Apple Yanks Mac Virus Immunity Claims From Website

Suprising that no one has sued. by allaunjsilverfox2 · 2012-06-25 05:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

I mean, that type of statement COULD be construed as false advertising? Or am I completely wrong?

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Restore the madness of youth's lechery

Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by SJHillman · 2012-06-25 05:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

They were careful to say that Macs are immune to Windows viruses. It's sort of like saying that Ford cars are generally unaffected by Toyota's engineering flaws. Doesn't mean that they don't have any of their own.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-06-25 05:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Still seems a fair comparison. Hey, folks, product X is plagued with such and such problem. Ours isn't. Come buy ours.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by SJHillman · 2012-06-25 05:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's saying that, but in such a way that it's strongly implying "we don't have that problem" when they actually do. What if Ford put out an advertisement saying "Are you afraid of your Toyota skidding off the road into a tree? Then come buy a Ford!"? Sure, if you're driving a Ford then your Toyota probably won't hit a tree... but your Ford still will.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by YodasEvilTwin · 2012-06-25 05:40 · Score: 3, Informative

Imagining a situation in which the analogy isn't perfect is easy; it's an analogy. If it were exactly like the actual situation then it wouldn't be an analogy, it would just be us talking about the actual situation. The point is that Macs aren't immune to viruses. There are probably browser-delivered Java viruses containing code for both Mac and Windows (although undoubtedly few of them, possibly just proof of concept, etc.) so the claim that "Macs are immune to Windows viruses" is less than truthful as well.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by Kenja · 2012-06-25 05:42 · Score: 2

Much like all those adds claiming "Ours is the only product with TERM WE TRADEMARKED!"

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"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by ZeroSumHappiness · 2012-06-25 05:49 · Score: 2

It's like saying, "Buy a cat! Cats are not vulnerable to fin rot!"
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by mcgrew · 2012-06-25 05:55 · Score: 4, Informative

No, it is correct that Windows is the only OS that can get a virus (and I'm not sure they still can get them). The International Business Times is a terrible source of tech news; wtf does an MBA know about computers?
They show their ignorance when they state

Microsoft had its Schadenfreude moment in early April, when a Russian antivirus company discovered that hundreds of thousands of Macs were infected with a variant of the Flashback trojan horse, which reportedly was able to exploit several vulnerabilities in Java, allowing itself to install onto the user's browser without any intervention or action on the user's part.
They're confusing the Flashback Trojan with Trojan BackDoor.Flashback, which is a worm. Worms and trojans can and often do contain viruses (most of the boot sector viruses in the '80s and '90s were also trojans).
The wiki article on this worm says "The trojan, however, will only infect the user visiting the infected web page, meaning other users on the computer are not infected unless their user accounts have been infected separately. This is due to the UNIX security system". NOT a virus. It has to be able to self-replicate and spread by itself to be a virus.
Any computer can get a trojan, and Unix systems have been hit by worms (an example is the Morris worm that almost took down the internet back in the '90s).
Unix and its bretheren, like BSD, Linux, and Mac, were designed from the beginning to be for networked, multi-user machines. Windows was never designed from the ground up to be for network computers, and MS now pays the price. Apple was smart to move to a Unix-like system when internet access became normal.
I just "fixed" an old "virus-laden" Dell last week that ran so slowly it would barely boot. But there were no worms or viruses, just useless memory-eating toolbars (I consider these to be malware, they do nothing or very little for the user and eat your performance for corporations' sake). It runs like a top now.
Odd how Norton won't warn you about that kind of crap, which slows your computer down as badly as being on a botnet.

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Free Martian Whores!
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by SJHillman · 2012-06-25 05:58 · Score: 4, Informative

The first OS X malware in the wild was in 2006 - a worm/trojan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_virus
As far as a true virus, in the sense that it infects a file and then replicates, is increasingly rare in Windows as well. In my experience, Trojans are by far the most common malware threat out there now - mostly because they rely on user stupidity/uneducation, which is something that is very difficult to patch.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by hairyfeet · 2012-06-25 06:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't see how you could be, after all they made the statement to sell units and the statement is pretty blatantly false. The scarier part to me though is how many actually believed it. I mean I have sat here on this very forum and been gobsmacked as an otherwise perfectly sane individual would argue that since Flashback is a trojan it "didn't count" like a child on a playground demanding a do over.
In the end folks there is no such thing as a general purpose OS that doesn't get malware, period. Apple, Linux, Windows, ALL THREE have bugs and if one uses only the tiniest bit of logic you would know why, it is because Operating Systems are now some of the most complex software ever written, millions of lines of code designed to interact with a myriad of hardware, and that isn't even counting all the millions of lines of code for the third party software running on top. To expect any company or group to be able to build something THAT complex and not have a single error? I'm sorry but that is simply ridiculous,humans are simply incapable of that level of perfection. There is simply too many interactions going on and no one person can keep up with it all.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by kwark · 2012-06-25 06:11 · Score: 2

