Question regarding scope and potential feature creep?

[pingu-the-penguin]

Hello,

I wanted to start this discussion by prefacing that this is your project and you are free to run it how you like, you do not need to give weight to any of this discussion if you don't want to. Just wanted to share my thoughts as a user of the HSS app.

I realised that many new features were being added recently into the app that are not strictly about Hardening System Security, feel out of scope and might not be useful to the entire user base of this app. These features could be bundled into a seperate app (or multiple seperate apps) as the more potentially out of scope features are introduced, the more users might perceive those features as unnecessary bloat, no matter how useful they may be to some.

Additionally, the more code is introduced, the less lightweight the app becomes, the larger the app size becomes and consumes more resources, and most importantly, the more potential attack surface is introduced into the app.

Just wanted to share some thoughts.

Kind Regards,
Pingu

[HotCakeX]

Hi,
I'm looking into creating add-ons for the apps which are supported by the Microsoft Store so additional features could be shipped separately, but rest assured that adding new features directly to the main app like what i've been doing does not make it heavy at runtime, it can only add few kilobytes to the app package. The new live system intelligence window for example is off by default and doesn't consume any resource in the background, the app isn't designed to be actively using background resources. If you launch the new window then it will consume resources to display the data and once it's closed then all the system resources are freed.

Another example is the home page, you see it shows lots of data about your system but that's only when you are viewing the home page, if you navigate to another page then home page doesn't consume any resources and is completely removed from the RAM or CPU load. In fact, this is the logic that i've always strictly followed and applied to every section of the app, that's why it uses very little CPU and RAM.

The app startup time is still less than 1 second.

About attack surface, there is nothing changed about that. No 3rd party library is ever added to any of the apps, everything is created safely with security in mind.

So realistically the only downside of adding features you might not use is a few extra kilobytes added to the app package, which i'm planning to take care of by introducing app add-ons for modularity. There is no hidden or background resource usage whatsoever.

It's a community-driven project so of course users can voice their concerns and discuss things about it.

If you notice any particular performance degradation case then please tell me so i can look into it, or if there is a specific case where attack surface is increased or altered, please let me know. I myself, more than anyone else, would hate to intentionally or accidentally do something to have negative impact on the app, user experience or security.

Here is the section i wrote about dependencies.

[HotCakeX]

I also should add: I'm not neglecting any feature requests. I've implemented all of the requests from users and only then i added the extra features to the Harden System Security app.

My priority is: fixing bugs first, then implementing feature requests and only then if there is nothing else, add new features.

[HotCakeX]

Btw check out this part:

Harden-Windows-Security/AppControl Manager/ViewModels/HomeVM.cs

Line 45 in 94f0032

// Core logic of the Home page, Home VM and the Live System Intelligence window.

Before even releasing the new feature, I outlined the core restrictions i've put in place regarding performance and system resource usage and how everything revolves around those constraints.

[HotCakeX]

This is the first release to introduce Add-ons: https://github.com/HotCakeX/Harden-Windows-Security/releases/tag/HardenSystemSecurity-v1.0.71.0

None of the language packs introduced in that release are installed by default and can be downloaded/removed on-demand. I plan to do this more in the future, making the app more modular.

[pingu-the-penguin]

Hi, I'm looking into creating add-ons for the apps which are supported by the Microsoft Store so additional features could be shipped separately, but rest assured that adding new features directly to the main app like what i've been doing does not make it heavy at runtime, it can only add few kilobytes to the app package. The new live system intelligence window for example is off by default and doesn't consume any resource in the background, the app isn't designed to be actively using background resources. If you launch the new window then it will consume resources to display the data and once it's closed then all the system resources are freed.

Another example is the home page, you see it shows lots of data about your system but that's only when you are viewing the home page, if you navigate to another page then home page doesn't consume any resources and is completely removed from the RAM or CPU load. In fact, this is the logic that i've always strictly followed and applied to every section of the app, that's why it uses very little CPU and RAM.

The app startup time is still less than 1 second.

About attack surface, there is nothing changed about that. No 3rd party library is ever added to any of the apps, everything is created safely with security in mind.

So realistically the only downside of adding features you might not use is a few extra kilobytes added to the app package, which i'm planning to take care of by introducing app add-ons for modularity. There is no hidden or background resource usage whatsoever.

It's a community-driven project so of course users can voice their concerns and discuss things about it.

If you notice any particular performance degradation case then please tell me so i can look into it, or if there is a specific case where attack surface is increased or altered, please let me know. I myself, more than anyone else, would hate to intentionally or accidentally do something to have negative impact on the app, user experience or security.

Here is the section i wrote about dependencies.

