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Maybe the Mac users detected a Windows virus and didn't know the difference.

Consumer Reports has always been biased against Apple ...
Unfortunately they hold a lot of sway on the average consumer and many people refer to them ...

Someone needs to insist they publish a retraction for this sloppy work

I think CR is including viruses that end up in peoples email inboxes from other infected people, even though they don't infect Macs. So they delete the infected emails, and some how this counts as deleting viruses from their Macs. While others don't even know that the email is a virus, so don't report it as them deleting a virus. That is the only way I see this possible.

It could also be... "Viruses" is a buzzword sometimes, and people blame anything and everything that goes wrong on "could it be a virus?" I'm asked that quite frequently by Mac users who just don't know any better.

So this "yeah I had a virus" could be a false alarm.

Technically, I could answer yes to detecting a virus in the last two years, that being the Thus macro virus on my daughters iMac. Blame lies with Microsoft and not Apple but it was still technically a detected virus on a Mac. (Running Panther at the time, scanned with ClamX)

Antivirus programs for the Mac can detect messages harboring Windows virii. Could that be the answer?

Detecting a virus and being infected are two different things. My neighbor gets corrupted emails from her sister, she is convinced that her computer is acting poorly because of it. All that was needed was to repair permissions - which hadn't been done in 6 months. She is convinced that that removed the viruses. Sigh, what do you do, she's in her 50's and has advanced technically as far as she wishes to go. She is the one who would respond to Consumer Reports negatively.

a perfect example of why CR needs to stick to cars and home appliances, and leave all electronics alone. they clearly have no freaking idea what they're doing, and they dis-serve the public and the companies whose products they misrepresent.

I will ask this question again: Has anyone here had a virus, spyware, adware infection in OS X? I have searched for examples and found one person who claimed that they had adware installed, but that was it. Trojans don't count. (They can work on any system, and can be avoided with common sense.)

I think that anyone who claims that OS X has a few viruses is someone who does not use OS X regularly or at all.

Thus was/is a Word 97 macro virus. On the 13th of December when an infected document is opened, the virus will attempt to delete ALL files on drive C: (including subdirectories).

Mac's have never had a "drive C:" and therefore were/are immune.

I think it is just a matter of unclear wording - I use Mac OSX and "detect" a windows virus in my email every few days.
Oh, my "file is attached"? From a complete stranger named ? Oh, that must be just the .PIF or .SCR or .EXE I was looking for....I wish my stupid Mac would let me open up such valuable attachments from new friends.

I agree with the comments made already.
There needs to be a clear distinction made between a virus actively corrupting the OS, and one that is inherently impotent and merely disseminated by Macro viruses.
I had one friend who works on Macs only, and just could not send an email attachment to someone at one of the big corporate companies. He kept getting the automated reply saying that the corp's antivirus scanning rejected his infected file. Therefore my friend believed he had a virus on his PowerMac. So yes, he may have one, but whether it actually affected his computer's stability or not, he wasn't sure. He was just glad that he could still continue working away.
Sadly, I doubt we'll ever get the real story out of this Consumer Report.... its going to be nigh on impossible to contact all those surveyed to clarify the answer.
Shame... Microsoft will definitely take advantage of this report.
I just hope MDN's initiative will get some response back from CR.

I've written to CR before about Mac issues. Frankly, bombarding them will have the opposite effect of "educating" them. CR will just take an even less informed position. The only response about a computer report I ever got that was remotely considerate was asking that the prices of the monitors be counted separately from the price of the CPUs. They used to lump them together. Not everyone needs a monitor. CR responded politely and actually started to do just what I suggested.

About computers in general, CR is horrendously ambiguous. Informed readers will pretty much ignore what they say (although the tech support numbers are what they are). Casual or newbie readers will come away badly informed.

For example, CR rated a Kodak digital camera very highly. However, no where could you tell that it uses a propriery USB cable and proprietary batteries. These are basic pieces of information that guide a purchase. This is the type of thing that seems to effect Mac reviews in CR more than other brands (like not mentioning iLife, saying that Apple Mail costs $129, failing to mention there are no viruses that effect OS X).