Last month the Dutch "ad regulation commission" forbade Apple to make invulnerability claims:
https://www.reclamecode.nl/webuitspraak.asp?ID=76881&acCode (in dutch offcourse, use your favorite translation engine).
The conclusion of the commission is that no software can guarantee immunity and asked Apple to prove their claims. Apple didn't (unclear if they even tried). So the commission ruled in favor or the complainer, thus banning Apple from making these false claims. It looks they changed this worldwide to prevent any further disputes/claims.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by bitt3n · 2012-06-25 06:16 · Score: 3, Funny

It's sort of like saying that Ford cars are generally unaffected by Toyota's engineering flaws.
Then someone's Ford gets rear-ended by a runaway Toyota, and you end up with a class action suit against Ford for making such an outlandish claim.

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how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by jazman_777 · 2012-06-25 06:18 · Score: 3, Funny

There's a car analogy for EVERY situation. Car analogies are like the cars you find in a junkyard, crushed.

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Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by EricWright · 2012-06-25 06:19 · Score: 2

Or like how Pixie Stix are naturally low fat...
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by Gr8Apes · 2012-06-25 06:30 · Score: 2

In my experience, Trojans are by far the most common malware threat out there now - mostly because they rely on user stupidity/uneducation, which is something that is very difficult to patch.
I'd agree with that, although the drive-by web bug exploits are kind of an interesting take on a trojan that from a user's perspective are virtually indistinguishable from viruses or worms, although they are not self-replicating. (dare I say "interesting" in this context?)
In the terms of the Windows world, there seems to be a whole lot of ways to get infected, including until recently even viewing a JPG or WMF file, both of which could infect system files. This latter issue is something that generally doesn't occur on *nix systems because the process is limited to just the user privileges, and this type of code runs in user space, unlike windows.

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The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-06-25 06:47 · Score: 2

If Toyotas had some greater inclination to hit trees due to their design, then that would still be fine.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by mlts · 2012-06-25 07:03 · Score: 2

When recommending Macs to people [1], I get the virus question asked all the time. I try to clarify the difference between malware types.
Viruses are not really a viable infection vector on Macs because people don't share executables, and Word macro stuff is pretty much stomped out.
Trojan horses are a major threat. Especially when someone wants a pirated copy of something and finds that their copy of iWork has more than just an office suite in the .DMG file. Executable signing helps here, but the Dancing Bunnies security hole is still there. However, the biggest thing that closes this hole is to have a repository (which Apple has done), and dissuade users from installing from anywhere but that unless they are 100% sure of the source. Locking down the entry vector for applications with brutal gatekeepers is why iOS has such an excellent perceived security record while in reality, its whole security model pretty much depends on the BSD jail() command.
Probably the biggest threat these days are holes in Web browsers and add-ons. Even iOS had these, although it was used for extreme good with the jailbreakme.com website. However, on Windows, generally a hole in the Web browser will be used to insert malware at the user (or possibly system) level. The best protection here is having the OS sandbox with all writes redirected, or even run the browser in a virtual machine that rolls back all changes except to files stored in the browser's area.
[1]: For an individual, Apple has the best CS in town, unless someone buys a business line (Optiplex for example) with the premium service from Dell, HP, or another PC vendor. For someone who uses their personal machine for their livelihood, it isn't bad to have a one-stop-shop for the OS, hardware, and applications. That way, one doesn't spend time playing the "sorry, that's not our department" game. Apple's hardware is on par with other vendors, but they have a lot better support for individuals than anyone else out there.
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by steelfood · 2012-06-25 07:25 · Score: 2

Odd how Norton won't warn you about that kind of crap, which slows your computer down as badly as being on a botnet.
That's not odd when you consider that's exactly what they're trying to sell you in the first place.

