Comments on: Apple deletes Mac antivirus suggestion

Apple removes statement to customers urging them to use antivirus software, saying that Macs are safe "out of the box."

[stripp]

how on earth could an advice targeting at least 2 brand new anti virus software suites be old an inaccurate?(intego x5 january 2008, norton 11 , december 2007)

sounds like your in denial 2 me

[clamenza]

I really hope we'll get fewer of these shoe-kissing articles for Apple. A sign of the times when so many consumers idolize COMPANIES for their products and defend them as if they were friends.

[realneil]

I use a free program called iAntiVirus on my Mac. It may not be a necessary step for a Mac at this time, but I bought this thing to keep my most important files safe. My thousands of Photos are on it as are my MP3's. I use it for digital document storage and trust it to be secure. I have 2 Tera bytes of storage and it's 75% full. I know that the iAntiVirus program uses a small portion of my 4Gigs of RAM and a little bit of the 2.8 Gig dual core extreme processor's power, but I could care less about that. This computer is a powerhouse with resources to spare and the anti-virus's running in the background is negligible. And I'm protected just in case,..........
I have a Mac-Mini in the kitchen for DVD playback and recipe lookups that is unprotected,....but it has never been infected yet.

[Penguinisto]

So, to the MSFT cheerleading squad:

You were saying? ;)

[compudoc318]

so its better that they flip flopped their position in one day?

[Penguinisto]

Given the size and scope of such a corporation, coupled with the buried nature of the article (not to mention the typos in it?)

Nope - they merely cleaned it up to be in line with their stance.

[Someone-else]

Mac is gettting a bigger marketshare, and it means, more attention from hackers, soon there will be Viruses for Macs, and those people who payed twice the price for something "Virus-proof" will soon be more infected than a PC on Mac ads.
PCs are also safe if used right, I haven't got a virus in over 2 years with my Win XP and ONE antivirus, and it doesn't mean the computer haven't been exposed to viruses coming from Email or infected pendrives.

[wmyinzer]

Apple's ignorance is still overbearing. (and so are the fanboys...)

I stand by what I said before, every major OS needs some form of security. There is no such thing as a secure system, yet there is no such thing as a virus-ridden system. Windows is so easily hacked because of it's popularity. If you're going to write a virus, you're going to want it to affect the most people right?

Once Apple finally hits 10 or 15 percent of the marketshare and actually starts making true crossroads into businesses and the average computer user, you're going to see a flood of malware hit Macs.

It may be a good thing though. Fanboys everywhere will lose weight, get out more, maybe even make a few new friends in real life!!

[Penguinisto]

Nobody said that OSX doesn't need "some form of security".

OTOH, it has quite a lot of built in security, and A/V solutions are a poor form of security no matter what OS you use (though on Windows, a typical user's options are pretty limited, so I guess it's better than nothing).

[wmyinzer]

How exactly are Windows options anymore limited than OSX's?

You do realize that OSX is more proprietary than Windows Vista or XP, right? Also that Vista has more "built-in" security features than OSX? Shall we bring up Pwn2Own? I understand that the vulnerability used to hack the Mac is a universal vulnerability, but nevertheless: It was hacked before Vista.

Saying OSX is a Unix distribution is like saying Windows is an IBM OS2 distribution. Both OS's have been have been almost completely redesigned and bear little resemblance to their distant relatives. Both OS's are equally VULNERABLE. Although Windows tends to have more VIRUSES associated because of it's massive platform. Just wait till fanboys...which is Cnet's plague...rush to Apple's aid as they will face a major identity crisis when the OSX vulnerabilities are exposed when the OS attains greater market share.

Hey, did you know Vista had far less known vulnerabilities 3 months after it's launch than Leopard did? Isn't that funny?



Oh, you forgot that little forward-slash P thing you tend to do. Holy he** that cracks me up!

[The_happy_switcher]

No, windows is easily hacked because it's poorly coded.

[Penguinisto]

"How exactly are Windows options anymore limited than OSX's?"

When it comes to security, Windows' UI (and internals) are too opaque and limited for security options available to the user.

OTOH, I can pop open Terminal on OSX, and customize iptables with my own rulesets and chains.

I can delete every trace of Safari from a Mac without crippling the OS and its base functionality in the process - try that on Windows with IE sometime.

I can customize damned near every aspect of how daemons (you call them "services") operate in OSX - from what resources are called (including all options that resource may have available), to fine-tuned priorities, to when and under what conditions they are called, how much permission the daemon actually has in a system, what binaries they actually use, etc etc...

...In Windows, you get "Automatic", "Manual", and "Disabled".

Get the idea now? :)

[Penguinisto]

Oh, about that "pwn2own" thing - nice try, but rigged contests in lab conditions don't count. How about pointing us to an OSX botnet? A live OSX virus? The latest botnet to hit the news involved 500k Windows machines that wasn't able to patch MS08-67 in time. Where are the hordes of OSX zombies?

[D3vildog699]

Of course it's "Rigged" now... o.0

[wmyinzer]

Oh, and by fanboys with no life and no future...I'm referring to you penguinisto

[Penguinisto]

God bless you too, wmyinzer. :)

[wmyinzer]

As in your God: Steve Jobs? Or Jesus? maybe Buddha?

[Penguinisto]

You pick - worship what you will.

[someguynamedbob]

herez a paranoia type thought. what if apple is making all the viruses for windows then selling there macs and what not saying "our computer are virus proof!" cauze they wont make the viruses for there computers! :P

[cephalis]

On the basis of the previous article recommending anti-virus software I purchased it. Now, the recommendation is voided. Thanks, I will take future recommendations with a grain of salt.

