just archives and you can totally interact with them programmatically if you want. Really easy to corrupt them but hey, found it interesting years ago.
I take issue with “everything”, as most things are not. But it is a common trick when a developer wants to make a “new” file format that encapsulates a bunch of different files.
Oh for fucks sake, now the article itself has a misplaced mobile Wikipedia link and there’s nowhere I can quickly see to put my copy paste about it.
copy paste for context:
Please, anyone who reads this, stop posting links to the mobile version of Wikipedia. It doesn’t switch automatically on PC, and I see it happen all the time. Just take the half a second to remove the “.m” from the beginning of the link, save everyone else from the pain of having to be surprised by it and taking the time to do it themselves.
General infosec tip: keep your browser add-ons to the absolute minimum you can live with. Add-ons are attack vectors. The more you have - the more at risk you are. And only install the ones you have a reason to trust.
Nah, browsers are sandboxed to absolute shit it is such a pain in the ass to make an extension just to do a phishing attack or to buy the ownership of one to introduce malicious code.
At most an extension with really broad permissions like read/write contents of any page (a fact that is made obvious upon installation) can replace a link to take you to a phishing page to harvest creds, but thanks to SSL and HTTPS it won’t even work without fifty some odd warnings
You live by that and I’ll live by the advice I’ve seen from infosec professionals that recommend as few add-ons as possible due to security concerns. But yes, browsers are getting more secure over time and that’s good.
You obviously shouldn’t install closed source or otherwise shady extensions from dodgy authors you don’t know, but on the whole there is very little they can do that you should worry about.
Most “advice” comes from people who want to sell you something and the infosec industry is mostly a scam to drain B2B procurement budgets plus a few gay furry researchers at defcon who are incomprehensible savants and actual malware authors who do something, unless they just write crappy .NET junk.
This isn’t even a vulnerability. It’s just phishing that requires a user to have file extensions turned off, then download a dodgy as hell .PDF file that isn’t one due to hidden extension, which then uses a milquetoast .hta trojan downloader that only works if one has IE enabled on Windows AND opens the .pdf in MS Edge to pull in reverse shell code via probably psexec of some sort.
There are so many steps one wonders why not just send a iamnotavirus.exe uac prompt and all to download, compile and run ransomware from vxunderground source code then and there.
Worrying about stuff like this in browser is akin to using a VPN on public WiFi to avoid MITM attacks, there’s nothing wrong with it but there’s basically nothing to actually worry about there.
You obviously shouldn’t install closed source or otherwise shady extensions from dodgy authors you don’t know, but on the whole there is very little they can do that you should worry about.
Sorry if I’m nitpicky or confused here. You just said it’s obvious that you shouldn’t install closed sourced or otherwise shady extensions. Do you think a normie knows and cares if an extension is open source? And how do they know if an extension is “shady”? And what about legit extensions that get bought by shady people and turned into shady ones long after they’ve been installed and the user base trusts it?
If an add-on is modifying contents of pages it shouldn’t or of the clipboard when it shouldn’t, you would have to give it explicit permission at install time, i.e. “This extension can: Read and Modify Data on all sites you visit: Read and Modify contents of the clipboard.”
Obviously a simple URL redirector for wikipedia requesting access to this data is absurd and would be an immediate red flag. The reason this very thing doesn’t happen more often, is because frankly you’d have to be so computer illiterate to get to that stage that it is much easier to just phish you with basic Facebook profile info for much greater gains.
This is also the reason most “hacks” nowadays are either supply-side or phishing, shit is just too secure, no fun. We should bring back ActiveX.
Obviously a simple URL redirector for wikipedia requesting access to this data is absurd and would be an immediate red flag.
To you, yes it should be. But it does require knowledge about how websites and browsers work that most people don’t have. I’d be very surprised if 50% of people have any idea what those permissions actually do and what would be reasonable for different extensions to have.
Better reading experience overall. Compartmentalizing all my Wikipedia reading so as not to mix it with my other many open tabs. (Wikipedia app has tabs, too.) Sections are not collapsed by default. Easier to search on the page by default than in the browser.
I can probably go on it I made a more in-depth comparison after using the web version for a bit…
The app has offline capabilities and to save articles on a named list. I use it as a reference when forgetting something or to save the list type article as a starting point when researching a software to use. Or just generally a reading material when on the go (yes, I find reading wikipedia articles entertaining)
I would assume, and hope, it works really well for such usage. I only tend to end up on Wikipedia a couple of times a week, and 95% of that is on my desktop to have a quick look at something I won’t be getting back to ever again.
What? You don’t like browsing the web, where everyone is shoving politics down your throat, and making violent hostile threats, and everybodys offended over baby names, and the web is like 3 websites big???
Just today was looking for a seamless tile of grass for desktop background (decided to just use solid color, because eyes get tired looking at separate grass blades, though), spent like 15 minutes. On that.
I’m under 30, I have no idea what winamp is but I figured it’s some music software from the skins’ pics. I imagine it was popular for it to have a museum thing about user created skins
Yeah? Dude got some corrupt skins for the Winamp program back in the day that didn’t work and poked into the files to see what was in there.
Makes me wanna check out WACUP, but last time I tried a skin with it that I at least remember working back in the day, it didn’t work.
Idk maybe it’s because I’m not American so we didn’t have the latest tech at all times, but I’m in my mid-20s and my first OS was Windows 2000 (no I don’t mean ME). I remember my dad teaching me how to rip CDs with Alcohol 120% when I was 5 or so lol.
Oh god musicmatch was soooo good, it was my daily driver while everyone else was using winamp…something about whipping unsuspecting animals in the ass.
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