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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by scot4875 · 2012-06-25 07:59 · Score: 2

no security beyond the router's bog standard firewall
This isn't a very big claim, as I've had my Windows and Linux systems running with no 'security' (presumably you mean AV software) beyond a home router's standard firewall for years and also had no issues.
--Jeremy

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Jesus was a liberal
Re:Suprising that no one has sued. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-25 08:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

By the olde rules:
Virus: appends itself to an executable
Worm: spreads through networks (local area, wide area or inter)
Trojan: executable that is more malicious than it claims to be
The thing is, these aren't hard borders, these are behavioral details for hostile code. This is why people arguing "it's not a virus, it's a trojan" are pretty useless in the wholse scheme of data protection. I have fixed cases that are technically just a trojan, but act like a virus because the hostile executable sets itself as the "open with" for executables. Without knowing how it works, it looks like a very widespread virus, rather than an executable and a registry edit.
As for them on Unix based systems, yes, all three types started showing up on college Unix systems decades ago.

How could they have gotten away with that claim? by SailorSpork · 2012-06-25 05:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

Apple viruses have been around for awhile. Linux viruses exist. Viruses exist even for obscure, closed computer systems (look at STUXNET). Statistically, were they less likely to get viruses because Apple's OS is on a lower percentage of the computers out there? Yes. Immune to all viruses? Laughable.

"Windows viruses" by Hatta · 2012-06-25 05:21 · Score: 2

IIRC, the claim was that Macs were immune to "Windows viruses".

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Re:"Windows viruses" by lightknight · 2012-06-25 05:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes, and Windows is immune to Mac security bugs.

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I am John Hurt.
Re:"Windows viruses" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-25 06:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

No, they made two claims. 1) They don't get PC (as in personal computer) viruses. and 2) That they are immune from Windows-based viruses. Claim #2 can be true if they are referring to viruses/vulnerabilities that affect the underlying Windows operating system - hence the Windows-based claim and could equally be claimed by Microsoft or Linux in the same manner. We already know there are cross-platform issues with Flash that affect both equally and led to Flash being banned from iOS devices. So claim #1 could never be true.

Still an impressive record by Grayhand · 2012-06-25 05:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

How many viruses are there for Windows? "Apple quietly switched out a statement "? What are they supposed to do have a press release? Would any company on the planet do that? Just because they got nailed by a virus doesn't make them worse than a PC. So many people are desperate for a chink in Apple's armor that they overreact to things like this. Put it into perspective. They are still very resistant to viruses. I have more legitimate issues like searching for files on a Mac is a joke and they aren't as stable as they used to be, especially since Lion came out.

Re:Still an impressive record by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-06-25 05:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because was gots ta hates on the Applez! GOTTA HATEZ! Kill! Kill! Hate! Faster LOLCat! Kill! (pant) (pant) (shakes fist)
Geek cred must be constantly watered by the dripping spittle of hate against a gadget company, and refusing to let others (The Sheep!) like what we don't like!
Re:Still an impressive record by Greenspark · 2012-06-25 05:34 · Score: 2

This argument is as old as the sun. Apple has had a very minor part of the personal computing market share for a very long time. The distribution of 'apple' viruses was really not worth anybody's time. Virus writers are looking for huge impact -- why would they limit themselves to the smaller piece of the pie? Now Apple's got themselves a much bigger piece the action than before. And guess what, people have started writing Apple viruses. Their claims of immunity have always been inappropriate. The problem isn't that they 'quitely switched a statement'-- it's that it was ever there to begin with.
Re:Still an impressive record by bky1701 · 2012-06-25 06:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Geek cred must be constantly watered by the dripping spittle of hate against a gadget company, and refusing to let others (The Sheep!) like what we don't like!"

Which is why half the comments here, and on the last story which will not be named, nearly all of them, were blindly defending Apple, no matter what?

Some of us are seriously worried about what would happen were Apple in Microsoft's position. Say what you will about Microsoft, they have never yet attempted the walled garden to the level Apple has made a business model and sold to billions of people with questionable claims. Speaking of which - pot, kettle, black, since most people complaining about Apple being attacked love to go and do the exact same thing they accuse others of when a story about Microsoft (and even Linux at times) comes up.

