McAfee Feigns Fear at Mac Security 403
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports that McAfee has just come out with a report which asks the question 'Is Mac OS X the Next Windows?'." They appear to be attempting to scare consumers into buying anti-virus software for OSX. Blogger Arik Hesseldahl breaks down their claims: "First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs ... When you take into account the ongoing growth in general PC ownership, even if Apple pushes its annual unit sales to 12 million or more by 2010, its share of the overall market will still account for about 4%, leaving Windows the far more tasty target."
FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:4, Informative)
Why that wasn't included in the posted story, I'll never know. If you actually take a look at the PDF, it's got some good histograms and charts as well as a little more detail into the Leap virus.
Yes, it does follow from this that users should buy McAfee anti-virus for Macs. The simple fact of the matter is that this is a white paper that tilts in their favor. It has some valid points, though, and I don't think they need to tell people to be afraid. If Mac users start getting these viruses then they will truly need anti-virus software for their machines. They site the National Vulnerability Database and other sources in this document so it's not like they're making stuff up or are the only ones claiming there is an upcoming security risk.
I hate McAfee software. Like most anti-virus software, it uses too much memory and hogs the CPU if it's a real-time checker. I wouldn't opt for it if it was the last anti-virus company in existence. However after reading their white paper, it is convincing. I do think that if Apple doesn't take an initiative to protect their users from things like Leap then Mac users will need auxiliary anti-virus protection from a third party.
One man's FUD is another man's common sense. I don't care about the size or manufacturer of a device--if it runs programs in a turing-machine like manner, it can be infected.
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect that rather than their motivation to make a profit, it is really the years of strangely incongruous (for a security company) and untrustworthy behavior like pioneering the pop-up browser advertisements and so forth that have caused you to trust not McAfee.
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. McAfee isn't a person. Most people aren't profit-oriented. Yes, most people have to work, but the pursuit of profit is not the primary focus of most people. On the other hand, most corporations seek nothing *but* profits.
2. While corporations have been known to do the right or promote honest facts, from time to time, this is not one of those times. Using fear is one of the most vulgar and appalling of manipulation techniques.
Any time a corporation tries to spread fear, and that corporation just happens to sell a product that directly addresses that fear, it's wise to become weary, because it's in that corporation's best interest to overstate the fear.
McAfee is just trying to build a market (which is a completely reasonable thing for a corporation to do), but in this specific case, they are trying to build a market which does not exist, and trying to force it into existence will have a net negative impact on the rest of us, as tends to be the case with FUD.
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:3, Interesting)
But you see, there are companies that make products, even have "monopolies" in their market, yet don't spread FUD or even advertise to my knowledge.
Take Bic for example. There revenue comes from: stationery (pens, penci
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure this is Apple's mission? Personally, I use OSX because it is based on BSD. I know many other recent Mac converts that are the same as me - in other words, it is actually people who understand technology that are moving to the Mac. I'm sure Apple loves that, and I doubt it is their mission to "dilute the technical abilities of their user base".
Virus probably less of a burden than MacAffee (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it speaks for itself that, according to that PDF, the macintoshes with 1/50th of the market share have 1/1315th of the number of identified viruses, somewhat disproportionate to their decreased market share.
Have got MacAffee antivirus installed as corporate policy on my business peesee, and it humbles what is otherwise a fairly able laptop. Perhaps Apple's move to a more powerful architecture means that they can now shoulder the MacAffee burden too?
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:3, Insightful)
What does Windows have to do with this? Nobody questions the fact that Apple is more secure that Windows. However, being better than the worst does not automatically make you good. Cuba is freer than North Korea, but that doesn't mean I'd want to liv
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:3, Insightful)
Symantec, McAfee, and the like have been urging Mac users to buy antivirus software for years. There's always this threat that someone might write some very bad viruses soon, and those viruses never materialized. So if you bought an anti-virus 4 years ago, and paid for all the updates, you've pretty much wasted your money.
Also, I think it's worth noting that for anyone who knows what t
Re:FUD or Valid Argument? (Score:2)
With regard to computer viruses, McAfee has a substantial and growing credibility deficit.
Mac a tasty target? (Score:2)
Of course in the case of zombie machines and spam, you'd go with the easier target.
Wtf? (Score:5, Funny)
"Self. Your technical savviness has not gone unnoticed. You've been selected. Congratulations."
