Posted on 05/11/2006 1:24:06 PM PDT by quidnunc
There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.
Here are a few questions about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained a question about security software for Macs.
If you have a question, send it to me at mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg's Mailbox.
Q: There's been a lot of press lately about increased virus activity on the Macintosh platform. Should Mac owners now be running the same kinds of security software that Windows owners use?
A: There is no sudden security crisis on the Apple Macintosh platform. In fact, for average Mac users, there isn't a security threat of any significance, at least not yet. It is laughable to compare the real, massive and burdensome security problems on Windows with the largely theoretical security problem on the Mac.
As I have said in the past, no operating system is invulnerable to attack, including Apple's Mac OS X operating system, which powers Macintosh computers. It is possible to write malicious software for the Mac, including viruses and spyware, and it is possible for this software to spread in the wild, infecting many Macs.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at ptech.wsj.com ...
yeah, I'm running it under Cedega, with about 7-8 other programs going on my machine--downloading, editing, and playing music, I've got about a dozen or so tabs open in Firefox, and I'm editing e-mail. Each is pretty light on resources, but they tend to distract my machine a little.
BTW--I'm NOT DLing music--it's a Linux ISO, and I'm editing some embedded Linux C++ code for work. The phrase I used came out a little more confusing than intended.
what kind of laptop is that? how many MHZ what kind of processor and ram?
It's a Sager 8890. It's got a 3.2Ghz CPU with 1G Ram.
hmmm... do you know if the ram is cas2 or cas 3?
Actually, I don't. It hasn't affected me one way or another since I've owned it. My windows games I play under Cedega are usually faster than under Windows, so I haven't had reason to care.
with my 2.2ghz Athlon 3500+(not overclocked) i get 17.612 seconds
Let us know when one of these things breaks out into the wild.
But for the sake of discussion, let's say you're right, and the only reason Macs aren't attacked is that there aren't as many of them, so hackers don't bother.
Are you then concluding that you shouldn't buy or use a Mac today because of what might happen years from now when/if Macs achieve greater market share?
If you want to find out download this here it will tell you a bunch of stuff. small program.
Heavens no! All I'm concluding is you and I are free to buy whatever we wish to buy. Just don't be so niave to think that you're safer because Macs or Firefox are somehow inherently more secure than the crap from Redmond.
Like my grandmother's house, it wasn't the house that was so secure that she didn't have to lock the front door, it was the neighborhood she lived in. As the neighborhood grew and matured, she found out that the very same house was becoming more and more vulnerable.
But the evidence says that although Macs are not 100% ironclad secure, they are not hit nearly as often or as hard as Windows boxes are. I would conclude from the evidence, that I am safer using a Mac at the present time, according to the available evidence.
Now, I use both. My everyday-use computer is a WinXP box, using Firefox and Thunderbird, with Zone Alarm Pro and Grisoft Antivirus to protect me. My video editing computer, sitting a few feet away, is a PowerMac Quadcore G5.
Of the two, the G5 is far more secure, and I've never had a single security issue with it. Never with the Quadcore, or the dual 2GHz G5 before it, or the dual 1.42 GHz G4 before that, or the dual 1.25GHz G4 before that, or the dual 1GHz G4 before that, or the dual 800MHz before that.
I understand your point. I work at a television station and we have lots of Macs running Final Cut Pro in our edit suites. The problems aren't security, the problems are crashes in the middle of an all night project.
I'm sure you agree with that?
In any case, I agree that the evidence is that your Macs are ignored by hackers.
Configured properly, there will be very few, if any, crashes. I haven't experienced a crash since Jaguar.
In any case, I agree that the evidence is that your Macs are ignored by hackers.
I don't see evidence that leads to that conclusion. I mean, to draw that conclusion, you'd have to know how many hackers have TRIED to build a virus, trojan, or whatever, for Macs. You only hear about attempts that have some level of success, even if they never make it into the wild.
gotcha.
I've got Zenwalk on a 433 mhz laptop with 198 mb of ram. Put it on about a month ago, and is the first time in years the thing is actually a pleasure to use. Used to run Mepis on it, but it was just too much.
Now, it boots in under a minute (a real feat with a computer this slow) and everything, even wireless, is rock solid.
Well, configured properly, an XP machine is secure.
Maybe the correct configuration for an XP machine is to uninstall windows and install Linux.
I bought a copy of Pixel - not bad, definitely worthwhile addition to my Linux laptop.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Regards, Ivan
My latest project is to use Linux to revive a first generation iMac that my parents have at home (I'm choosing Yellow Dog Linux for that). If I can get it into a viable state, then we'll give it to a local school.
Just spreading the word of Linux...
Regards, Ivan
If i really need to do something I will just reboot and do it in windows.
Yea, you will be able to upgrade to version 2 and use it on multi-platorms according to the website.
Your calclulations are idiotic and wrong and irrelevant. You are a troll, just as bad as a DUer invading Freerepublic.
ALL of these are FUD spread with the sole purpose of trying to sell unneeded spyware that the spreaders are offering. Read what Walt Mossberg wrote in the Wall street Journal, Yo-Yo...
However, despite what you may have heard, this hasn't happened to any degree that matters, yet. As of today, there have been exactly two documented, successful pieces of malicious software -- viruses, trojan horses, worms -- that affected users of the Mac OS X operating system, since it was released in 2001. And these two failed to spread much, affecting probably a few dozen people, and doing no harm. I expect there to be a small number of additional Mac viruses this year.By contrast, there are over 100,000 reported viruses for Windows, some of which have affected millions of people and have done significant economic damage. As for spyware, I know of no documented cases on Mac OS X, while there are certainly thousands on Windows. These Windows viruses and spyware can't run on the Mac operating system, even on Macs powered by the same Intel processors used by Windows PCs.
There is a difference between a vulnerability and an exploit... as to the rarity of Macs, Consumers Reports and Popular Science BOTH, based on scientific surveys of computer users, estimate that there are between 20,000,000 and 25,000,000 Mac users. Apple says there are more than 15,000,000 OS X users.
Security patches are issued to fix discovered vulnerabilities that may or may not have been exploited.
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