Apple>Microsoft

[gtmtnbiker]

I try to stay away from any questionable websites. But if I must, I will use a sandbox such as Virtual PC or VMware Player. Do you what you need to do and then reset the image to a previous state.

[Ziggy]

Virtualization is amazing.

[Octopod]

Others have recommended them but I have to get in a me too. I just use both AVG and Malwarebytes. Both free and great.

[Hobie-wan]

Has anyone else noticed there haven't been any mac vs pc ads in a while?

Didn't you hear? Apple stopped making them a while ago; they announced there will be no more of them.

Indeed.

http://consumerist.com/2010/05/apple-fi ... c-ads.html

[elvis]

Any computer operating system is capable of getting a virus. Virus designers tend to focus on Windows since it's the most popular operating system in the world.

Malware != virus. Don't confuse the two. Yes, they're both nasty. But past that, they have little in common when it comes to their chosen method of propagation.

And the whole "people only want to attack popular operating systems" is nonsense. Firstly because it's not true, and secondly because Linux, UNIX and other systems popular in large business are just as tasty targets as consumer desktops.

For the sorts of people who do this for a living, owning a bank's single mainframe has the same pleasant rewards as owning hundreds of thousands of consumer desktops.

Beyond that, people need to stop making excuses for poor software vendors, no matter who they are. If more customers demanded higher standards from their software vendors, we would have a fraction of the issues we do today in IT security. The problem is after decades of shitty software from all vendors who seem to pride shiny interfaces above and beyond real code hardening, the general population has grown used to mediocrity.

If toasters failed as often as desktop computers did, the outcome would be something between a class action lawsuit against the manufacturers and rioting in the streets. Why the hell people put up with shit from their software vendors is beyond me.

Virtualization is amazing.

It's a massive security risk, and has the world's security experts quite worried.

10 years ago, you owned one box, and that's all you had. Today you own the hypervisor, and you own hundreds of machines.

It's a huge headache for people who have to secure these things. And as above, software vendors aren't falling over themselves to put security ahead of shiny interfaces, which doesn't help.

[yomomma1]

I always can't understand why people hate PCs so much.
Windows and Mac OS don't have much differences in terms of complexity.(to the user)
You could just not visit TOTALLYLEGITIMATEPORNSITE.BB
Or get Anti virus.
"But wait, you could still get viruses!"
Then stop fucking downloading Instructions.txt.exe
I liked Apple.
Before 1998.
Edit: I like linux, like alot.

[crux]

And the whole "people only want to attack popular operating systems" is nonsense. Firstly because it's not true, and secondly because Linux, UNIX and other systems popular in large business are just as tasty targets as consumer desktops.

It's not nonsesne, it's numbers. If someone is going to inject an infectious code in a Flash movie or advertisement, they have to target it towards a given system. The more people to infect, the greater the probability of success.

Yes, the most professional hackers can target user by user, making the platform inconsequential, but the average hacker is not professional. A lot of viruses are simply malicious for the sake of maliciousness, and thus target the largest population they can reach. Other viruses are targeted towards gamers, such as MMOs, the vast majority of which are played on Windows systems. No matter what way you slice it, there's more incentives to go after a Windows platform than a Mac or Linux system.

[Pulsar_t]

Only a few posters touched upon the reasons behind Apple's successes of late. By branding itself a fashionable company that makes fashionable gadgets for fashionable people (ie trendy sheep) Apple effectively monopolised a few key leisure market sectors (smartphones, music players, and now portable computing). Some people can maximise Apple gadgets' usefulness but the truth remains a large portion of Apple customers buy the stuff because 1) It makes them look faux-hip aka geek chic and 2) Their simplicity and relative safety record translate to less hassles for them ie even tech-savvy people don't want choices bundled with their gadgets.

I really can't fault Apple for their ingenius marketing geared towards masses that are yearning for technologically-cool icons to identify with, but they won't be getting any allegiances on my part.. not that it matters in the grand scheme of things.

[RCBH928]

I just want to say,

We all should applaud for Apple as a business company. Around '97 they were almost out of business and they were begging for money from Microsoft. 13 years later, they are one of the biggest tech companies with huge profits.

I am still amazed there is no real competition for the ipad or the itunes store, I am so confused why this have not been done yet? If it exists its not working well at all...ex, zune.

[elvis]

No matter what way you slice it, there's more incentives to go after a Windows platform than a Mac or Linux system.

I completely and utterly disagree.

Consider the traffic flowing worldwide through Cisco routers. Or the information stored on large SANs attached to massive UNIX clusters and mainframes.

From a profit point of view, these are huge and centralised.

I'm not arguing that Windows isn't a tasty target. It most certainly is. But I don't think it's any more tasty than any other target. What I do think is that Windows is an easy target. Not because of numbers, but because historically it has absolutely sucked for it's default security system.

It's not because Windows is the majority system that it gets targeted. It's deeper than that. It's because the majority Windows boxes are very poorly secured. I propose that even if Windows magically lost market share tomorrow and shrunk to less than 50%, it would still be the most actively targeted system due entirely to the fact that it's damn near trivial to break into thanks to simple "admin by default" designs littering the system.

What annoys me even more is that the average user thinks that installing a third party anti-virus tool will solve all their ills. Not only is it annoying because the term "virus" is utterly moot today, but because Windows users in particular still accept that installing third-party band-aids should be a norm (which is right up there with those Windows users who are convinced the annual reformat/reinstall process is mandatory, and just an accepted part of modern computing).

And for the record, I've seen my fair share of big Linux and UNIX servers that have been compromised over the last two decades of my career. Typically by either exploits of known software bugs with rootkit style injections, or sadly by good old fashioned weak passwords or dictionary attacks. What you as the consumer don't see is this sort of thing hitting the media every day. Nor do you see Symatec, McAfee and Kaspersky littering the internet with ads for their latest and greatest A/V solutions for these products. The perception then proliferates even further that Windows is really the only target worth pursuing, and so inflates the myth that "Linux doesn't get viruses because it's not popular enough".

Spend a bit of time in the bowls of IT Security, and you'll soon learn that ANYTHING is popular enough to be a target for someone. What really happens versus what the general public perceive is happening are cheese and chalk.