I'm not so sure... (Score:2, Insightful)
warning: grammar and spelling ogre (Score:2)
You're probably right and I personally share your opinion, but you'd lend more weight to our position by using complete sentences and non-random punction, and by spelling 'savvy' correctly...
Hey, eMachine, shut your pie hole. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not so sure after seeing the new Apple commercials saying how PCs have all of these Viruses; however, Macs are not susceptible to them. This could get more people to purchase Macs and while it might not be as large a target, if the majority of the community isn't being cautious it could be seen as an easy target. You will see outbreaks of Mac viruses. It's only a matter of time.
I think we've already discussed to death that Mac virus security is not due to obscurity but rather due to sensible security practices built in. We've been hearing "it's only a matter of time before a virus brings the whole Mac community to their knees" drivel for years. Still waiting on that service pack?
As for Mac purchasers being more computer savy. I don't really consider the majority of the artsy, yuppies that are the majority of the Mac audiance to be over savy.
I'd have to say that with a Unix command prompt and OS X/WinBlows/Linux dual- and tri-boot capability you're gonna see a lot more fascinating possibilities for tinkering that appeal to true geeks. Perhaps not so much to the poltroons whose idea of originality in computing is to casemod a neon light and window onto their beige hunk-o-junk, or who use their (e)machines simply as pricy game consoles. If that makes me a artsy yuppie for wanting to delve into my computer's innards, then I'll switch my 2600 shirt for a cardigan and my ratty sneakers for penny loafers.
OK, have at me. I can take it!
self-selected? (Score:5, Insightful)
While this is true in some segments of the market (*nix geeks migrating to OS X), it is by no means true of other segments. There are many designers/graphics pros who choose to use Macs. However, this in no way implies that they actually understand technology. Some do. Many don't. The choice to use Macs is typically because either they have always used Macs or that is what they were trained on.
Self-selection, where the product buys you. (Score:2)
Or, could it be that we are just mindless Mac buyers controlled by the powers of the Great Black Turtleneck?
Antivirus companies are scared... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I don't trust any of the antivirus companies one inch. It's big business, and it is in their interests that there are security threats and viruses around. Talk about conflict of interest...
Re:Antivirus companies are scared... (Score:2)
Do you also distrust pharmaceuticals? (Actually, that one might be justified.) Or hospitals? It's in their interest to have people always getting hurt. Policemen? It's in their interest to have lots of crime. Firefighters? It's in their interest to have fires everywhere.
I don't necessarily love the anti-virus companies myself, I'm just not sure I understand your logic.
Re:Antivirus companies are scared... (Score:2)
I'm not sure I follow yours. Do you really believe it is relevent to compare firemen, hospitals and policemen to antivirus companies?
Re:Antivirus companies are scared... (Score:2)
Did I miss a meeting? Since when is Vista going to be immune from viruses? I know MS has all sorts of anti-virus measures planned, from making Vista itself more secure to introducing its own anti-virus/anti-spyware app(s). But I seem to recall hearing the same thing about XP, and 2000 before that, and NT, and 98, and, and, and...
Re:Antivirus companies are scared... (Score:2, Interesting)
It didn't make anyone go out of business, it even created a better business.
I am not speaking about the crap MCafee sells as antivirus. I am talking about "real antiviruses" of today which even runs a virtual processor in them to score heuristics, in cases like F Secure, neural networks based scanning.
Re:Antivirus companies are scared... (Score:2)
Re:Antivirus companies are scared... (Score:2)
Macs should still protect themselves (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago I had a situation (in an all mac offce) where we burned a CD and sent it to a client (the client was Windows based). The client complained that some of the files were infected. As a Mac-only office, I didn't care about running virus protection, so the files went unchecked.
In my current office, a mixed enviroment, I make sure that both OS's are covered. even if the chance of the macs getting infected is next to nill, I want my PCs to be safe.
Re:Macs should still protect themselves (Score:5, Funny)
Please tell me that someone else here read "anti-vi" and thought of the text editor? And that "anti-vi" meant emacs?
Re:Macs should still protect themselves (Score:2)
Re:Macs should still protect themselves (Score:2)
Bummer.
Re:Macs should still protect themselves (Score:2)
I downloaded ClamAV [clamav.net] for MacOS X to see what it was about just to find out that I had a windows virus in some of my archived files. If I had used that file on my Windows machine before scanning I would have had to spend several hours cleaning up the mess.