I think CR should just stay away from electronics as a whole. Leave the stereos, digi-cams, computers, and MP3 players, etc. to the folks who know what they are doing.

CR - please name one piece of spyware, malware, or virus that effects OS X. Then tell me how your Macintosh respondents determined they were effected.

The article talks about DETECTING a virus. My Mac DETECTED a virus a couple of months ago. Don't ask me why, but Virex popped up and said "We've discovered a virus!". I took the appropriate actions.

Probably a Windows virus or something. But the point is still the same. They didn't say "20% HAD a Mac virus". They said "20% DETECTED a Mac virus." HUGE difference.

All told.... I think there were more than just 25 viruses which affected the "Classic" Mac OSs .... I think I read somewhere the actual number was closer to 68...

(Can anyone confirm this ?)

But, still... whats 68 compared to the 80,000 viruses (or so) which affect that "Virus Magnet" DOS system from Redmond ?

But wait, there is more... (for registered users)

"Windows or Macintosh?"
More home-entertainment software is available for Windows computers than for Macs. Apple's computers, however, have attractions of their own. An Apple PC will suit you if you're especially interested in photo editing, music, video, and other multimedia applications. The brand repeatedly scores at or near the top in our Ratings (available to subscribers) for reliability and tech support. In fact, our recent survey of desktop computer users, subscribers rated Apple more than 20 points ahead of the pack for tech support. Viruses and spyware are also far less likely to target Macs than Windows PCs, judging by the number of viruses estimated to target each computing platform--a ratio of about 1,000 to 1.

It is not clear from their survey methodology what it really means when 'Mac owners surveyed detecting a virus in the past two years'. For instance obvious questions arise:

Was the virus on a Mac? Do Mac owners own both PCs and Macs? Did they switch from a PC to a Mac in the past two years? Do people really know the difference between a virus and a pop-under ad? Not knowing how they compiled and adjusted the survey data makes me wonder if their findings are somewhat meaningless.

As a Mac owner, I detected hundreds of viruses a day on my Windows XP and 2000 machines.

My ISP often alerts me of an attached virus, and removes it from my spam. An uninformed Mac user may take this to mean that a potential Mac virus was removed. This could explain the alleged twenty percent.

I've detected many viruses and spware in OS X. It happens almost every time I scan files after copying them from a switcher's Windows drive to set up their new Mac.

Consumers report will get more mail ragging on this report than any in their histoire.

CR didn't say that 20% of Macs had viruses; they said that 20% of their readers claimed to have detected virus. Simple conclusion: 20% of their readers are idiots.

Stephen (who is hopefully one of the 80%)

And a LOT of ignorant false info against Macs.

Aren't they supposed to be the experts and not get so much wrong?

I'd hate to be shopping for a computer with THEIR help/

I had a whole bunch of viruses on my mac once.

See, I had the flu and accidentally had a uncontrolled outburst from my nose...

However, this did not affect the overall performance of my system. Still, thought I´d mention it since this is the worst trauma I´ve experienced with my mac...

Russell, have 10 people read that sentence and ask them what they understand it to mean. It's careless wording at best. For an organization that's self-proclaimed mission it is to inform the consumer, they fail miserably in this specific article. That's irrefutable.

I've always lumped CR in with the rest of the "news" media. From my experience, a high percentage of their reports include bias, ignorance or fiction. I go anywhere else but CR for info on purchasing decisions.

I have also experienced viruses on Macs and on a Mac Server I periodically run on a network. The Server viruses are always isolated in a folder serving a Windows specific database. The viruses on other Macs have always been Word, Excel, or one, as I recall, in PowerPoint. Sometimes, I get Word documents fomr a school district which very often contain viruses. They are restricted to those documents. Other times, I may get a stray Windows virus that came in through someone else. They sit there causing no problems until I find them. I don't always run AV software, but I prefer VirusBarrier. It has been very efficient and runs quietly in the background. Word and Excel virii only affect those documents and nothing else. They are not really viruses targeting Macs, but tag alongs that sit there and can be an issue if I have to send them to someone on a PC.