I'd personally prefer if neither company existed, but Microsoft is the incompetent demon I know, Apple is the devil I don't. They have already proven they are able to manipulate the market to absurd levels (iTunes, locked down mobile OSes and service lockin, increasingly walled off desktop OSes, etc) in ways that harm ALL computer users, not just Apple users. You can bet when Apple does something sneaky like quietly remove implications that they are immune to viruses I am going to pay attention. If that looks like irrational hatred like you claim it is, well, I think it says a lot about how objective you are to your "gadget company."

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Great Intellect...
Re:Still an impressive record by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-06-25 09:10 · Score: 2

Well, in all seriousness, one can't use pot kettle black if I parody Apple bashing because someone else NOT me does the opposite. I'm not responsible for what other kettles do. Despite how often it happens in political discussions, it doesn't really work to call a *group* of people hypocritical. You need to demonstrate that individuals in the group are being hypocritical and there's not just a difference of opinion within the group.
You savvy?

Here's the before and after by Anubis+IV · 2012-06-25 05:23 · Score: 4, Informative

Here are before and after images of the marketing text.

Also, contrary to the summary, it never claimed complete immunity to viruses, merely immunity to Windows viruses, which is, admittedly, a trivial and silly distinction to make, but I like playing the pedant.

Re:Here's the before and after by Anubis+IV · 2012-06-25 05:33 · Score: 4, Informative

Immediately after it, they expanded on the statement you quoted with, "A Mac isn't susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers," which you apparently neglected to read.
Again though, as I said, I'm playing the pedant, since it's not much of a distinction.
Re:Here's the before and after by jbolden · 2012-06-25 09:33 · Score: 3, Informative

I can explain it. It goes back to the very origin of the word "PC". PC was a term of IBM's computer based on the Intel 8088 (not a typo), which competed against the Apple II, Dec Rainbow, Commodore... It was an IBM brandname. Once the IBM Bios was cracked it got applied to IBM and the clone manufacturers who made "IBM compatible" or sometimes even "PC compatible" computers.
The fact that PC was an abbreviation for "Personal Computer" doesn't really matter in the context of thinking of it as a proper noun.

Re:Apples are for Homos by SJHillman · 2012-06-25 05:23 · Score: 2

And everyone that ever used Linux will eventually die.

Re:Reality Distortion Field by SJHillman · 2012-06-25 05:26 · Score: 2

It's like when your Pokemon uses Confusion. It makes fanboys rabidly attack anyone and everyone near by while mostly just hurting themselves.

Closed? by milbournosphere · 2012-06-25 05:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

...its closed, highly-secure operating system...

Apple's OS is a lot of things, but it's still Unix based. If I want to do something, a terminal window is a click away. They've made the low level settings harder to get to via a settings window, to be sure; but at the end of the day, I can always issue the appropriate command. Closed might describe their mobile OS well, but that doesn't apply to their desktop OS (yet).

Re:Closed? by betterunixthanunix · 2012-06-25 05:32 · Score: 2

Apple's OS is a lot of things, but it's still Unix based. If I want to do something, a terminal window is a click away
For now; I have been saying this for a long time, but Apple is moving towards a product line where only their most expensive workstations give users the freedom to open terminals or write their own software. People did not flee from iOS; they embraced it like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

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Palm trees and 8
Re:Closed? by CritterNYC · 2012-06-25 05:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

The next Mac OS release will block any software not signed with an Apple-approved digital certificate by default. Advanced users can go into options and untick the option. This is seen as the next step to an iOS-style lockdown of the whole OS. The first being the release of the app store (with some preferential placements of apps installed via said app store). The next step, in Mountain Lion, making it so all developers have to go through apple, pay a yearly Apple developer fee, and be approved through some process before their software is allowed to be installed by default. Likely, a later release will require app store software only by default with an advanced option to disable that.

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Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Re:Closed? by Gr8Apes · 2012-06-25 05:51 · Score: 2

People did not flee from iOS; they embraced it like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
That would be because compared to everything out there, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's more a statement about how bad the market was than how great iOS is. And the market hasn't really improved much, despite the wailing and whining of the Android crowd. Android as it currently exists is a disaster - no real standards, multiple versions, no defined upgrade path, essentially all the problems of the market when iOS debuted. For those that come by saying "but, I can root my Android device and install ICS.... well, you can do a lot of things if you have the proper knowledge. Most device owners will not have that knowledge nor the interest to take their device and "own" it since their main purpose is to use it to call or whatever people use Android tablets for.

