“Microsoft’s AntiSpyware package has not even been released as a finished product, and already it’s been hit by a virus. The BankAsh-A Trojan, as security company Sophos calls it, is the first piece of malware to attack the product, currently available only as a beta download from Microsoft’s website. Designed to steal on-line banking passwords from unsuspecting Windows users, BankAsh disables Microsoft AntiSpyware, attempting to suppress warning messages that Microsoft AntiSpyware may display and deleting all files within the program’s folder. The Trojan also targets users of on-line banks such as Barclays, Cahoot, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide, NatWest and Smile, Sophos said,” Jack Kapica writes for The Globe and Mail Update.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, this is the same Jack Kapica who, on January 13, 2005, wrote, “[for Apple Mac mini’s price] you can get a Dell PC with Windows that kicks butt… Every time I wanted to, I could always find a more powerful PC with attractive features for the same price [as a Mac].” Our response to Kapica’s article on January 13th works even better today:
Kapica wrote, “I could always find a more powerful PC with attractive features for the same price.” Would those “attractive features” include cleaning adware, spyware and malware ad infinitum, reloading Windows semi-annually, and applying Windows patches to patch patches that you thought were patched, but weren’t full-patched three patches ago?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Globe and Mail writer: for Apple Mac mini price ‘you can get a Dell PC with Windows that kicks butt’ – January 13, 2005
This is an article written for all the trolls who frequent MDN…
and especially NoMacForYou !!
Also…this is a good article to email to your PeeCeeFriends, too !
class action suit
class action suit
class action suit
see! windows IS cheap!!!
Oh, yeah.
To put it another way, M$ can’t seem to protect their protection scheme to protect themselves from their own lack of protection.
Kapica, Crapica. Tomato, Tomahto.
It’s all de same, people. Same day, different idiot. Talk about clueless. I think I’ll e-mail him and remind him that children shouldn’t play with sharp computers. But I keed.
No, not really.
ha-HAH. Gotta love it. How do these guys resolve these inner conflicts in logic anyway? Denial – its not just a river in Egypt.
We have been running Apple OSx for three years now.
That’s 3 years with no viruses, no data loss and no reboots.
Thank you Apple!
Today I took my Dad to try out a Mac mini and he thought it was amazing.
We were buying new anti-virus software and spyware blocking software for his HP. He wanted to take a mini home, but they didn’t have any in stock. No one does around here (at least no one I called).
Before we left I noticed another guy admiring the mini. I asked if he used Macs and he said no, but that the price and size caught his attention. He was about my Dad’s age and didn’t seem to know too much about computers in general, so I talked to him for about five minutes and showed him some of the cool things that OS X can do.
He was ready to take one home as well. Both of them were willing to pay full price for the open-box floor model, but the store wasn’t going for it.
Back at Dad’s, I wasted 3 hours of my life trying to get his pc to do anything remotely useful.
178 spyware programs and 324 virus-infected files later, the stupid thing did less than before. He’s taking it to the shop tomorrow for a wipe and restore, what a colossal shame.
Also tomorrow, Dad’s coming over and we are going to order a mini for him and mom. I pointed out to him that the software he bought today cost fully 20% of the price of the mini and it was good money wasted.
I can’t wait for the first time he start to “testify” about the superiority of the Mac.
~M
Definition of TCO:
The Total Cost of Ownership of a computer. The idea is to include such costs as facilities, power, training, support, maintenance, and upgrades, which are often several times price of the original hardware and software.
http://www.consultingtimes.com/glossary.html
so there!
My folks are going overseas via San Francisco in Sept so I wil be getting them to get me a Mac mini for my place from the Apple store. Since they both like art they may ever be tempted to get one for themselves but I doubt it as they still run Win98se and dont really use it that much and only use the net to pick up a few emails so their bill is about $3 NZ a month for internet access. Looking forward to my Mac mini.