Always use some form of AV, even if it's just for other's people's sake.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Macs should still protect themselves (Score:3, Interesting)
True.. but they can also be infected, especially in a corporate environment.
Entourage and Word on OSX are susceptable to macro viruses! There's a pretty bad one going around right now. Our IT dept just finished re-osing one of the editor's powerbooks because his entourage was spamming the hell out of everyone... due to a macro virus.
It's funny that it's caused by MS software, but that doesn't change the fact that Macs can and *do* get viruses tod
market niche is not safety (Score:5, Insightful)
Worms that have targeted other niche platforms including web servers and database servers of various kinds have also demonstrated that platforms with a few hundred thousand deployed systems (much smaller than the deployed base of Macintosh systems) are vulnerable to worm attacks.
Mac is an appealing target... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my $0.02...
Re:Mac is an appealing target... (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry, McAfee and Norton are working on it as we speak. As soon as they can put together something more fearful than the cute little proofs of concept that have been floating around expect them to announce a full "epidemic".
It's not legal? It's not ethical? It's not honest? It doesn't matter. Their business model REQUIRES them act in this way. Though not officially, of course.
Re:Mac is an appealing target... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, in the same way that my desire for pizza REQUIRES that I kill you and take your pizza.
In additions to the anti-virus business, here are other professions which REQUIRE unethical and illegal behaviour:
- Medical doctors are REQUIRED to spread cancer, AIDS and hepatities.
- Firefighters are REQUIRED to be arsonists.
- Auto mechanics are REQUIRED to cause broken fuel pumps,
Re:Mac is an appealing target... (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
You've got to be kidding. Mac users are even MORE clueless than the average PC buyer, in my experience. They buy Macs specifically to *avoid* having to know anything about technology.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Plus, I want to be able to run OS X.
Pick up a Mac and it's all taken care of; the hardware WILL work with the software, it's all done in one package, and the
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
That used to be true, but these days, people who know nothing about computers like to use "normal computers", by which they mean MS Windows. In my experience (which is fairly extensive), current Macintosh users break into a couple of groups:
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
no computer is foolproof.
Arik Hesseldahl surprising ideas... (Score:2)
In my experience Mac users know bugger all about technology, and care more about furnitures than they do about computing.
There may be exceptions in their established graphic artists user base, but even they are more likely to be "gadget collectors" rather than tech-heads.
Couldn't be bothered to read the rest... (Score:2)
My experience with Mac users is that they do indeed know more about Macs and OS X, but not much else. Ask them about Windows or Linux (or BSD, for that matter) and they won't get very far.
That's just been my experience.
Re:Couldn't be bothered to read the rest... (Score:2)
Meanwhile, most of the Mac users I know are administrators of non-Mac sites, or do support for non-Macs. I know a Mac guy that's a Solaris admin, and another that manages several school buildings full of XP laptops and d
Re:Couldn't be bothered to read the rest... (Score:2)
For that matter, ask any segment of the general populace about OSX or Windows, and they'll probably tell you a few things they learned by rote - where the Word icon is, how to save a document, etc.
One difference I guess you can point to is that Mac users all must care about computers to SOME degree, otherwise they'd be buying cheaper Dell boxes. But I certainly wouldn't attribu
In London... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In London... (Score:2)
Re:In London... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tech-savvy users of any consumer OS are, always have been, and always will be the minority. Wheter Mac users are more tech-savvy than PC users is a matter of degree, not a matter of the trend being reversed.
I suspect that it is the case that Mac users are at least a little more tech-savvy, overall, than PC users, if only because Pcs are so domi
Wrong premise, to begin with. (Score:2, Insightful)
Mac users tend to be mac users because they want things to "just work". If anything, they may be less tech-savvy, since they don't need to delve into the inner working of the OS as much. And, therefore, they should be *more* prone to get viruses/trojans. Except, of course, Mac OSX is built with security in mind, as opposed to Windows 95/98/98SE/ME/NT/2K/XP/etc.
this is old and tiring (Score:2, Insightful)
MacBook release imminent? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Home > Hardware > MacBook
Perhaps this is a slip-up signaling the near release of the MacBook (sans Pro) to replace the iBook line. You can catch a screenshot here [cutterpillow.com] (until my server melts down).
Question about Boot Camp and viruses (Score:2)
Just curious if anyone has any insight in this direction.
What we need here... (Score:2)
I agree most Mac people I know don't even think about security. If they do they just wrap themselves in the "Apple is immune to viruses" blanket and suck their collective artsy fartsy thumbs.