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The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Re:Closed? by alen · 2012-06-25 05:54 · Score: 2

So? for techincal users this will be easy to undo
for people who just want a computer like they want a toaster this will mean the software they install has been checked for malware. this using the computer thing like a manual transmission was cool 20 years ago but at this point people just want to use the software on it and don't care about the monkey work
Re:Closed? by Yvanhoe · 2012-06-25 06:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

You know that "open" does not just mean "there is a CLI available", right ?

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The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Re:Closed? by trcooper · 2012-06-25 08:25 · Score: 2

*facepalm*
Yes, closed.
OSX is absolutely a closed OS.
A terminal window has nothing to do with openness. Android doesn't put a terminal window in the forefront, but it's an open OS.
And for the record, UNIX(TM) is absolutely not open either. Linux is, FreeBSD is, UNIX is as closed as anything from Apple or Microsoft.

Re:Reality Distortion Field by SJHillman · 2012-06-25 05:32 · Score: 2

Re-animating the dead had nowhere near the profit margins as printer ink.

Re:Reality Distortion Field by gman003 · 2012-06-25 05:34 · Score: 2

Twenty? I used a one-button Mac six years ago - one of those ugly uncomfortable puck mice. It was made maybe ten years ago, probably a bit less.

Not to mention that *technically* their current touchpad mice have only one "button"...

Re:Reality Distortion Field by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-06-25 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

The reality distortion field is what causes Apple fanboys to think that Apple invented the mouse.

Wow I've never actually heard this. I've never heard that Apple has invented the smartphone or the mp3 player, either. I sometimes think people think they heard the word 'invent' when the word used was 'innovate'.

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"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

Re:How could they have gotten away with that claim by etresoft · 2012-06-25 05:45 · Score: 3, Informative

I think one of the reasons for the re-wording was to remove the word "viruses" since it so obviously confuses people who don't know the difference between viruses and trojans and think the handful of Mac malware in 12 years is equivalent to over 17,000,000 for Windows. Sorry, but market-share doesn't account for that discrepancy.

Progress by onyxruby · 2012-06-25 05:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

I consider this to significant progress on the part of Apple and they deserve to get credit. Much as Microsoft has their head buried in the sand for years before they started making changes, we should applaud Apple for taking the first step. I welcome Apple to world of reality, a world in which operating system have security flaws, require patches and get viruses.

Now that Apple is in at least some small way acknowledging the real world, let's see if they can clean up their act the way Microsoft did years ago. Admitting you have a problem is always the first step, now we can always hope that they will start to embrace industry standards for dealing with security issues. Perhaps someday their users will no longer also have their heads in the clouds about security issues?

Kind of funny thinking about it, a decade ago I never would have imagined citing Microsoft as a company that can be cited as cleaning up their act for security. /responsible for securing an environment that is %50 mac, so I'm not trolling.....

Re:Don't lie by geekmux · 2012-06-25 05:50 · Score: 2

... stating something is perfect when it isn't is ultimately bad for PR and company morale.

And it's a lie.

No it's not.

All depends on your definition of "perfect" vs. theirs.

And as our bullshit legal system can attest, there are so many ways to skin that cat that if it were carried out literally, the feline species would be extinct.

Re:Reality Distortion Field by jo_ham · 2012-06-25 05:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

The reality distortion field is what causes Apple fanboys to think that Apple invented the mouse.

No true Apple fan believes Apple invented the mouse. The story of Steve Jobs visiting PARC and exclaiming "you're sitting on a goldmine!" in exasperation when they said that they had no intention of commercialising it then rushing back to Apple and calling the hardware guy in and told him to drop all current projects because "*this* [the mouse] is what we've got to make".

I mean, if we're being truthful about what the RDF is.

It would be more accurate to say that it's the effect that gets people to cheer during the keynote when Jobs announced that they had updated iOS4 to enable the volume-up key to work as the shutter release in the camera app (and yes, that did happen. I eyerolled with amusement - I mean, it's a nice feature but it received a round of applause for goodness sake).

Re:Reality Distortion Field by QuantumRiff · 2012-06-25 05:59 · Score: 4, Funny

Blame Al Gore, for innovating the Internet :)

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What are we going to do tonight Brain?

