<p>I use a Mac and have had no problems with my Macbook for over three and a half years, and I don’t have any antivirus software installed. Will Macs have viruses in the future? Possibly. I’ll worry about that then. </p>
<p>Also, I am an engineering major, and despite people’s warnings, it hasn’t proved to be a handicap. I do have Windows on my system just in case, but haven’t had to boot it up in months now. A lot of the software like MATLAB and LabVIEW are already available for Macs. Moreover, I end up using the more powerful lab computers for my engineering needs anyways. </p>
<p>I realize that some softwares are Windows-only and having to restart in Windows is annoying, but I find the user experience that Mac offers, far outweighs the once-in-a-while annoyance. This could be different for people depending on the kind of work they are involved in, but that is why I find the Mac versus PC war annoying. It’s a matter of preference. Two of my engineering professors exclusively use Macs so you don’t necessarily have to be a graphic designer or whatever stereotype Mac users are associated with.</p>
<p>AFAIK, there have been a handful of trojans and other user-activated malware that have been found circulating in the Mac community. The most effective was hidden in an illegal software download, which is a great place to hide something. Heck, some ipods were infected at the factory in China - but with a Windows virus. There are some proof of concept viruses but AFAIK none has ever been found on the net. </p>
<p>Viruses and malware are not all that is important in security. If you let people get access to your computer, then you invite attempts to break in. Securing that is a matter of making sure some basic things are turned off and you don’t do stupid things like connect to unknown devices in airports and in coffee bars. Those devices - not wireless networks - are possibly computers set up to attract you to connect directly to them.</p>
<p>Exactly. So if you actually have access to a friend’s Mac and if you happen to have found an undiscovered exploit in WebKit, then you can crack it in no time. That has nothing to do with real life. If the same Mac were sitting on the web, you couldn’t break into it. You might if you were able to get the idiot to connect directly to your machine. It would help if the fool allowed remote login and other stuff.</p>
<p>There was a proof of concept exploit intentionally placed on the web that used a phish to get a user to go to a web page that contained the trick. It was done to demonstrate the hole and was well done. No one has seen anything like that in the wild. </p>
<p>BTW, the example used in the post above actually disproves the notion that Macs aren’t targeted. They are. They are targeted all the time by hackers and researchers and security firms looking for holes and exploits. Macs are not ignored. (And I can’t see how they would be because hackers have been moving in large numbers to the Mac because it has great command line functionality, can run multiple OS’s and yet - this is funny - is easy to use.)</p>
<p>This was a competition involving lots of money, only reason it was targetted in this case.
Plus hackers would move towards Linux which already runs a majority of the world’s web servers and can do so much more than OSX can ever do. Heck don’t even get started about command line without talking about Linux. Multiple OSes? Any PC can run any OS, heck Mac works fine on a normal computer with the proper custom drivers and mods because Apple likes to be dicks.</p>
<p>Also it may be a proof of concept, but phishing users wouldn’t be hard to accomplish. Facebook’s users are pretty gullible and I bet theres a sizable amount of mac users there too, you should be able to work out the rest.</p>
Yeah, having a image or something like that start an attack is usually what happened with Windows when using IE6 long time ago in some cases. phishing is just an excuse to make it sound like Mac isn’t affected like Windows, same ****.</p>
<p>But anyway, security nowadays is just silly to talk about, Windows 7 has a brought alot to the table, IE6 which was the major cause of all the vulnerabilities is LONG gone. IE9 is right about the corner and is actually beating Firefox 3.7 in benchmarks(just to show the huge improvement). Most common automatic exploits now are due to Flash and Acrobat which of course Adobe’s fault for poor software. That and there’s still phishing but every OS is affected by that.</p>
<p>I agree generally that security is not a major issue for the newest PC’s but only if they are running on a college network because the college IT department will require security. A student is generally not allowed on to the network without being scanned. Larger schools, in particular, where one might expect to find the most issues, tend to have the most aggressive IT departments. Home PC’s are much more the problem than a campus used PC. Every bad piece of software seems to come back to school from a vacation at home.</p>
<p>Even then, it’s not hard to stay safe. As long as you don’t click on fishy links, don’t reply to spam emails, don’t visit odd sites, and don’t download files you’re not 100% sure of the contents of, the risk of contracting a virus/trojan/etc drops dramatically.</p>
<p>I’ve had my MacBook Pro for 4 years (still going strong!) and it has only had one virus in that entire time. I found out I had a virus by opening up my internet explorer and it basically told me a trojan virus had gotten in (probably from downloading music…). By clicking a link, it eradicated it for me. </p>
<p>With a Mac, there really is no need for actually paying for an Anti-Virus program, such as Norton Anti-Virus. Usually, your computer will detect it for you on its own. If you’re really concerned, there are free programs out there but they are limited as, again, not a big demand as there are not a lot of viruses out there. </p>
<p>The reason, as people have stated before, is because the majority of the world own PC’s. Most companies have PCs. The government uses PCs, etc… So if one were to make a virus, it’d be way more productive to go for the most used type of OS. </p>
<p>However, Macs are prone to hardware malfunctioning. I know someone who’s hard drive kept crashing over and over. It sometimes still comes back to haunt her, but she takes it to the Apple store and they quickly fix it. </p>
<p>Oh! that’s another plus! Usually the Genius Bar at the Apple store will fix any problems you have or answer any questions you have in person. I like it :)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Macs are the most reliable computer brand. That’s been demonstrated over and over. Hard drives are from suppliers. There may be a run of them that have issues but odds are they’re in a mix of manufacturers’ machines. </p></li>
<li><p>As an update, every browser and thus the operating systems was quickly blasted apart at the Pwn2Own contest. IE, Firefox, Safari all gave it up. I don’t know the details of how this competition was set up. The rules are never as simple as crack a machine that you can’t get into. In this case, they could direct the machine to a website that forced the crack so that’s being publicized as having no direct access but the reality is that they likely did have that access and didn’t have to hack in and then get it to a website. So the contest is not a true test but shows that browsers are really, really, really complicated and there will always be exploits.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As an update to the post above, now that details are coming out, the only browser not pawned was Chrome and that was because no one tried, probably because it’s new. As commenters have noted, it took 2+ years for someone to do this to Safari. </p>
<p>Also, they pawned Windows 7 - meaning in 64 bit ASLR mode. I have this quote, “all of the hacks of pwn2own on Windows 7 made use of return-to-libc attacks, which should be impossible on systems with address space layout randomization.” Guess not.</p>
<p>I haven’t gotten a single virus on my PC for 4 years. Minor spyware, I suppose, but nothing that created a major performance hit. Really, people whine too much about these security issues.</p>
<p>There is a common belief that using Macs will make you immune to viruses. NO operating system is completely safe and there are a few mac viruses out in the wild. Give it may be 15 or 20 years, and you’ll probably see mac malware/viruses becoming more and more common.
