Question about installing application 'Balena Etcher'

[boswald]

Hello,

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I'm still pretty new to macOS and installing things.

I downloaded Etcher to burn an Ubuntu USB stick for another computer, but didn't know it had to be installed first. I do not want to install anything, so I closed the launcher and canceled the option to move the application to the Applications folder in Finder.

My question is this: Since I didn't move the application to the Applications folder, did I not actually install the app? If not, why did I have to "eject" it from my desktop? (It appeared as a removable drive.)

 

[Mr. TBTSmith]

No, you didn't install the app. You didn't have to eject it, but when you do, it isn't gone.
What you downloaded was a disk image, a file which is a snapshot of a disk. The macOS Finder knows how to 'mount' such an image, which makes it look just like a disk.
Disk images are quite a good way to distribute self-contained applications - most macOS apps don't need an installer, because they don't spray your system with files all over the place. All their dependencies are inside the app. But if you're used to Windows or Linux, it all seems a bit odd.
I honestly can't remember if Etcher actually has an installer, or if it just an app, and the disk image suggests with its iconography that you should drag the app to your /Applications folder.

If you're wondering why self-contained macOS applications aren't distributed simply as applications, it is because they often traverse foreign operating systems and might get broken along the way. A macOS app is a folder with the extension ".app". macOS Finder makes it look like a single file, but Win10 or Linux will display it as a folder, which is easily broken by a naive user. A disk image is a file with extension ".dmg", Win10 and Linux will leave it alone and it isn't easy to break it.

 

[boswald]

No, you didn't install the app. You didn't have to eject it, but when you do, it isn't gone.
What you downloaded was a disk image, a file which is a snapshot of a disk. The macOS Finder knows how to 'mount' such an image, which makes it look just like a disk.
Disk images are quite a good way to distribute self-contained applications - most macOS apps don't need an installer, because they don't spray your system with files all over the place. All their dependencies are inside the app. But if you're used to Windows or Linux, it all seems a bit odd.
I honestly can't remember if Etcher actually has an installer, or if it just an app, and the disk image suggests with its iconography that you should drag the app to your /Applications folder.

If you're wondering why self-contained macOS applications aren't distributed simply as applications, it is because they often traverse foreign operating systems and might get broken along the way. A macOS app is a folder with the extension ".app". macOS Finder makes it look like a single file, but Win10 or Linux will display it as a folder, which is easily broken by a naive user. A disk image is a file with extension ".dmg", Win10 and Linux will leave it alone and it isn't easy to break it.

Thank you so much for the explanation!