Re:Reality Distortion Field by bky1701 · 2012-06-25 06:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yeah, now you've got... this thing: http://www.apple.com/magicmouse/. No humor to be found there. That said, get your timeline straight: the one button mouse was discontinued as Apple's official mouse in 2007. Not 20 years ago.

I think you'll find most people who do not think highly of Apple here think just as little of Microsoft. I know it can be hard to get out of the mentality that it is Apple vs. Microsoft and you have to pick one, but there are, in fact, people who have legitimate reasons to dislike both the company you love and the company you hate.

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Great Intellect...

Re:Yawn by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-06-25 06:01 · Score: 3, Funny

What fool thinks that any computer system is immune to one sort of malware or another?

Linux zealots.

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"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

Couldn't be sued by SilverJets · 2012-06-25 06:09 · Score: 4, Informative

Here is a link showing the before and after of the Apple web page in question.

http://sophosnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/mac-osx-before-after.jpg

I don't think they could be sued, there is no false advertising on their part. It blatantly states "A Mac isn't susceptible to the thousands of of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers."

That is a completely accurate statement. Mac OS X cannot be infected with a Windows virus.

Re:Couldn't be sued by stewbacca · 2012-06-25 08:26 · Score: 2

The wording changed because of the recently added "sandboxing" built into the OS since Lion. This is not a step to distance the "Doesn't get PC Viruses" claim, it's updated marketing to advertise new features of the OS. So in addition to still not getting all those nasty viruses that PCs get (ostensibly), there are "built-in defenses" as well.
I think the slashdot hatesourcing is overthinking this (not you, per se, the comments in general.)

Re:Sheesh by SoupIsGood+Food · 2012-06-25 06:13 · Score: 2

The old (but still true) fact is that Mac OS X has less malware because it is a smaller target (about 10% market share) than Windows for the bad guys to be cost effective.

Baloney. If Apple and Mac developers are making money off of the platform - and they are - then malware writers should be as well. We're not talking
"a tenth of the malware of Windows", we're talking a significant order of magnitude less malware, almost all of it trojans requiring user intervention to install itself, and just two that were self-propagating (drive-by downloads rather than viruses), and one of those required you to run a version of MacOS X best described as "antique."

Mac OS X is more secure than Windows on an ongoing basis - that fact is indisputable. This isn't theory, this is stark, cold reality when you look at the numbers of "in the wild" rather than theoretical exploits. The reason for it is that the tricks to bypass the Windows security model with third party software are all still there - where Apple ruthlessly roots out and deprecates without notice unsupported API's and other system hooks that cause trouble. Mac devs need to play nicely with the security model, and make changes to accomodate new OS releases, or their software breaks. This makes many devs and users screamingly angry, and none more so than malware writers, who find months worth of development rendered useless overnight.

Microsoft goes out of its way to make backwards compatibility happen for even its most wayward developers, and that means keeping around the kluges and hacks and workarounds that have been floating in the Windows ecosphere since forever. This gives everyone the warm fuzzies, especially the malware writers.

Microsoft plays whack-a-mole with security, Apple plays nuke-them-from-orbit.

Re:The first crack in the shell! by vell0cet · 2012-06-25 06:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

You joke... but this is actually the kind of thing that was lost with Steve Jobs. Not that OSX is impevious, but the almost religious belief in whatever Apple says.

Jobs would have kept saying it. Mac user would parrot it. You won't believe how often I hear Mac users (although I am one) delude themselves into thinking how great their platform is. The marketing speak of "Macs are immune to viruses" doesn't have to be true, the consumers just have to believe it is.

It's sort of like how Howard Camping said the world was going to end in May last year and then it didn't, and then people STILL believed him when he said it was going to end in October.

Re:How could they have gotten away with that claim by arbiter1 · 2012-06-25 06:46 · Score: 2

windows 2000 had security, but when people defaulting use an admin account for everything stuff happens, osx didn't allow that for accounts so most can be pointed at end users. But truth is with windows on 20x more machine then osx it would get targeted. Osx would be a prime target if it was reverse. Least with MS they didn't Deny the exsistent of virus's and flaw's in their OS, Apple on other hand up til now made the claim OSX was 100% secure and never got virus's. MS least takes a proactive approach to updates to windows where as Apple took 2 months to fix the flaw that Flashback trojan targeted. Windows side had update to fix it the day after it was announced to be a flawed code. 1day vs 8 weeks. Overall Avg windows user is more proactive at taking steps to protect their computer then osx users since Apple has built the false image of virus free OS which everyone that seen that mac vs pc add where mac claimed he don't get virus's, Apple fans said its true, but people like me that didn't have our heads up our ass's knew OSX probably had as many flaws as windows did just no one was looking for them. Well over next few years flaw's will be found that been missed in OSX probably dating back to earliest versions.

