Did Anyone Get Hit With The Mac Virus

baloo710

Hi just wondered if anyone got hit with the apple mac virus i heard about? See i was considering buying a mac rather than buying a new pc because people are always telling me that macs never get viruses and that all viruses are made for pcs only. Now im no technical wizz so i dont know if that was true or not but then i heard about a mac virus affecting people and just wondered if it was a big deal or not or was it just a minor thing blown out of proportion?

And if i do buy a mac can anyone recommend a specific one for me just for browsing the internet, basic word processing and photo editing

thanks

John_Gray

No, most of us didn't - we run Windows! <smirk!> :rotfl:

chunkychocky

No idea how big a deal it was, but I know of 5 Macs none of which got it.

gonzo127

well according to the figures you are looking at around 600,000 macs worldwide got the virus, which isnt many considering the population of the world, on the other hand the amount of macs people have its not going to be a high %, in march 2007 it was estimated there was 22 million mac user, and this will have increased quite a bit by now, so we could quite easily be looking at 50+ million macs world wide and only 600,000 of them got the virus so still a quite small % affected (1% ish based on 50mil macs).

this being said if your only/main reason for getting a mac is because of virus's just know that mac's do get virus's and the system is going to get more and more targetted as more people use them (some estimates have stated once macs get a 10% market share virus writers will start to target mac's quite heavily and at the rate of growth of people buying mac's i wouldnt be surprised if that didnt happen in the next year or so)

and if you are only planning on doing the net, office and photo's on it you are really going for massive overkill on price as any system can do them.

POPPYOSCAR

What Mac virus?

Myself and 4 other family members all use Macs, none of us affected.

thescouselander

Any computer can get a virus and anti virus software is not 100% effective. If you're so worried about it perhaps computers aren't for you.

sillygoose

As Gonzo says above Macs are not bullet proof, they may even have more holes in than Windows its just that its not been worth exploring for hackers. I think recent figures show Apple have now overtaken Microsoft in size (but not users) and sales continue at a heady pace - they seem to have an advert every single commercial break on TV. Its conceivable that Apple OS could overtake Windows.

My personal opinion is it will become a time bomb and in the future will get hit hard by hackers. Apple users have relatively little control of their products so dealing with issues will be difficult, everyone will be dependant on 'Mother' Apple identifying and dealing with it. Lets hope they can keep on top of it.

23n1th

The problem with macs as far as security goes is Apple. Apple have been advertising and telling their customers for years that macs don't get viruses. The recent botnet infection only managed to become what it was because of Apples blase attitude to security meaning that a security hole in java that was fixed 6 weeks previously was not passed onto Apples customers until 6 weeks after the fact.

Make no mistake a 600,000 strong botnet is huge for a botnet even by windows standards. And the only thing that stopped it getting bigger was the fact the a security firm brought it to the publics attention forcing apple to do something.

Those not infected were either using security on their macs (but they wont admit to it) or were just lucky they didn't visit an infected website.

I think that the estimated $100,000,000 they've spent on trying to sue their competitors out of business not to mention the time spent trying to patent rectangles and rounded corners and trying to make ebooks more expensive for customers everywhere by underhanded deals with publishing companies could be better spent on security.

Gillor

No Father Christmas? Basil Brush not really a fox? Mac not infallible?

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Surprised we haven't heard from the Linux brigade yet.

gonzo127

Gillor wrote: »

No Father Christmas? Basil Brush not really a fox? Mac not infallible?

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Surprised we haven't heard from the Linux brigade yet.

well i was tempted and even wrote a little on it, then re-read the op and realised it looks like the OP is trying to justify buying a Mac and probably wouldnt be (totaly) open to the different options available to them, so didnt bother

mr_fishbulb

No one did. Macs don't get viruses, dontyaknow? Derrrrrrrrr