Thanks for clarifying all the points I brought up.

I also should add I'm not neglecting any feature requests. I've implemented all of the requests from users and only then i added the extra features to the Harden System Security app.

My priority is: fixing bugs first, then implementing feature requests and only then if there is nothing else, add new features.

Yes I am aware of that, I didn't mean to imply you were if that is what you understood. I think the app is very useful and feature requests and issues are very promptly fixed and shipped. Great job!

Btw check out this part:

Harden-Windows-Security/AppControl Manager/ViewModels/HomeVM.cs

Line 45 in 94f0032

// Core logic of the Home page, Home VM and the Live System Intelligence window.

Before even releasing the new feature, I outlined the core restrictions i've put in place regarding performance and system resource usage and how everything revolves around those constraints.

Interesting, I will check this out!

Regarding the Add-ons:

I think it's a really great solution that allows people to benefit from the optional features that they require while leaving others without them. I was wondering if features such as the Bootable drive maker, duplicate photos finder, Download manager (and maybe other extras I'm forgetting) are planned to be included as optional add-ons as well?

Kind Regards

[HotCakeX]

About the future, it's going to keep getting better. The .NET SDK and WinAppSDK, the core components of the apps, keep improving, making the apps more compact and faster. I also actively try to optimize the apps via updates.

The apps use the least number of dependencies, so this project has a very secure supply chain.

The live system intelligence is intentionally heavy because i included lots of animations in it so it is GPU-heavy but it only uses resources as long as that window is open. As soon as you close the live system intelligence's dedicated window, it is completely discarded from the memory and everywhere. I will improve it so it will be less resource demanding.

You can always use AI by giving it the codes and asking direct questions from it, but make sure it's a good and smart model, not a mid-range model that can't think enough/at all.

Download manager downloads whatever files the user (you) enter, its workflow is simple, if you don't give it malware links then it never downloads malware and doesn't compromise security.

I'm happy to explain about the apps so it's perfectly fine to create discussions like this where i can receive feedback and use it to improve the apps and docs, and also get to understand the expectations of users. This thread seems to be a good reference for others who might have the same questions and concerns in the future too.

I will definitely use optional packages as soon as they become available, but until then i can offer other methods. How do you feel about having the ability to completely hide the extras features section with a toggle in the settings page? They won't just be artificially hidden, they will not be able to load into the memory and they won't show up in searches either. It will be as if they don't exist. The only resource they will use will be the 0.5MB of storage on HDD/SSD as part of the whole app package. (to clarify, this behavior is still achievable even right now. If a page is never visited/clicked on then it is never loaded into memory and never consumes any CPU/RAM whatsoever).

[pingu-the-penguin]

Thanks for clarifying things further and offering more insight. I'm happy a constructive conversation came out of this discussion. About the toggle, since the same behaviour is already achievable without any further changes, I don't think it will be necessary. I have no trouble with having the functionality visible in my menu. Thanks for the consideration though!

[HotCakeX]

I just released an update that made the package size 4.8 MB smaller, despite the new features added in it: https://github.com/HotCakeX/Harden-Windows-Security/releases/tag/HardenSystemSecurity-v1.0.72.0

The apps are based on .NET 10 at the moment. After switching to .NET 11 in a couple of months, they will be smaller.

It also improves live system intelligence window. Now if you set the opacity of the background animation to 0% using the slider at top then it gets completed removed from memory. The only animation that is still there is for each graph when they update. I can make them optional too by offering a toggle.

[pingu-the-penguin]

Confirmed turning the opacity off made it so much better! I noticed when using motion sensors and compass that it was also quite slow and choppy, i assume it is also due to heavy GPU usage which my integrated graphics card does not handle well.

On the topic of motion sensors and compass, the app needs to be granted the motion sensors permission for it to function right? I'm wondering if this could be explained or prompted if it is disabled since I have it disabled and I don't get any warnings.

[HotCakeX]

@pingu-the-penguin that's great to know. I've also made a lot of performance improvements recently to the app, the latest change is available here: https://github.com/HotCakeX/Harden-Windows-Security/releases/tag/HardenSystemSecurity-v1.0.74.0

The app is now more lightweight, more responsive and consumes less resources than before.

The app doesn't run in a sandbox, so it doesn't need permission to access the motion sensor. If it ever needs permission to access something, the OS should automatically display the prompt to you.

All sensor accesses are permanently closed as soon as the Live System Intelligence window is closed, and they are only ever read and accesses when that window is open. The code here proves it: https://github.com/HotCakeX/Harden-Windows-Security/blob/main/Harden%20System%20Security/Pages/HomeLiveGraphsWindow.xaml.cs