However, CR has often written things that were absolutely false, and, although I find it interesting to see what they say at times, I stopped trusting them a long time ago. My past concerns have nothing to do with computers. Right now, I am thinking about an inaccurate review of motor scooters written by someone who probably spent just 20 minutes on one. But, there have also been other products that they just didn't get.

This article appears to be based on conclusions which are clearly misleading or plain wrong, written by people who do not know the Mac, or don't know how to write survey questions (more likely). I have no doubt that this reflects the results of their survey. However, I would suspect that the survey questions themselves were written poorly causing people to give misleading answers and misstate conclusions. Bad.

Inescapable conclusion...

66% of PC owners detected a virus in the last 2 years
95% of desktops are PCs

> 63% of PCs were infected during the last 2 years

20% of Mac owners detected a virus in the last 2 years
3% of desktops are Macs

> 0.6% of desktop users during the last 2 years
don't realize they're not using a Mac

Sorry. I see now that 'brando'said it first, and said it better.

If any viruses were detected it would be a PC virus that doesn't effect OSX. I've worked with OSX since the beta was released and have never gotten a virus.

“Virii” is not a word and certainly not the plural of “virus.” Check any dictionary, or this reference:

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html

I really enjoy CR and find it to be a very useful tool most of the time. But when it comes to computers, they're abysmal. Their info on Apple ranges from vague to flat out incorrect. I was shocked to see this info in the latest issue. The also made some mention of how it's unknown if the switch to Intel means that Macs will have more viruses or not. No, actually it is known. Viruses have absolutely nothing to do with the hardware - only the OS.

On top of that, when they list the different categories of desktop computers, for PCs they list "budget", and "workhorse" models separately. For Macs, they lump them both together and the only ones they list are the high end iMac and the low end eMac. No mention whatsoever of the G5 or Mac mini.

I've often wanted to write to them to correct all the mistakes and misinformation until I realize how much time it would take to do so.

Does anyone know a way to always keep an application open....so it can't be quit out of without a password. I use a mac in my business as a kiosk but customers keep quitting out of the program i want them to use and start messing around with it. Any help would be appreciated

Be realistic, Consumer Reports starts with a slant that every company is up to something evil somehow, somewhere, and if they don't find something, they will be perceived as not doing their "job."

Nothing against Consumer Reports per se, but you have to take what they say with that idea in mind. The information can be valuable if you take it with a grain of salt. I have had a few cars that Consumer Reports did not rate highly at the time over the years, but I had not problem with them. Who knows, I might have even bought them more cheaply because a less than stellar CR rating might have driven their $ value down.

I read their stuff, but make my own decisions based upon my own research. They tend to take events that are not that statistically significant, and make them seem more important than they are in the real world because, as I said, they start out with a jaundiced view and sometimes see what they want to see.

How many people on this site actually subscribe to CR, and as a result, get the annual survey from Consumer's Union printed in an extremely tiny typeface? That survey requires a great deal of concentration, is multiple pages of all sorts of topics from lawn tools to paint to appliances and cars to electronics and toothpaste and it's entirely possible that some folks misinterpreted the question or merely answered all questions in a particular section the same way because they're all the same anyway, right? It all goes back to that old adage - GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. I'm not sure they took enough of that concept into consideration when creating the survey. They obviously left plenty room for uncertainty in the use of the word "detecting", and that was most likely intentional on their part, for the very reason that even if respondents did know what they were talking about, they probably couldn't have been more specific anyway.

I recall completing that survey and thinking at the time that this virus thing was going to come back and bite 'em. Personally, I haven't seen, experienced effects from, detected, or removed any sort of virus from a Mac I've been working on for the last 4 years on any version of OSX, and I've kept up my definitions on both Norton & Virex, which probably makes me an unusual case to begin with.

And just a word to the wise - keep in mind that sound, logical and well-reasoned letters in CU's direction on this topic will get noticed much faster than the flaming rant. Sure will be interesting to see if they respond, or include any letters to the editor along these lines in future issues. I'm hoping they'll at least respond to MDN with something more than hiding behind the veil of "Well, that's what our readers told us in our survey, and we believe 'em, so that should be enough for you, too."