Someone will write it. Some nasty malicious code and they won't even have to be as sneaky as the windows guys in getting an end user to run/install it because they won't think anything could adverse affect their "immune" mac.
It will happen.. when it d
Re:What we need here... (Score:2)
Personally, I'd love to see it, strictly from a geek perspective. Actually getting a virus to work in OSX that's not a social engineering hack (having the end user physically enter their admin password) would be very interesting.
I haven't had a virus on any of my Macs since the early 90s. I haven't bothered with anti-virus software since the mid-90s. I kinda hope that a virus *does* hit, so the guy that wrote Disinfectant feels the need to com
Apple users are smarter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Essentially... (Score:5, Insightful)
apple is dead! long live apple! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now all i hear about is that 'any day now' All the macs on the planet are going to be suddenly and utterly destroyed by the impending virus rush.
Look, I don't encourage people to run any system without security. My macs are all behind a nice firewall. However, I think that, given the record of some clever young programmers to break industry strength security in short order, i wonder when all of these virus writers are going to come over and focus on the mac? i mean, the mac market hasn't really changed much in the last year or two. (in terms of numbers) and the hardware change doesnt seem to have made it any easier to infect the systems.
Mac users and the mac community in general have been snobbishly touting the no viruses thing for quite awhile now. There are tons of clever hackers out there who can break all sorts of security, yet all we have so far are a few lame-ass trojans that you have to type your password in to install. (which, really are not viruses so much) So apparently the big carrot of 'first mac virus that actually was a virus' is really not that big of a carrot.
While i am a software engineer on macs, my expertise does not lie in the virus-area, so i can't really say if it is really much harder to write for the mac, or if it is just unappealing in a business sense (for the virus writers).
my opinion: if i measured my income with each thousand machines i added to my botnet with a virus i wrote, then i think i would stick to the 95% of the market that is fairly homogenous in terms of security. (ie all windows) and leave the outlying OSes (mac, linux) because even if both mac and linux double or triple their respective marketshares in the next five years, windows will still be the easy choice for virus makers.
definition of "more knowledgeable" (Score:2, Insightful)
McAfee trying to sell anti-virus for Mac? (Score:2)
If they wanted to sell the product, they'd actually, you know, let people buy single licenses for their Macs.
Know more about using a computer? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Know more about using a computer? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are selling enterprise hardware to companies that don't use DHCP? Also, if you sell "enterprise level" hardware, shouldn't there be some sysadmin on the other end setting it up and supporting it? If you have to explain IP setup to _users_ you or your customers have bigger problems than Mac users who can't find the command prompt.
By the way, you might try to tell your Mac, Linux and Unix users to open a terminal instead of a command prompt.
o.O (Score:2)
are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average
BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA. Ok, this guy has statistics backing this up? While it is not for all, with the exception of ONE person I have met, all Mac users I have met know very little about computers. I am not saying there aren't extremely knowledgable Mac users out there - that would be dumb of me to say - but Mac has always been touting the "we are easier to use then the other guy".
As for his other comment, about Ma
If you have time, instead of RTFA, read this (Score:5, Informative)
It is a very interesting article about the real problems of anti virus companies (yes, no mac viruses mentioned) by Mr. Kaspersky himself. It also includes the problems antiviruses have including their products.
http://www.kaspersky.com/eugenearticle [kaspersky.com]
As a guy gave up running win32 for 3 years, I still check their site/blog as well as F-Secure one.
As a side note (hopefully not needed)
KASPERSKY DOES NOT PRODUCE MAC PRODUCTS. No FUD there.
Dear McAfee, (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you for your concern,
A very "frightened" OS X user.
Many virii exist, but McAfee won't help you (Score:3, Insightful)
People trust the CDs that come with their latest printer/scanner/multi-function, but in my experience they are the biggest memory-hogging, system crashing, bloatware you could find.
Examples: Brother multifunction drivers install a 'ControlCenter' that loads (in the background) and prompts EVERY user to set up the printer, even if it is already configured. It is hidden away in the printer driver directory (/Library/Printers - not obivous given it is an application - though one you can't launch or control or quit yourself). It loads about 3 or 4 'agents' that run in the background and use over 100 MB of memory footprint each! WTF!
I found the HP scanner programs are just as bad - the acutal program to scan is great, but the bloatware you have no choice but installing (in random places) alongside makes me feel dirty inside.
