Apple Mac users

tombruton87

A peer reviewed paper I read recently predicts apple needs to hit a 16% market share before writing malware for it is fiancially avalaible. I have a few macs. They are notoriously slow at patching stuff. there are still quite a few exploits out there for osx but exploits are differnt to virus's however alot of virus's or virus like software use exploits. Apple main advantage is the user permissions in UNIX are so much better than those in Windows. Lets not 4get apple didnt write there OS, they just made a pretty front end. As most people sit behind a router there OS doesnt get attacked directly.

If you install xp on a machine directly connected to the internet with no routers, switches or firewalls. the odd are in favour that by the time you have updated windows to make it secure you have allready been infected.

there are other reasons why these mac incidents are isolated such as a non shared registry but I wont bore you all.

If you want a system that has all the benefits of mac but dont hav to wait ages for security updates get linux. I am a fedora/arch man myself

macman

Plenty of free Mac AV programs available anyway. I use Sophos AntiVirus, there is also iAntiVirus. Or Kaspersky is free with Barclays online banking, and available in a Mac edn.

thescouselander

macman wrote: »

Plenty of free Mac AV programs available anyway. I use Sophos AntiVirus, there is also iAntiVirus. Or Kaspersky is free with Barclays online banking, and available in a Mac edn.

Do be careful though - there are a lot of fake antivirus programmes out there too.

macman

The ones I mentioned are genuine ones.

m5rcc

Fosterdog wrote: »

I'm a mac user and am far from brainwashed by Apple, please provide a link to somewhere that Apple claim to be completely secure if you are going to throw accusations around.

On the Lion website it states that "with virtually no effort on your part, OS X defends against viruses and other malicious applications, or malware".. Plenty of articles too stating the same.

Fosterdog wrote: »

Mac users tend to be a bit more tech savvy

So all these kids and yuppies who have got onto the Apple bandwagon in recent years to be on the latest craze are "tech savvy".....really?

jayme1

Notmyrealname wrote: »

I'm not an Apple fan boy, just someone who has a MBP. I've MCSE and am a Microsoft Registered Refurbisher. I have Win7 on my desktop as do the kids on their laptops. The wife uses Ubuntu 10.04LTS and I install Linux Mint on any laptop I sell which doesn't come with a Windows licence. Don't give a stuff what the OS is.

Moving on, actually every Windows machine is.

The largest botnet in the world is comprised of computers running Microsoft Update and Microsoft controls this botnet. Yes, this really is a botnet. Don’t confuse the term botnet with the requirement that it send spam, steal information, or attack other computers. A bot is an automated program and a botnet is a group of computer with an automated program that is controlled by the same entity. Microsoft controls what Microsoft Update does. If Microsoft wants to install a piece of software that is completely useless to all customers with legal software, they simply call an anti-piracy program a critical update and all of the Microsoft Update bots obediently download and run the program. If Microsoft wanted to it could make all computers running Microsoft Update send spam, attack other computers, upload documents, and so forth.

you are just splitting hairs over the term botnet, (and you are wrong because 'botnet' is used solely for maliciously compromised computers, which are controlled by the attacker for bad things)

in your definition every iOS user is part of a "botnet" controlled by apple,
every android user is part of a "botnet" controlled by google, (both OSs can be fully controlled by their owners (updates pushed, apps removed))
in fact every piece of software with an automatic update feature would be called a "botnet" to you.

and those iOS/android "botnets" are far worse because you don't have the option to turn those "botnets" off or opt-out,
with Windows update just set Microsoft Update to 'check but don't install' and done, your not part of that "botnet" anymore.

almillar

m5rcc - Microsoft will make similarly bland claims about protecting you too.
Stick with the facts- there are more viruses/malware etc around for Windows. More Windows PCs have them installed too.
OSX has generally been more secure in the past (compared to XP SP2 and older anyway) but Windows has certainly caught up.
NEITHER Windows NOR OSX can make up for the user!

societys_child

Fosterdog wrote: »

Mac users tend to be a bit more tech savvy

Not the ones I've met

Fosterdog wrote: »

(and no I'm not saying all mac users are more techie just the [STRIKE]majority[/STRIKE] minority)

Fixed that for you

23n1th

almillar wrote: »

m5rcc - Microsoft will make similarly bland claims about protecting you too.
Stick with the facts- there are more viruses/malware etc around for Windows. More Windows PCs have them installed too.
OSX has generally been more secure in the past (compared to XP SP2 and older anyway) but Windows has certainly caught up.
NEITHER Windows NOR OSX can make up for the user!

Or third party applications, the way most computers are compromised now-a-days.

23n1th

jayme1 wrote: »

that article's wrong it wasn't microsoft that patched the Java vulnerability because Java isn't made or shipped in Windows, it is oracle (the makers of java) that updated it, the Java situation on Macs is weird because Apple build Java into OS X but then don't let Oracle update it and instead Apple take the patch and wait a while and then push them out.

As far as I'm aware oracle update/patch their software and if it's critical, (ie able to comprise windows) Microsoft will push the update through windows update which can be done quickly. I don't read in the article that Microsoft update java itself, just that they patch windows.