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We switched to Macs with OSx three years ago March....

It has now been three years without a virus, without data loss and without any sort of incident at all. We haven't even had an unscheduled reboot.

The darn Macs just sit there working away with no trouble day after day.

Stable, secure - the Macs just work.

Thank you Apple.

Apple's main problem is that the masses have learned to compute with MS-Windows xx and it is only 8 years since Apple survived a near death experience. It takes time and Steve Jobs like managers at Apple - Macintosh to penetrade in to Business computing. Perhaps IBM could be a factor of importance one day, again.

As long as they stay there course like they have been. I don't see Apple going in the Windows direction with lack of security. OSX is built from the ground up to be secure in the first place.

Apple's biggest vulnerabilty is incompetent IT staff that can make Apple look bad. And buggy software that integrates Macs into Windows networks (Dave).

I have used MAC computers for over 10 years, and I never had an issue with Viruses with them... Not even a "bombing-mail," which was one of my friend's favorite while I was going to High-School!
I have been waiting for a virus on OS X since it got out, and got popular with the masses, but I fail to find any... I am happy, don't get me wrong, but I am always annoyed when I hear people telling me: "Ho, you don't have any viruses on MACs, because nobody uses them!" Well, I am still waiting for one, for half of my classes on campus are MAC switchers... The new MAC MINI is a hit amongst college students/graduates whom are tired of seeing their mail fly by because of some viruses on their PCs, or just tired of seeing their PC laptop just shut down because of the same issue.

Glick7:

Your experience with OS X is exactly like mine. Viruses? Crashes? Unscheduled reboots? What are those?

What happened to the Crack-a-Mac contests?

With all the bragging about how secure OS X is, you'd think it would be a more desirable platform to attack.

p@ul: After 10 years of using the Mac, one would think you'd know how to spell "Mac" properly.

"Mac" is short for "Macintosh", the computer we all know and love. "MAC" is an acronym standing for a multitude of things, "Macintosh" NOT being one of them. See <http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?p=dict&String=exact&Acronym=Mac>.

egarc: What most "journalists" and "anal-ysts" don't understand about the cracker community is this: OS X is indeed quite a desirable platform to attack. Can you imagine the notoriety that some script kiddie would gain were he to be the first to unleash a true let's-do-some-damage virus that propogates on Mac OS X? It's like the holy grail to some of those guys; they'd be god-like in their (former) peers eyes. But the fundamental, technological differences that sets OS X apart from Windows virtually assures that it won't happen, outside of some serious social engineering.

20 years-

You're right and wrong on your point. It would be a giant feather in the hat of a script kiddie to bring down the Mac community. But, like in real life a virus must pass from the host to someone else. If the person or animal rarely encounters others the virus can't move around.

Windows are everywhere so it is easy to spread. Add in the relative scarcity of the Mac and its overall better security and it is ripe for safety. Get 20% of the market and that could easily change.

BTW, I'm no biologist, don't slam me. I was just illustrating a point.

Re While Microsoft’s Windows is less than perfect security wise, Apple hardly has to worry about its OS X platform

That's nonsense. The reason Mac OS X is so much more secure than Windows is precisely because Apple sweats the security details more than Microsoft does. Apple's system and application software engineers worry all the time about security.

It's Apple users who don't have to worry about it.

Jerry T: you are under the "security by obscurity".
There are over millions of OS X machines around the world for a virus to make the turn and visit you in minutes after you are connected.
To a virus a machine is an IP number, AND, as Macs can inoculate a Windows machine just passing the virus or trojan around without being affected the same thing could do a Windows machine.

A virus is - most of the times - just a piece of C or C++ code. It only happens that the code it exploits is Windows only but there is ABSOLUTELY NO TECHNICAL ISSUES to make a multi-platform virus and infect - if it can - whatever platform.

People - and you - when they try to figure out the situation they employ a VERY WRONG mental picture. They compare Windows - OS X usage as people at a stadium. The Windows stadium is full and the OS X almost empty. They reason that *obviously* if someone sneezes you are more likely to get the flu in the Windows stadium than in the OS X one.

