Mac vs. PC: The Ultimate Lab Test for New Desktops & Laptops

Popular Mechanics ^ | May 2008 | By Glenn Derene

[discostu]

Never heard of it. That’s what happens when I create users. Don’t like it? Too bad. Don’t really care what a guy who turns discussions personal for no good reason likes.

[Spktyr]

Mmm-hmmm.... suuuure.

The thing is, what you see is not what 99% of the people running Windows XP sees or gets. So, basically, so much for that “don’t run as admin” advisory, because unless you’re a developer running the special developer version AND you know the lusrmgr.msc snap-in is there... you’re running as admin when you add a new user, by default.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"Yes we almost all do run as admin, heck even I do most of the time..."

On WinXP, I do, following the same hygiene and cautions you mention. XP's nonprivileged user accounts are just too limited and annoying. On Linux, however, where I do my "personal" computing, I very very rarely ever need to invoke my root password or switch to su, and never actually log in as root. Linux user accounts are way more functional than XP's. And, in principle, if you do something really stupid like opening an infected email or following a malware link, you risk only your particular user account. At least that's the status right now, with Linux registering merely a blip on the desktop-o-meter. That might change, with hundreds of thousands of Eees and things like that out there, which log you in as root... tempting for the malware writers.

[discostu]

A lot of the problem with non-Admin accounts in Windows aren’t actually MS’s fault. Third party developers, including the people are work for, tend to be rather lazy and do things in a way, especially during install, that requires administrative privileges, but that way isn’t actually necessary. There are cleaner ways to do things that will work fine when done by non-admin users but nobody does it. All those same things you can do under Linux that keep you from having run as root can be done under Windows, it’s just harder programatically so nobody does it. MS has been trying to address this but so far it’s not working, it’s hard to change the habits of so many companies, especially since MS does a poor job of leading by example.

It’ll be interesting when enough programmers and users of Linux and Mac have developed bad habits that the malware guys are willing to put the work into infecting those systems. I know a few people at MS that will be laughing so hard they’ll be at risk of being committed. Not to say Windows doesn’t have plenty of its own security holes, but people with bad habits will always be a big hole.

[HAL9000]

It’ll be interesting when enough programmers and users of Linux and Mac have developed bad habits that the malware guys are willing to put the work into infecting those systems.

Linux exists in a state of chaos, so "bad habits" are a real risk there.

Malware is less likely to succeed in exploiting programming errors on Macs. Mac OS X has a stable, mature application framework that can help avoid coding errors which could result in vulnerabilities. Developers are strongly encouraged to use the framework (but are not required to).

[discostu]

I’m mostly thinking Mac becomes vulnerable if the install base starts getting up over 30%, at that point you’ll have a lot more people programing for Macs who can’t be bothered with things like the framework, and a lot of users hanging out in the dark corners of the internet and not being smart about it. If you take the “iloveyou” virus as symptomatic then about 10% of the people out there are just dumb, when you have a 5, 10 or 15 million user install base the dumb 10% are still a small enough number that they don’t comprise their own heard that catches all the viruses. If you start getting a 60, 70, 80 million user install base all of a sudden that dumb 10% is a lot of people. If Mac ever actually does become the Windows killer they’re going to inherit all these people, Mac will be able to survive it better because it is a more secure system, but the day when Mac users can blithely say “what’s anti-virus software, never heard of it” will be gone.