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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."
I'm woking in a large university where you find a larger percentage of Mac and Linux systems. It's hell keeping all operating systems updated properly. Researchers get grants to do something then spend $2million on the custom systems build on a particular version of an OS. 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.
It all starts at 0
Security updates aren't just for viruses.
That being said, I use a mac and I cannot upgrade to 10.9 because my machine isn't supported. It still does everything I need it to do, it's not slow. I don't think Apple doesn't support it because the hardware IS too old (Intel processor and all), I just think it's because Apple THINKS the hardware is too old. I can tell you that this is the last mac I buy. I dislike Microsoft and Windows with a passion, but at least they don't arbitrarily decide that your PC is too old to run their latest operating system. It may not run it fast, but generally it will run it.
Linux only from now on.
Far be it for me to say that a security company was using dodgy numbers to hype its product, but their MacOS adoption numbers are soley from Sophos-for-MacOS users, which I'd have to imagine is a really spectacularly unrepresentative sample. And their assertions that Mavericks was the only way to get security updates for MacOS going forwards seems to be contradicted by the fact that the previous version of MacOS was security patched when Mavericks was launched.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
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.
Apple fanboys and apple haters should be banned from slashdot. They have this illusion that they are two separate groups of people. The fact is that they are a single bunch of idiots.
I'm not sure where the author gets the idea that Apple has stopped releasing security updates for older systems. The page linked from the summary lists updates for software for OS X 10.7 and up as recently as 16 December, a Java update for versions 10.6 and up on 15 October, and the most recent actual security update, also for versions 10.6 and up, on 12 September. Apple releases security updates when necessary, not every Tuesday like Microsoft. The fact that they've released an OS update, which includes security patches, for the most recent version of the OS without releasing one for older versions most likely means that the vulnerabilities addressed were not present in older versions; this has been the Apple release strategy for at least a decade.
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.
Driver support is not Micosoft's fault. That's the Vendors. And need we talk about the fact that up until recently, you could only install (basically) Apple sanctioned expansion cards in their machines? Or their new way of doing things, which is "We'll package all of the hardware up in a neat little box, which you can't open, so we can force you to upgrade the hardware in order to upgrade the OS."
Looking at the Apple update release page there hasn't been a Security Update since Mavericks was released so there is no evidence to support the assertion from Sophos.
The last Security Update from Apple was 2013-004 and included updates for Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion. Until Apple releases a security update that *only* targets Mavericks this is just Sophos FUD.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Father Steve only extends his divine blessings to those with the faith to maintain the latest holy hardware. Obviously, you have lost your faith and become a Windows or Linux heretic. Expect no welcome in the Great Apple Store when the end comes!
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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.
When iOS 4 came out, you switched to Android because you wanted more software updates? Summer 2010, at the height of the Android software update panic, when Motorola had to be pressured to even update the Droid to 2.2, and most phones were lucky to see an update outside of the first six months?
Then when you couldn't get a new version of MacOS for a five-year-old laptop, rather than just install Windows 7 on it, you bought a whole new computer?
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
OS X is UNIX 03 certified by The Open Group and carries the UNIX brand.
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Who's left ? :)
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You switched to Android because you iPhone couldn't get an update? Hope you picked the right model. Android phones have terrible track records for receiving updates. Many of them never receive an update after leaving the factory floor. People say the Nexus line of phones get better support, but I'm not sure if I believe that. The Nexus One is stuck on Gingerbread (2.3) after only being released in 2010. The Nexus S is only at 4.1, Then Galaxy Nexus is at 4.2 or 4.3 depending on the hardware revision. The only ones you can run the latest OS on are the Nexus 4 and 5, the former of which is only from late 2012. Meanwhile, in with Apple, IOS 7 is supported all the way back to the iPhone 4, which was released in early 2011.
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False scotsmen?
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