Regardless of whatever computer you have, it’s the OS your running that determines how susceptible you are to viruses. I heard people say “running windows on mac gives you no viruses” and it’s completely wrong. Getting a virus or not has nothing to do with whether the computer is “Mac” or a “PC”.
But really, common sense is probably the best way of NOT getting a virus. Just dont be stupid and dont go to porn sites, hack sites, torrents, etc</p>
<p>As the title says, there are NO KNOWN VIRUSES FOR OSX. This is a fact. Yes, there may be trojans, but there are no viruses. And it is still unlikely you will get a trojan horse because Apple has software to combat this and warn you if you do somehow get one. </p>
<p>There are many reasons why Macs have less viruses than PCs. To say that it is simply because of their lesser market penetration is complete asinine. First, if I was creating a virus, I would definitely create one for the Mac because no Mac users run virus software! So it would actually make more sense to make a virus for a Mac. So, why isn’t there any viruses? One reason is that apple’s operating system is more secure than windows (people will argue this, but it is definitely one of the reasons why). Another reason is that apple has various hidden technologies which make it harder for unknown code to run in the background (AKA viruses). </p>
<p>Get a MAC! You will not have to worry about viruses!</p>
<p>Please know that it is impossible to be 100% safe online. This especially goes for when in college. If I need to do research for a report ect., I am obviously going to be clicking on sites that I have never been to and that I have no clue if they are “safe” or not. Just Get a Mac so you don’t have to worry about that crap. Don’t allow people who know nothing about the Mac give you false information (because I have seen a lot of that going on around here). Fact: There are no known viruses for the Mac. Call and ask Apple yourself. They cannot lie to you because that would be false marketing which is against the law.</p>
<p>-Mac OS X can get viruses. Do a quick Google check and you’ll see for yourself.</p>
<p>-Apple lies all the time. Illegal or not, they do. I’ve heard everything from Apple reps from “MacBooks are faster than PCs” to “Macs have better build quality” to “PCs are only designed to last for two years”. Of course Apple would say Macs don’t get viruses; it’s in their best interest to do so.</p>
<p>If you want proof, go ahead, look it up yourself instead of listening to the obviously biased party.</p>
<p>r31ncarnat3d, make sure you actually visit credable sites before you start telling people false information. Previous iterations of Apple’s operating systems did have viruses (such as tiger, and a few other versions from OS 9 and OS 10); however, both Leopard and Snow Leopard have no Viruses. Don’t be an idiot. And Apple does not lie about its products. First, there are no viruses for leopard and snow leopard, so they told the truth about that. Second, Macs do have better build quality than MOST consumer PCs. Most PCs are mad out of cheap plastic. The Macbook pros are all made out of a single piece of milled aluminum. It’s kind of a no brainer that macs have higher build quality than MOST pcs. I did not say all because some PCs have great build quality that is on par with the macbook pros (Lenovo has many models that have excellent build quality). Any Mac you buy will be fast at most of your commonly used applications. As far as macs being faster than PCs, it all depends on what you are comparing it to. Also remember that OSX does not require the same specs as windows 7 to run smoothly. In other words, Windows requires higher specs than OSX to run well. This is actually a fact, just look at the minimum system requirements for both. </p>
<p>In my opinion, Macs are all around better computers because of the level of integration that apple has with the software and hardware. I’m not going to list all the reasons why because you will only try to counter them. Before you criticize the Mac, actually use one. And I’m not talking about briefly at your local best buy or apple store. You need to actually use one for at least a month. You will see that Apple offers a much more streamlined and easier to use experience.</p>
<p>Computers were invented by humans to do work for us, not to have us do work for them. We should not have to worry about viruses and defragging our hard drives ect. Fact: Much higher PERCENTAGE of Mac users are happy with their computers than PC users. Studies and polls have been done. And don’t forget this is a percentage so it doesn’t matter that their are more PC users since the math is done in terms of a percentage.</p>