Rant: Get a Mac Already!

The sad truth is that there are no viruses or spyware on the Mac because it’s not worth ‘catering’ for them. The proportion of Macs to PCs is still low, so a potential ‘target audience’ is a pretty small one. Unfortunately, as Macs become more and more popular we’re inevitably gonna have to look at ways to prevent these kinds of things and it’s pretty certain that there will be companies out there that will try to cash in on this by charging for software.

I expect to see MacApper reviews of these apps when they come out so I know which one to go for.

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In fact.. I guess my message would be: Don’t get a Mac, cos if you do we’re all gonna get screwed!

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@Mem: First of all, thanks for commenting. Now, I am going to disagree with you, which I hate to do, because I want to encourage people to participate in the conversation… but I feel like I have to.

The idea that you’re supporting, the “Security through Obscurity” argument, in simply wrong. It’s wrong for at least two reasons, one logical and one technical.

First, it’s wrong for logical reasons. Let’s say that you’re right, and the only reason nobody releases viruses for the Mac is because there aren’t enough of them. Now imagine that you are a 16 year-old hacker and what is most important to you is what your l337 friends in the irc chatroom think of you. If you wanted to make a name for yourself, what would you spend more time doing, writing more attacks for WinPCs, or trying to hack the OS that brags about how there are no viruses that can hurt it? Which would make you more famous?

I would argue that, if what you posit is true, then every hacker in the world would be writing viruses for Mac OS X just to shut the braggarts up… and so far, there has not ever been a single virus for Mac OS X out in the wild.

Secondly, the Security through Obscurity argument is wrong for technical reasons too complex for me to go through here. Suffice it to say that every responsible WinPC owner I know spends time and money securing his computer against viruses. I don’t know any Mac users who do… and none of the Mac users I know have ever suffered a virus. QED.

Finally, head over to your local Apple store; there are several anti-virus packages available for purchase. But, nobody buys them because nobody needs them.

‘Nuff said.

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As someone who just switched over to the Mac side, I would like to point out that Spybot is a free app.

Still, your point about waiting for the program to finish is a valid one. I read an article several months ago about a switcher who realized that he was no longer “maintaining” his systems since he switched to a Mac. He calculated how much time he spent each week scanning and protecting his PCs and was amazed. I decided to do the same out of curiosity: it was approximately 2 hours per week for 2 PCs. That’s over 100 hours per year, or almost an entire week!

It is nice having an extra week each year now for the things I enjoy doing, instead of dedicating it to something that I didn’t.

(subscribed to comments)     +1

Don’t be sorry! Disagreeing with someone is a pretty good way to start a conversation.. ha.

To be honest.. I only bought my first Mac (C2D BlackBook) at the beginning of the year after using Windows since pretty much always, so I’m pretty new to all this myself.

I understand what you’re saying about the kudos someone could expect to gain by hacking a mac etc. which would imply that there is a technical reason behind Macs not suffering from viruses.

I know that Windows viruses can’t infect Macs, but are you saying that OS X is just alot more secure than Windows? (genuinely don’t know about this.. I’m just an average user lol).

It’s just that I’ve become a bit weary of potential security flaws being found in Macs more recently.

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I’m afraid i have to agree with Dan. Having had a quick search in Google, there are definitely Mac virus App’s out there from the big companies (Symantec, Sophos etc.), but i then found this: http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20060511065134478
Mem, I agree that it would be nice to have something, preferably as part of the OS, just for piece of mind, but after reading that article on Mac Fix It, it just isn’t worth the effort, or money!

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Don’t fall for antivirus company propoganda. Trust me, there are enough Mac OS X users now to make a virus attack satisfying for the typical malicious hacker.

OS X is an extremely secure and stable system compared to Windows XP. In fact, Windows users can avoid 90% of viruses/spyware just by not using Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer. Most viruses/spyware target parts of the operating system that, for some inexplicable reason, are left wide open in XP — just look at the Sony rootkit fiasco. Even the lack of a registry in OS X halps keep the Mac operating system from falling like a house of cards from accidental changes made by the user.

(subscribed to comments)     +4

>>I know that Windows viruses can’t infect Macs, but are you saying that OS X is just alot more secure than Windows?

Absolutely it is. FreeBSD (what Mac OS X is built on) has long been used by professional web industry mavens like Yahoo/Google because of its speed and security. This has changed a bit with linux maturing, but plenty of big players still swear by it. I think the argument of there being ‘less practice’ and fewer examples of writing malware for *nix based systems lends a lot to the fact that it is so safe. Obviously this will change as Apple’s market share continues to explode, but I doubt it will even reach 10% of what we see happening on Windoze platforms in the last half decade.

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I love seeing this discussion about the virus issue played out and not boiling down to a childish argument. It comes up all the time, and Dan and Miles have hit the biggest points of why “obscurity” is not valid. Especially the point that virus writers would want to be “THE FIRST” to author a successful Apple or *nix virus or malware attack.

I will say that I do have antivirus on my Mac though. I use ClamXav(free) to manually scan MS Office files I get from Windows users before I send them on to other Windows users. Just trying to do my part to protect them from themselves.

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Who would be reading this that doesn’t already have a Mac, or has enough interest in Macs that they were planning on buying one anyway? The latter is the only situation I would expect to see a Windows user reading MacApper.

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1. Spybot is a free application.

2. It’s a neat easter egg.

3. What’s the point of this post?

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If security through obscurity were true, Macs would have a percentage of viruses equal to their market-share. They do not. There are currently none in the wild.

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>>What’s the point of this post?

Read the title - it’s clearly Applelicious propaganda.

Alaternative title: Buy a Mac - Get More Done!

(subscribed to comments)     +0

“Now imagine that you are a 16 year-old hacker and what is most important to you is what your l337 friends in the irc chatroom think of you.” — The “teenage hacker” a more damaging myth to spread. There aren’t a lot of effective 16 year old hackers- probably never was. The “profession” criminals who might use computers for identity theft and disguising identitie is much, much worse and always has been. On the other hand…
I imagine instead I’m a developer at a Anti-spyware company- you want to keep your job, and sell as much of my spyware as possible- Even if I wasn’t writing viruses- I’d hype the threat to everyone as much as possible.
I remember the Atari 2600 “Dungeon” game easter egg- you could find a dot (literally just a pixel) and enter a secret “room” with programmer’s credits- Joy!!

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