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Many Mac OS Users Not Getting Security Updates
AmiMoJo writes "According to security company Sophos, around 55% of home users and 18% of enterprise users have updated to Mavericks, the latest version of Mac OS (10.9). Unfortunately Apple appears to have stopped providing security updates for older versions. Indeed, they list Mavericks itself as a security update. This means that the majority of users are no longer getting critical security patches. Sophos recommends taking similar precautions to those recommended for people who cannot upgrade from Windows XP."
Since you know, the switch ads told me Macs don't get viruses or other bad stuff
It is unfortunate that Apple didn't think that one through a little further.
If they are adopting the model of "the OS Upgrade IS a security update", then throw it in their normal update mechanism rather than having people seek it out.
Since they didn't, they must realize that there is a chance that their Upgrade could break things for people, so let them upgrade in their own time, and as such should back port the occasional update to the computers that they sold 3 months or so ago.
Thirty four characters live here.
...Now it's 5 years later are still using the old OS because it would cost another $1million to upgrade the custom code and get new equipment that doesn't use parallel ports for data transfers.
In general, changing the OS breaks some stuff that used to work. It's always best to wait until the people willing to be drive the software first have found workarounds to the problems.
Or you can call support, which will tell you "Oh, that doesn't work with the new operating system."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
When my iPhone 3G could not be upgraded to iOS4, I switched to andriod for security concerns.
Then my 2 generation intel Macbook Pro was too old to upgrade to Mavericks, so I bought a Lenovo.
I'm seeing a pattern here. I will not buy Apple anymore as a result of their withholding security updates from older and perfectly functional hardware. My response is not to buy a newer model, but to switch away from Apple products.
I initially switched to Apple because I liked their hardware and as a developer I wanted to experience a variety of OS's. Seeing how they abandon products only a few years old has left a sour taste in my mouth, I'm done buying Apple products, I've learned my lesson.
That's some real troll-bait comparing Mac OS to Windows XP. There's really little similarity. Microsoft is discontinuing security patches for a 12 year old OS. Apple is discontinuing security updates for an 18 month old OS.
I don't respond to AC's.
I have a 5.5 year old MBP and it runs Mavericks almost perfectly as well as it ran Leopard. The case for not upgrading to Mavericks if you have a x86 Mac that is the age of mine or newer is based almost entirely on being a curmudgeon who doesn't want someone telling him to just move onto the next version. The vast majority of the refuseniks are likely not savvy users objecting to the "iOSification" of MacOS X or something like that, but ordinary idiots who blink at you with a blank expression when you ask what version of OS X they use. "Huh? Macs haver versions?" Yeah. My wife and I have met a lot of casual Mac users who don't seem to understand that no, really, MacOS X has versions just like Windows and that using the same OS X that came with your Mac three or four years later is like saying "I don't need that service pack shit" on Windows.
So.. what about users pre 10.6? Forgotten? Microsoft still supports XP Does Apple still support OS X 10.1? They were released at the same time in 2001. I think nothing illustrates the difference between the companies than that fact. Apple obsoletes their users by force while Microsoft bends over backwards to maintain not only support but backward compatability.
As long as it runs POSIX and an X11 server, it should run desktop applications designed for desktop Linux or FreeBSD with minimal porting work. The POSIX-certified versions of Windows did not include an X11 server and therefore were not very useful as *n?x workstations. Likewise, despite using the Linux kernel, Android uses different apps because its GUI layer runs on something other than an X11 server.
Yeah, but there's been only 2 releases of windows since then, while there have been 7 releases of OS X.
The iteration cycle of OS X is faster. If you don't like it, then nobody forces you to buy it, stay with windows.
Also, a new version of OS X is something like 20 or 30 bucks, while a new version of windows is ten times that amount. There's little excuse to still be running OS X 10.1
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's true. And there are benefits and drawbacks to doing so.
For Microsoft, it means that their customers rarely get left behind, and that they rarely will upgrade to discover that their favorite seldom-used feature has been phased out. On the flipside, it means that Microsoft's designs are saddled by needing to accommodate loads of legacy features, which leads to bloated designs with inconsistencies like mixed metaphors and cluttered UIs.
The exact opposite is true with Apple. They're unafraid to leave behind customers who don't keep up, and they're unafraid to cut out features that they can't or don't want to fit into the latest version of their software. But it also means that they are able to polish the latest iThing to its utmost, providing a tight user experience that isn't held back by needing to fit in legacy features.
Pick the one that appeals to you, or choose Linux, but don't fault Microsoft for not being Apple, or Apple for not being Microsoft. The two companies are cut from entirely different cloth, and it's for everyone's benefit that that's the case, since otherwise computing might be quite a bit more boring.