Re:Sheesh by CanHasDIY · 2012-06-25 06:56 · Score: 2

According to the site you linked to, that figure only applies to PC's costing $1000 or more and are purchased at retail stores.

Another little fact the author felt worth mentioning that you did not is that $1,000+ PC's purchased at retail stores only make up about 14% of the PC market.

So, the whole snippet (minus your arbitrary edits) reads like this:

Of the 14% of PCs sold for more than $1000 at brick-and-mortar retailers, 66% are Macs.

Gee, sounds far less impressive when you put in all the facts, I see why you selectively edited them out...

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

Re:Sheesh by a90Tj2P7 · 2012-06-25 07:18 · Score: 2

Apple's market share is 66% for all personal computers sold in stores for more than $1,000. In addition, Apple's market share as been increasing as sales of PCs as a whole have been dropping.

Are you serious? Those are sales figures (sold new at retail stores in first quarter 2008 for over $1000), not usage figures. You're not talking about what's being used in the market, just what was sold during the first quarter - OF 2008! - and even then you're only considering retail stores and $1000+ computers, where the average PC cost is $650. So not only are your sales figures irrelevant to a discussion about usage share, but they're cherrypicked to such a ridiculous level that they're not even relevant as overall sales figures. That's like saying a large percentage of the cars on the road are Cadillacs because, in June of 2010, they sold the most domestic cars that cost more than $40k. Most cars cost less than that new, many cars aren't bought from domestic dealerships, and most of the cars on the road aren't new or weren't bought new in that time period. Likewise, most computers don't cost that much, many of them aren't bought from retail stores, and there are more computers out there than what was bought new in the first quarter of 2008.

The GP's point was that Mac's desktop OS market share is less than 10%. And that's not only true, but it's generous - as of 5/2012, they've got about 6.5%. Like it was mentioned earlier, less than Vista.

Re:Sheesh by GrumpySteen · 2012-06-25 07:30 · Score: 2

Luvaglio's market share is 100% for all personal computers sold for more than $X and Apple's is 0%.

X being quite a large number, mind you.

Market share comparisons don't mean a damn thing when you cut out broad portions of the overall market.

Re:Reality Distortion Field by serviscope_minor · 2012-06-25 07:49 · Score: 2

No true Apple fan believes...

Provided that they're not Scottish as well.

--
SJW n. One who posts facts.

Re:The first crack in the shell! by stewbacca · 2012-06-25 08:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

The platform is great (or not) irrespective of what idiot fan boys think. This is what I hate most about any conversation about Apple ever. I too am a Mac user (think they are great) and accept that malware is not impossible to get. I, however, am not the stereotypical hyper-logical binary slashdotter who doesn't realize that marketing is marketing and exists to try to get people to buy your stuff.

Whether a bunch of fanboi hipsters buy Macs or not, I'm still going to like my Mac, regardless what others think. People who hate Macs, for whatever reason, think I am trying to tell them how awesome my Mac is (really don't care what you think), or even worse, that I'm trying to IMPRESS you by purchasing something anyone else can also buy. Again, I don't really care what you think about my computer. I'm using it a public space, because, a) I have it with me, and b) there's free wi-fi. Not c) to try and impress all the chicks with my Macbook...but this is slashdot, so maybe that's the logical conclusion.

Re:How could they have gotten away with that claim by jbolden · 2012-06-25 09:25 · Score: 2

like a larger screen or a faster processor. Apple can't compete there.

Huh? Apple comes with an HDMI port. Short of the absolutely gigantic screens that require completely custom hardware, what can't it run? As for processors:

2x Xeon 5675's with 12 cores ain't the best. But I don't know many people who get more than that.

Umm, it's still true by Maury+Markowitz · 2012-06-25 09:53 · Score: 2

"claimed its Mac computers were completely immune to viruses"

No, that's not what it said. It said, and I quote, "A Mac isn't susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers."

That is still true today.

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Apple Yanks Mac Virus Immunity Claims From Website

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