There are uninformed PC users out there who do use Apple from time to time who may think that just becasue they have received a virus in an email attachment on the Mac that they are using that it means they now have a virus on their Mac regardless of whether it ACTUALLY affects the computer or not.

I actually had Virus detect a Windows virus once on my Mac. Of course, it was absolutely harmless since it's a Windows virus obviously. Therefore I certainly don't think that should count in any reputable survey. Just another example of ignorant reporting by the MSM...

Saying you've seen lightening during a thunder storm is one thing. Consumer Reports seems to be saying, assuming the typical user of Apple computers could tell the difference, that 20% have seen "lightening". It doesn't mean that the 20% have been struck by it. It's a point that definately needs to be clarified. On a related subject, the average PC owner(NOT the types who are on fan sites)are obviously often clueless. Why should it be any different for the average Apple user? (again not the MDN types)

>"lightening".>

SB lightning!

Unless you're talking about lightening up.

That would be---definitely--- also.

You tell them what's what, MDN. I feakin love you guys/gals for protecting the Mac community. Keep it up!






MDN Magic WD: Keep, as in Keep Rockin!

I can confirm my iBook "detecting" a virus in the last two weeks... of course that was a .exe virus file that Virex put in the Trash for me (I took a quick look just to see). Had I been on my office PC when I opened the email, oh wait, I would not have been so crazy as to just open email on a PC, my bad.

That would count as a virus for more novice users who did not know that .exe is a Windows only executable and would not effect the Mac.

It´s a good thing that MDN keeps an open eye, and help prevent this kind of misinformation!!!!

Remember that this is most likely swallowed like a chilled bud by anyone reading it, (including myself if I did´nt know any better).

I wish the rest of the world could be informed of the supreme benefits by using OSX instead of competing OS´s.

I have a dream... that the next time I tell someone about OSX= 0 viruses, they will reply; I know...

I am sure it was probably either some flaw in the way the questions were worded and Mac Users who also owned a PC answered "Yes" cuz they had a virus on their PC OR they were utterly clueless and had no idea really what a virus is or what it does and just answered "Yes" out of ignorance.

I wonder what percentage of people would answer "Yes" that they had seen a ghost in the past year or had a personal visitation by an angel?

It does make the whole report suspect a bit since there are NO MAC VIRUSES and these smucks are reporting that 20 percent of Mac Users experienced something that does not exist.

The worst thing that happens to my Mac from all the various ills out there is bloated log files. Nothing gets through...

If they had asked me if I ever detected a virus on my Mac, I would have answered YES.

If they had asked me if a virus ever infected my Mac, I would have answered NO.

Much depends on the way the question is asked. In the first case I detected the worm Bagle B or F. I detected it because I was receiving e-mails with attachments (the worm) from people who had never sent me mail. Just sent the damned things to trash.

seems like some people don't know the viruses from their ars*hole.

Or PC users are trying to diss Macs !

People like me could have distorted the findings:

I am a Mac owner.
I have detected viruses in the last two years. Really.

...because I am also a Windows owner!

I'd like to know how their survey was worded.

I guess I'm in the 20 percent of Mac users who "detected" a virus, because I have received Windows viruses/trojans/worms from friends and even people whom I have never known. Of course, it didn't affect my Mac one bit, except to fill my Inbox in Mail for a couple of days before the Windows user figured out his/her problem, wiped their hard drive, and reinstalled Windows.

I "detected" viruses too on my iMacs, but ClamXav and Virex both quarantined them and eradicated so they would not be rerouted out to the Internet to adversely affect WinTel systems. Oh, too late. Those are where they CAME from.

Maybe Consumer's Reports should have said "affected" Macs. i.e. network and bandwidth issues caused by all the malware that DIRECTLY affects Wintel and Linux systems and is noticed by Macs as slowdowns occur.

-- 8 percent of Mac users reported a spyware infection in the last six months vs. 54 percent of Windows PC users.

What?! Only 54 percent? I work repairing Windows PC's, and I don't think I've worked on a single one that didn't have at least one piece of spyware installed.