What people do not realize is that there are NO TWO STADIUM. It is the very same crowded stadium for all of us, the internet, and each seat has an IP number. If someone sneezes only the ones with deficitary immune Windows system get the virus. Others could not care less.

The virus will visit EVERY AND EACH one at the internet stadium, and infect the weak ones, which happen to be as well the majority at the interned stadium.

Seahawk makes a fair point, even though the grammar is a bit dodgy.

Sure, there is the exponential nature of virus spreading that is directly related to the number of infected machines.

But the only difference due to the sheer number of machines around is the highest peak rate of infection. While Windows at highest spread suffer from an infection in a matter of seconds after first connection (MSBlaster had an average infection time of 29 seconds for an unprotected PC but had an rate in terms of hours at the beginning.

Well, maybe an OS X virus will infect you in matters of hours while connected but be sure of one thing: YOU WOULD AND WILL BE INFECTED if an OS X virus was released in the wild.

Numbers or market share in a very stupid justification that M$ PR took out of the hat to explain why they are so weak security wise.
They are weak because they can be attacked efficiently by a hacker exploiting a huge number of OS weaknesses, not because there are lots of machines.

If Windows was bullet proof they could be in the BILLIONS and not suffer from viruses.

Incidentally, even if you reverse the market share figures between Windows and OS X you STILL would get more infection on Windows than on OS X if OS X will hold against a successful virus the same rate of infection of BSD Unix - being practically that.

sorry for the grammar beatsme, late, not rereading, English is not my mother tongue.

I use OS X.

Can someone tell me exactly 'what is a virus????'

At the end of the day it don't matter how many millions of people use whatever OS.

The bottom line is if an OS is unsecure, it is unsecure - period.

M$ saying that "because they have so many people using windows that this makes the OS unsecure" IS TOTAL BOLLOCKS!

The fact is Windows IS an unsecure OS because it is a patchwork of bug fixes, programing cock-ups and generally very bad programing and NOT because millions of people use it!

Bill Gates and Monkey Boy talking out of their ass as usual!

I think people need to keep in mind that "script-kiddies" and "glory crackers" are no longer responsible for the vast majority of the nasty stuff propogating through the Internet. It's spammers and organized criminals. They want to make/steal a buck, not just show off. For them, there's no upside to attacking Macs. There's too few of them and it's way too hard to do to make it a profitable venture.

"[...] While there have been a few instances of Macintosh exploitations, they were far from threatening."

I haven't seen any exploits involving Macintoshes. Not even a few. None. There have been some scary things, sure. But none that were exploited...

The facts speak for themselves. There has never been a proof of concept virus for OS X.

Proof of concept exploits have been found but nothing that can propagate. Even if OS X had 90% market share, propagating an exploit, a la Melissa, is likely not possible with OS X.

Security by obscurity is just an MS fanboy excuse for using an inferior OS.

'Could Apple's Mac OS X ever become Microsoft Windows?'

Sure, if Apple wanted to develop a dull OS with a bulls eye strapped to it for viruses.

Pretty good defusing of the Symantec FUD. Good for him or her. Gundeep?

Seahawk: Your stadium analogy is terrific.

I have always relayed to friends the usual points about why OSX is so secure over Windows, however, there has always been a lingering doubt in the back of my mind over the marketshare issue. Your analogy, for me at least, dispells those secret dark concerns once and for all.

Today I showed our PC tech personnel how easy it was to just plug in a monitor to a Powerbook and instantly use that monitor as a second desktop. I showed him how "easy" it was to do the same thing on a Toshiba M2--15 seconds vs. 5 min of setup (more like guesswork).

My Mac remembers which display the app had opened to. The PC does not. The PC has a lot of options and settings, all of which are needlessly complicated. On the Mac, it's just choosing on Prefs whether I want to mirror the display or not. Everything else, it remembers.

For me, the Mac has been, and continues to be, the finest personal computer I have ever used. OS X has also been the finest operating system I have ever used.

Why is microsoft a target?
Why is microsoft hated?

RadioMoscow: BECAUSE.

:D

RadioMoscow: your are kidding, right? People here could start a whole new website on the reasons why M$ is hated and why they fully deserve that.