Slashdot Mirror
Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software?
adamengst sends in an article from TidBITS in which Macintosh security expert Rich Mogull explains why he doesn't use antivirus software on the Mac, and why most Mac users shouldn't bother with it either. The article also touches on the question of when an increasing Mac market share might tip it over an inflection point into more active attention from malware writers. (Last month Apple had 14% of PC sales, but 25% of dollar value.)
Especially when you start talking upgrades they seem to be pricey. Looking at an iMac right now they want $500 to go from 1GB (the default and minimum) to 4GB. Hop over to Dell and going from 512MB (default and minimum) to 4GB is only $170. Now yes, I realise you can buy aftermarket parts, but that defeats part of the point of getting an OEM system and certainly an Apple: support. You get everything from the OEM, they are your one stop for support, particularly with Apple who also makes the OS. You start buying aftermarket, that is no longer the case.
Now that aside, the other problem I find is that while their prices are often comparable for a system at a given point, they don't actually offer what many want. The towers are a good example. Yes, actually, their towers are fairly competitive pricewise when you spec out a similar Dell workstation with dual quad cores, lots of registered ECC RAM capacity, and so on. However the problem is what if I don't want that? What if I want a single quad core (or dual core), non-ECC RAM, and so on? There's plenty of cases where this is a much better option.
Let's say I don't have software that scales up to 8 cores. This is fairly common these days. So let's say I'd like a quad core with 4GB of RAM. If I go the Apple tower route, $2800 is the price for that. That isn't unreasonable, since it is a single Xeon, with support for a second one, and registered, ECC RAM, which is really expensive. However, Gateway (or I suppose MPC now since they bought Gateway's business division) would be happy to sell me a E-6610Q with similar specs (HD, video, etc) for about half that ($1300).
Now the thing is, the sort of system I listed is quite useful. We buy a good number of them here (that's why I know about it) for research. There's a lot of cases where someone wants a system that has a good processor, plenty of RAM (we often get 8GB even, which is still cheap) but just really doesn't have use for a full on workstation class system. This is even more true now that processors have gone multi-core. While 8 cores is great, there are just a lot of things that are hard to write to make use of that many. So if you aren't using more than 4, the second processor, and all the associated cost, isn't useful.
That is the main reason I'd say Apple isn't competitive on price. A mid range tower is something that there is a whole lot of market for, but they just don't sell. If you don't want an all in one, your only option is super high end. If you don't have a need for the extra hardware, that is just money wasted.
Same goes for people at home. For example I like to play games. An all in one wouldn't work for me. Sure, I could get a similar monitor (24" widescreen), CPU (Core 2 Duo) and RAM (4GB) to what I have. However I can't get the graphics card I have, and I can't ever upgrade it. That is a show stopper right there, since the core of the system will last a good deal longer than the video card. It'd be a waste to buy a new system when only one component needs updating. Likewise the monitor will outlast the system, again a waste to upgrade.
That's my objection to the argument that Apple is a good value for equivalent hardware. That is true in a narrow sense sometimes, but given that they don't have a solution for a large number of people, it isn't true over all.