Comment Re:Not more safe (Score 5, Insightful) 611
I've been telling many the same thing, but with one exception; Mac and *nix have started out with a better permissions system and therefore users who have downloaded an app from the Internet have been trained to be doubly sure about whatever it is that requires sudo power (e.g, the Mac sudo GUI prompt). Microsoft UAC, on the other hand, has had to deal with transitioning software developers to not write in "Program Files" and other public areas and to save data to personal home folders.
While I'll agree with you that Mac/*nix are not any more secure than Windows, the Mac/*nix users have been taught to take a sudo prompt seriously, while in the early stages and growing pains of UAC, Windows users were easily annoyed by UAC prompts and therefore took the UAC prompts less seriously, because UAC prompted were being triggered by transitioning software developers that did not save data in the user's home folder.
In the end, the security of any system relies on the ability for the user to authenticate and verify software downloaded. But making it more difficult, such as requiring an administrator password to be entered for elevated privileges, makes users more cautious of software requiring a sudo prompt. And while that's not inherently any more secure, at least users think twice before entering their password.