How safe are 3rd party spell-check dictionaries?

[Silly John Fatty]

Mac OS doesn't have a dictionary for the language I want to write in, so I heard I would need to install a 3rd party one.

I'm wondering about security here, what can these things do? Apparently it's just some files you need to move to the library. What exactly can these do, theoretically?

Also, I heard Mac OS then still doesn't auto-recognise that language when you write in it, and that it's very frustrating when you're typing in multiple languages. I work with four languages - for three of them, there's the Mac OS dictionaries. The fourth is missing and I would hope that it's 1) safe from a security perspective and 2) just as smooth as the native Mac OS dictionaries, i.e. auto-recognition when switching between languages, and so on.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[gregmac19]

Based I what I read in the following article, it seems adding dictionaries to the Mac Dictionary App is comparatively safe: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-expanding-apple-dictionary-mac-only/ However, an evil and clever person can find a way to infect anything.

I came across this app, and thought you might find it useful: https://dictionaries.io I installed the demo and did a scan with KnockKnock, and no viruses were found.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Based I what I read in the following article, it seems adding dictionaries to the Mac Dictionary App is comparatively safe: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-expanding-apple-dictionary-mac-only/ However, an evil and clever person can find a way to infect anything.

I came across this app, and thought you might find it useful: https://dictionaries.io I installed the demo and did a scan with KnockKnock, and no viruses were found.

Thanks! I don't think I'll install it though (I think I've already seen this). I went to install nothing on my computer at all, unless it's really a big verified thing like Microsoft or Adobe (although Adobe is already in the shady part in my eyes …).

So I'll just wait until Apple releases a dictionary officially I guess.

 

[Tagbert]

Thanks! I don't think I'll install it though (I think I've already seen this). I went to install nothing on my computer at all, unless it's really a big verified thing like Microsoft or Adobe (although Adobe is already in the shady part in my eyes …).

So I'll just wait until Apple releases a dictionary officially I guess.

Isn’t the dictionary more of a data file used by the Apple dictionary services? I don’t think that the dictionary file actually executes code.