[t8tjt]

Owned Mac's since 2000. Not one virus hit in that time and I include those laptops and devices owned by my kids, wife and mom. I have not opted for virus protection since about 03. My work PC's during that time frame, what a nightmare in terms of viruses. Maybe its dumb, but, why spend the bucks if there is no apparent need. T

[compudoc318]

dont forget, youre infecting the windows pc, yes, ill agree, a pc gets infected way easier than a mac, but a windows user with any common sense can avoid getting infected for the most part. so youre just bragging about opening unknown emails, and going to bad sites.

[pithenumber]

Mac Mini pwn't on day 3

I should've installed an A/V

[shanedr]

No computer is safe out of the box. The operating system that does not require the use of an anti-virus software has not been developed.

[The_happy_switcher]

There's one siting on my desk that doesn't.

[pithenumber]

@AppleRocks
Apple sucks

*writes virus*
now it isn't

[pbg3445]

On the 'security by obscurity" argument:
If virus writers are in it for the notoriety, even if the Mac is a small target, wouldn't a writer stand out from the pack by writing the first Mac virus?
fter years of Apple advertising on national TV that they don't have any?
It's nonsense. Virus writers know full well that they'd make the network news if they successfully released a Mac virus.

[pithenumber]

Hackers like me know they will be famous, I wrote a Mac virus, but I needed to use a bit of social engineering
emailed it to a fanboy, said it was a virus in the message, he opened it

Crackers know they won't get rich since market share is small

We Linux/Windows lovers should get together and write Mac viruses like crazy

[switchblade_bravado]

Everyone needs to just unplug and read a good book!

[gbdoc]

Ms. Mills says: "There are no known viruses in the wild that exploit a vulnerability in the Mac OS."

True, but there's one (and only one) Trojan, the DNSchanger Trojan, aka OSX.RSplug.A, OSX.RSPlugin.A, or OSX/Zlob. But this has to be manually installed on purpose by the user, requiring an admin password. Most users would balk at this. It pretends to be software that lets you watch movies on the Web. In reality, it changes your Mac's name servers to point to name servers in Russia controlled by Russian organized crime, which effectively allows them to control everything you see on the Web; they can do anything from insert ads into pages you view to block access to certain Web sites to diverting you wherever they want you to go (for example, diverting you to a fake site when you try to go to your bank's Web site).

"such threats now come from code that targets weaknesses in browsers and other applications that aren't platform specific" Can you name one, besides the one above?

AV-ware (especially Norton) has been known to cause big problems.

So, what's the cost/benefit readout for most users today? For me, certainly no threat yet.

[pithenumber]

There aren't any in the wild...Yet

Market share go up==virus go up

[tsinger254]

As a pc user, I can only say: if Macs are so great, why are they in the minority? Money DOES talk.

[irperez]

Yup, Apple has all the answers when it comes to security. Right out of the box! What could be better? Hey isn't that what Apple is known for?

Hey, should we all jump off a bridge?

[pithenumber]

Apple is known for great out of the box
and horrible after a month or so

iPod, awesome when you start using it, then iTunes starts sucking
good thing we have itune replacements

[The_happy_switcher]

What will the whiny little Windows ******* cry about now, then?

[jinx101a]

Don't you feel lame knowing your nothing but a corporate cheerleader? These are companies, not sports teams, get a life man.

[dweissenborn]

I hate listening to Mac Zealots ramble on about how great their OS is.

I use both OSes, for different reasons. I have OS X loaded on my Dell 1525, love it. But I also have Vista loaded on that same machine (not everything works so hot in paralells/VM Fusion). Comparing the two is like apples and oranges. You can argue all day about the flavors but in the end there is no even ground for comparison.

Why is the security argument moot? OSX has already been hacked you zealot, get your facts straight. Read the news from the PWN2OWN conference. Every OS is fallible. The Java exploit they used to take over a Vista SP1 system exists is Linux, OS X, and any other OS its installed on. Period.

You don't see the proliferation of viruses for OS X because OS X itself hasn't proliferated the same way Windows has. Period.

90% of problems with any OS are attributed to user error. The software companies release after realease are simply trying to stear people int he right direction with the changes they make. The same people that dont know what they are doing are the same people who cry all day about how something isn't working right when really they don't know what they are doing. Or, perhaps only know how to use one OS.

So there's my 2 cents, you may need change. Feel free to flame but please for the love of god, try to keep it fresh, I'm so tired of hearing the same "OS X is better" " NO!, Windows is better!" arguments.

[Penguinisto]

"I hate listening to Mac Zealots ramble on about how great their OS is."

Well, there are options...

You could build a better one (or help Linux get more widely adopted), hope Microsoft manages to come up with something better, or write a virus that works on OSX.

(the latter is a bit illegal, but objectively, it is an option).

[rockerrb]

I think it is highly arrogant of Apple to say that Macs are not susceptible to viruses without Antivirus software. This is a flat lie.

[Penguinisto]

Macs are perfectly susceptible to viruses... just like you are perfectly susceptible to winning the Powerball jackpot this week if you bought a single ticket today.

Big diff between possibilities and probabilities, yanno?

[jinx101a]

Agreed.

[CrashPad63]

You Mapple fanbois are so asking for it. Macs get Malware, they get trojans. And to say different is ludicrous. I have never seen this much denial about a product in my life.
You know what, even Leo Laporte recommends an AV client for Macs.

[Penguinisto]

I hear people win the Powerball too. ;)