Re:B.S. (Score:2)
First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs
Re:B.S. (Score:2)
Piss and moan... (Score:2)
You could say more or less the same things about most PC/Windows users, they are IT morons. They like their little Windows logo and that is all they know. Basically, whether you are talking about Macs or Windows users, the majority of them are bound to be relatively comput
Re:Tend to know more? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tend to know more? (Score:2)
Windows with its superb Notepad and awe inspiring Calculator is definitely the way to go.
Re:Tend to know more? (Score:2)
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:3, Insightful)
If course they say "average PC buyer". I guess if you add the sum of all PC buyer tech knowledge and make an average... But thats like saying that 90% of all Mac user who drive have a Volkswagen. It seems true (it really does) but its not.
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:2)
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:4, Insightful)
I consider myself primarily a Mac user, even though I typically use Linux, OS X, and Windows every day. I do the vast majority of my work on my Apple laptop, and it is the platform I feel most comfortable with. The interesting thing is I've only been a Mac user since the summer of 2004. At my last job we purchased a large XServe G5 cluster (256 nodes), which at the time was probably the 3rd largest Apple cluster in a university. I used a Linux workstation at this point, and I was having doubts about running OS X on a cluster. I flew out to the WWDC while the ink was still drying on the PO. I was impressed with the developers tools I saw at WWDC, and with the whole OS experience. I ordered a iMac G5 for my desk the very day they were available for sale. We had to work at porting some applications to OS X, and there were a few issues with being one of the earliest large HPC clusters (especially one that ran large MPI applications over Ethernet - lots of early Mac clusters ran embarassingly parallel stuff, or infinniband line VT). I took a new job where I spend a good chunk of time writing scietific sofware for Linux based clusters - I insisted my employeer provide me with a Mac (we have about 1,200 employees and run about 40% Mac desktops, but no one in my group had a Mac).
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:2)
Apple users in two categories (Score:2)
And there is a growing faction of the technical elite that use Macs, myself being one. They are very nice machines.
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Simple: Mac = *nix (which I love on servers) + great windows manager
That's my reason, period. For things which I don't want to fuss with (music, digital photos, updates, etc) OS X is simple and I don't have to worry about it. For things that I do want to fuss with I have BSD, XWindows, and everything else you find on your linux distro. Best of both worlds, although at a higher price and being locked into one hardware company.
Over the years I tried and tried to replace Windows with a good Linux desktop distro. There was always something that was lacking. Then I found OS X.
I think you will find more and more technical people moving over to OS X, at least *nix ones. Now I have to admit that also enjoy design work, so I really appreciate beautiful things, wether that being perfectly simple elegant code or the PowerBook, so perhaps you should ignore everything I said above.
Re:Must be different Apple users (Score:2)
Re:Reporter with an agenda? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a long-time Mac admin and user. I don't have AV software on my home machine and as of now have no plans to either. I think Symantec, McAfee, Gartner and a few others are teh ones who have a hidden agenda.
All to pr0n you need: http://excaliburfilms.com/partner/mainaffiliate.c
Re:Reporter with an agenda? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reporter with an agenda? (Score:2)
I'd disagree with that generality. If there is a good reason to think the platform is vulnerable but merely hasn't been exploited yet, that claim is not FUD, its sensible, proactive security.
Note that I am not making any statement about the specific claims about OS X, merely stating that the general statement you are making here is overstated.
Re:arg apple sucks (Score:2)
Because most people before they buy their first Mac they do some research to decide if they want or not. Because there is in inherant risk to buying a Mac (The Higher then average cost and the fact that Windows Apps will not run (excluding bootcamp/virtualiztion etc...) on the Mac. So before buying most people are causious and do a fair amount of research before they decide if they really want one.
Vs. the standard PC user will get what ever is cheapest or blindly get the best specs t
Re:arg apple sucks (Score:2)
most mac users and fans i know, actually love mac for the fact that you _don't_ have to know 101 tricks how to keep your machine working and you don't have to perform them either. they don't have a clue what's under the hood, they don't care, they just want it to work. with windows such an approach would be pretty fatal, with mac, it's possible.
but different slashdotters seem to know different mac people. there is no golden truth here.
i'd choose a mac any time over a windows box. but beca
Re:arg apple sucks (Score:2)
Re:I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
And forget about the old market share argument explaining why Macs don't get malicious viruses. Don't you think there would be some prestige for any writer who could create the first malicious Mac virus? Especially with Apple and others touting it's security for years? How come it hasn't happened yet?
