First of all, let me say that I absolutely love the tool (currently in trial) and will probably, for the first time ever, purchase a lifetime subscription to something.
I do have a couple of questions though:
Right now I'm using it on my personal Mac, and I'm debating whether it's "safe/secure" enough to install on my work computer. Technically, I can install it on the work computer (nothing is blocking me, at least not at the start). But I'm a bit worried about the permissions. I do understand why the application needs them (apart from the screen recording stuff, which I cannot approve), but is there any way to "calm" my nerves about the accessibility stuff? Theoretically, it can do some pretty nasty things.
Is it possible to create a shortcut on the trackpad (let's say three-finger swipe left and right) to control YouTube/other videos? So it will act as if I'm pressing the slider to move the video forward/backwards. If that's possible somehow, it can be incredible for me.
BTT is definitely safe (at least for me). I think the screen recording permission is for if you want to use the find text/images action. It is very useful if the actions you're looking for are not available in the app menubar. If not, I think you can leave the permissions off.
I found a similar preset from here that I think you're looking for (you might need to modify the gesture after importing, from 2-finger to 3-finger): yt_fullscreen_seek.bttpreset (6.5 KB)
I mean, are you expecting the developer to go "here I am, I'm not trying to steal your data." Because that is exsactly what a developer trying to steal data would do
Yes if BTT were malicious, it could do bad things. Also if you import malicious presets they can do bad things.
The only thing I can say to calm your nerves is that BTT has been around (with me as the sole developer) since 2009 and I hope I'm pretty trusted in the macOS community by now
Standard security advice: it's always good to have a firewall like Little Snitch and only allow necessary connections.
BTT has been around for a long time. If the app was doing “nasty things”, it would most likely have been known about long ago.
Companies have clear rules about what can be installed on their computers and the technical means to prevent the installation of unwanted software. If you can do it anyway, that's pretty strange. Either way, the question is not whether you can "technically" do it, or whether BTT is safe, but whether you are deliberately going against your employer's rules. Where I come from, this always leads to problems.