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sad…..just sad
I work in a tech department for a school in NY and as I type this, our PC tech is tearing his hair out over a virus (Korgo) that’s slamming the district’s firewall with predictable results. He thought that the problem was solved yesterday, only to come in this morning to find that everything is re-infected.
Our Macs remain unaffected…
I know this is not exactly on topic because I refer to his earlier article, but I just this week configured a Dell Dimension 3000 for a client and transferred all the files from their old POS with Windows 98. They also have Macs due to my constant attention, but the bookkeeper uses Peachtree Accounting, and they don’t have a Mac version (e-mail them, will you folks?).
The Dell has a Celeron D Processor 320 (2.40GHz), 512 MB RAM, XP Pro, 80GB HD, Integrated Graphics, CD/RW (no DVD playback), no monitor, cheapest speakers, keyboard and mouse available, nothing remotely like iLife software, and cost $601. And it’s slow as hell. And MS’s famous “File and Settings Transfer Wizard” missed all her documents, somehow, and all her archived mail in AOL (don’t get me started on that).
Office 97 (she doesn’t want an upgrade) works rather horribly in XP, lots of errors and crashes, but she doesn’t want a bloatware upgrade of that (which MS recommends to resolve the problems).
I actually cannot believe how slowly this supposedly modern system runs! I am sure part of the problem is all the firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware utility activity going on in the background. But you have to have it these days.
This is as close a comparison to a Mac mini I have personally experienced, and I know for $601 you could get a mini that would blow the doors off this Dell Dimension pig.
T
MDN….Your site is the ONLY site EVER where I experience POPUP ADS! What is going on! I use the most up-to-date version of Safari.
I HATE POPUPS!!!!!!!
Can’t you do anything about people hijacking your site? Or are you allowing this shady behavior?
The way I look at it, if every Mac owner can get at least one person to switch, the Mac’s market share would double. I personally know of 3 people that have switched (2 with my direct assistance) just since the Mac mini came out. I still wouldn’t be surprised if Apple reaches 10% market share by 2007. I wonder where the death knell predictions will come from by then…
ToeKnee:
I can describe your slowness problem in two words….
DELL & CELERON
Oh yeah, and as far as the Trojan goes…Less than 50 people have been infected..Thats their fault for opening a malicious email..When will people learn?
That’s part of the problem. The Mac’s market share wouldn’t double if we all got a friend to buy a Mac because we didn’t also buy a Mac. Do you know how many PCs people run through. It’s amazing. I have computers (Macs, of course) from 1999 in my office. (We buy 1 new thing of everything Apple introduces and rotate our stock.) My church as been through four (4) sets of peecees in the same six year span. One breaks, then they replace it. Then they end up replacing all of them for one reason or another. It’s crazy! We are miles ahead of them in the currentness of our computers (not Mac vs. PC, but just the horrible PCs that they buy) and have spent a fraction of the money.
I’ve switched three people so far! but now that my iBook hardrive is dead and my father is buying me a new computer, he thinks i’m getting another labtop but he’s going to be shocked when he gets up and finds out that it’s a new iMac G5 to replace the dull computer that currently sits in front of the computer!
oopss the we are replacing the dull that currently sits in the living area! it’s alo going to make the living area more beautiful, yes I can’t wait then the whole family will be using macs! my oldest sister bought a new computer from gateway for $1300! i was like damn I thoughts macs were expensive?? but she did get better specs than the imac she could have got with the dvd burner and all but she still has windows which is the worst thing on planet earth!!
magic word-food!! as in food for thought you do the dishes!
-ups here.
Wouldn’t a Microsoft move into antivirus/antispyware be a violation of antitrust agreement. Sure they can improve Windows to make it more secure, but to enter the antivirus arena and have there product loaded on Windows? Just wondering.
The only thing I don’t like about visiting this website is having to clean the coffee off of my keyboard and monitor after reading the “MacDailyNews Take:” and yes it does hurt when coffee shoots out of your nose.
“Patches? We don’t need no stinking patches!”