Re:What about OS 9 viruses? (Score:4, Insightful)
OS 9 had a ton of viruses and they had even a smaller market share than OS X.
For some reason I don't think market share is related to this.
Re:What about OS 9 viruses? (Score:3, Informative)
1) OS 9 had hardly any viruses, just like OS X
2) OS 9 had a higher marketshare than OS X
If you see a list of classic MacOS virues (nVir and so on), you have to understand the the vast majority of those date from the 1980s and didn't run under System 7+.
IIS is MORE secure than Apache (Score:4, Informative)
IIS6 has a significantly better security record than does Apache2.
Apache2's vulnerabilities 2003-2006 [secunia.com]
IIS6's vulnerabilities 2003-2006 [secunia.com]
Re:I disagree (Score:2)
the OP is not redundant, and most certainly is presenting a different pt of view from TFA.
not only that, but I agree with him. mac users are no more savvy than PC users. my brother in law, mother in law, another friend, and a couple of coworkers have all purchased macs recently. all of them are extremely happy with them, yet not a single one of them knows what a file extension, terminal, or root is. they just use their macs for office, web, digital pics,
Re:I disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
As a cross-platform user I'm tired of these popular memes on slashdot. Do you think all those affluent mac users work in creative areas? A number of us work in IT developing and/or supporting software on the windows platform but prefer macs at home.
Let me try to get this through your thick head. OS X has a completely different security model from windows. It is based on a BSD and System V. You will find both open source and closed source unix components on OS X.
There is always a risk of some virus appearing and wiping out your personal data or some catastrophic hardware failure and because of this, you should backup often. It would require a great deal of user interaction to compromise the entire machine as nobody runs as root unlike XP.
Re:I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem wasn't that Mac or Windows users were any more complacent than each other, but one system was more prone to viruses and malware.
One of these systems had the following problem:
1. Getting spyware by visiting webpage with default security options
2. Getting viruses just by opening or previewing an email
3. Getting a Virus just by being connected to the internet.
Both systems still can have:
1. Viruses from opening attachments from email
2. Viruses from opening files downloaded from the internet
The first set of issues was nothing that you would consider to be safe security practices. That is unreasonable to think the user could not do these things within reason (Yeah... Back when the Outlook express viruses were going around I turned off my preview pane and avoided unknown senders like the plague but this is a hard practice to keep 100% reliable (you know accidentally opening an email from someone you know or hitting enter key at the wrong time).
Yes, one of those operation systems developers did fix the problem with many various security patches, but the other one never had such widespread issues and was usually quick to address any security hole.
I use OS X primarily for my surfing and email, but I still keep my habits from the windows days.
Don't download files from questionable sources.
Don't open emails attachments from questionable sources.
If I don't do either of those, then I believe I should not have to have an anti-virus.
Plain. Meet simple.
Re:Wow! And I thought I didn't get along with othe (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why Are Mac Uses Such Dicks? (Score:5, Insightful)
LMAO (Score:5, Interesting)
Building your own box (by which psuedo-geeks mean "assembling six pre-built components into a working PC") makes one sooo technically superior. I mean, you probably have to have like what, a post-grad education to correctly install the MB and insert the PCI cards, right? Those PCs are just so complicated these days.
I used to build my own PCs... about 10 years ago. Then I grew up, got a life, and stopped spending my personal time fritzing around with hardware. I may work in the software industry, but I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my free time doing IT work. Give me a Mac any day.
The Mac users are mean to me! (Score:5, Insightful)
The appeal for Macs is different for each person, some people like Virginia Tech like to make super-computers, others like to composite special effects, and there are lots of people who just want to be able to use their computer with having the OS get in their way because of shoddy design. And some people just think the computers are pretty.
Stop pretending that Windows users are somehow the salt of the earth while Mac users are elitist, especially considering you use the exact same techniques to try to convince people that Windows or Linux is somehow better.
Accept the fact some people like the Mac, it's effective for what they want to do, and the hardware is not 2x as expensive and you know it and the G5 and Intel Duo Core are very powerful parts of very well-designed machines.
If everyone who had a Mac sold it and bought a PC would life be suddenly better for you? If not, then shut up.
Re:OSX Users Aren't more "Technically Adept" (Score:3, Insightful)
Having said all that, very rarely would you need to use the command prompt to install features. You must be thinking of hacking the UI through unsupported means. I used to