Here’s a billion-dollar question: Why are Windows users besieged by security exploits, but Mac users are not? John Gruber is discussing why this happens and ultimately concludes that it doesn’t matter why, what it matters is that you can’t argue with facts.
Security Differences Between Windows and Mac OS X
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Once again, a Mac Zealot is trying to preach to the world that he is more secure than you, because he is obscure. In fact he even mentions the whole security through obscurity as his main point. Let me paraphrase the problem in a manner that Mac users can understand:
You have a house in the woods, where only 3 people know where it is. The locks on the door are broken. Now at the moment, you feel pretty safe, noone knows the location of your house. Then a thief on a random wilderness hike, stumbles across your house, he tries the door, it opens, you have been robbed. Obscurity offers MINOR at best security.
If Macs meant anything to markets, their would be spyware for them. But since spyware/adware only makes a small fraction of a penny per computer, it isn’t cost effective to place on Mac’s. There are well known and well documented OS X exploits, as much as Apple refuses to publically admitt to it.
Run Mozilla browser on you Windows box, and you cut out 90% of your adware/spyware.
For the record, I actively use, Windows, Netware, and linux.
90.000 virusses for Windows. Conclusion: trash it.
If you have adware installed on your computer, however, even switching to a pop-up-blocking browser won’t make them stop — the ads are coming from hidden applications running on your computer.
Get adaware, first scan with Adaware 6, it found 200= I wish MS would fix windows. Ofcourse Mac OS X is built ontop of FreeBSD. As far as browsers I never use or have used IE accept when a site required.
All you ppl talking about marketshare are missing the point. If OSX had 90% marketshare, or just a lot for that matter, of course it would be attacked more. Thank you Captain Obvious. The real point here IMHO is that OSX is more secure than Windows. This is a fact. Yes, all OS will have there vulns, this is also a given. But, there is a HUGE difference in attacking an OS that was built secure by design from the ground up and an OS that was built like swiss cheese from the ground up.
I work in IT security, and I can say with great confidence that all versions of Windows miserably fail all security fundamentals. MS just does not get it. .NET is their next big thing for developers and it coupled with IE and active X ridiclously lousy security is just another nightmare waiting to happen. We have already deployed 2 major internal .NET based app servers. Both require you use IE for the apps….duh, it is MS we are talking about here. Second, they also require you turn off or way down tons of the IE active X security settings…lest you get constantly prompted by IE to accept the .NET server’s active x process’. So now we have great web based .NET app servers for our users, but the minute they start surfing the Internet IE and their systems can get raped. At this point we are looking at forcing all users to use Mozilla Firefox for the Internet and IE for Intranet.
Its funny, I don’t seem to have to deal with this nonsense with our Linux based web app servers (apache, php, mysql). MS just doesnt get it. They never have. Maybe with Longhorn they will, I don’t know.
For the record: My personal setup is 2 Linux servers, (one Gentoo and one SuSE), a Windows XP gaming rig, and my primary constant in use system is an Apple Powerbook with OSX.
//90.000 virusses for Windows. Conclusion: trash it.//
Actually, it’s more like 90,000.
Conclusion: Norton AntiVirus.
Result: Not *ONE FREAKIN’ VIRUS* has ever infected my PC, since I started using Windows 95.
Fud-o-rama.
Norton Anti-Virus is commercial software, which means you have to pay extra to get it. If you can’t afford it, you’re vulnerable.
This sounds like a protection racket to me…
“Conclusion: Norton AntiVirus.
Result: Not *ONE FREAKIN’ VIRUS* has ever infected my PC, since I started using Windows 95.”
First of all you’re quite lucky. If you actually read the article here, you will notice that even the a great uber windows expert like Paul Thurott got nailed. I’ve seen some of my best IT ppl here get bitten, so it happens….face it.
Aside from that, how well does Norton do on Adware, Spyware, and other Malware? How well does it protect you from Windows vulns resulting in bad guys executing code on your system?
Windows can be secured sure, but I look at it like this. Windows is like a house with no doors or windows. You have to buy your own doors and windows via Norton, adaware, Mozilla if youre smart etc. On the other hand, OSX has doors and windows. I would compare OSX vulns to somebody accidently leaving a window open every now and then.
“This just isn’t a problem on the Mac. Even if you ended up with piece of crapware installed, there simply aren’t that many places where it could hide. Assuming the crapware needs to launch itself automatically, it’s either going to be installed in one of the various /Library sub-folders, or it has to be listed in your user account’s Startup Items in the Accounts panel of System Preferences.”
Anyone with any UNIX knowledge at all knows that this statement, simply, is not ture.
Agreed. That was kind of strange. First off in order for a potential virus to place itself in certain places as well as modify init scripts…..it would have to have root access. This isn’t going to happen in OSX.
Another thing I would like to mention regarding a potential piece of malware in OSX. When you’re in Windows your machine can just get cluster !@#$%^&*() in hundreds of places. Everything from files all over the place to dozens of registry entries. It can be a real chore to clean up. With OSX….for the purpose of theory lets assume you did have something bad in a user folder….all you have to do is drag that crap to the trash to remove it.
get rid of most if not all problems……
– stop using IE, use Mozilla instead
– don’t use the admin account, create a new account that doesn’t have local admin access
– buy a linksys or netgear firewall
– stop using P2P software!
OR
cough up the $ and get a Mac
J.
Or just install a Linux distro like SuSE, Mandrake, etc on their current hardware which is by far a cheaper solution than going to Apple to purchase a turnkey system just to have the features in OSX.