I really don’t get all this attention to focus prevention. I personally can’t remember the last time I had a window popping up without it being something I want and expect. IMHO It looks like a theorethical attack vector (steal focus right when typing a password), but in practice I’ve never heard of it happening, not even on windows were focus stealing is fully allowed and expected.

If I had any app stealing focus randomly, the app would be nuked out of existance in no time.

I did experience though focus stealing prevention breaking apps (for example the open folder dialog in vscode not appearing in the front). It also breaks some interruptions that I really really want, like the evolution calendar notification window popping up on top of everything telling me I really should be in a meeting right now (and no, a slowly fading notification on the corner of the second screen I’m not looking at right now won’t work)

A big thank you to the authot of grand theft focus for bringing a bit of sanity back.

This is one of my biggest complaints and all I hear when I read this article is excuses. They want the devs of the apps to implement a protocol that they just aren’t implementing. Or the app is old, or it’s running in wine, or… Or… Or… Or maybe this approach just isn’t working and they’ve made it everyone else’s fault.

I hate focus stealing so I might set mine to strict, now that I know that’s an option.

It’s an absolute nightmare to be typing, some dialogue box pops up, and I accidentally accept it by hitting spacebar without even seeing what it was.

Now tell me why Alt-Tab randomly decides that I’m using Firefox when I’m not.

I understand why, but I still hate it. Thankfully there’s Grand Theft Focus