Apple tells Mac users: Get anti-virus
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
Even the Vista built-in AV software rendered it impossible to install Flight Simulator X. This is AV software from a major vendor. If it jacks up the install of their own software, then something is very wrong with the approach.
Personally, I believe in regular backups by imaging my HD every week or so, and being careful about what I run on my computer.
It get's really funny when the AV software comes with security holes. Better to just reduce the number of unnecessary software installed on the computers. No software == no security holes.
It does make a lot of sense, we are basically running our PC and everything is run as root. What do you guys think?
I haven't run an AV on the computers I use the most in a couple of years, and have had no infections. I don't download warez, surf "questionable" sites, and don't open email attachments unless I'm expecting them (and these days most attachments can be viewed in google docs first). I only use IE to view my employer's Exchange based webmail and to test HTML I'm writing. I do run Vista with UAC on.
If I do encounter a file that I need to open that may be questionable, I fire up a VM with AVG and test it out.
For me, the performance penalty for an always on Anti Virus is too much for what it provides. For my parents, I make sure they have the latest updates to their AV software 24/7.
(on a mac) that's not true. I've been using this approach for years now (both on Tiger and Leopard) and most mac software recognize this (ones that don't eventually come around very quickly - it's been 3 years since I've seen one that didn't)
The only thing you'll run into is the minor inconvenience of having to login seamingly all the time (though eventually you'll get used to it)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/apple_m...
While Apple may recommend anti-virus programs to enterprise customers, they still use the Mac's relative lack of viruses as a selling point in their ads, and an Apple employee told the column writer that anti-virus was unnecessary. Walt Mossberg says the same thing: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/garfinkel/17586/
There is a bit of a disconnect between the Mac's public image and these quietly posted technical articles.
The only Mac OS virii out there have been ones that require the user to run something and/or confirm an obviously unsafe action.
And there have only been 2-3-4 that have made the news, vs. thousands for Windows.
So it's not really a very dire situation, and Apple is right to feature it.
I'd certainly rather have a family member use a Mac than a Windows machine, if only for this reason.
The Register, of course, is blowing the whole thing way out of proportion. (...a sentence I originally put in my comment, and probably shouldn't have taken out.)
A virus that infects computers via the monitor connection. That would be crazy.
I assume the same is pretty much true for OSX.
Of course, I should point out that the person you were replying to was exactly back-to-front. It's much easier to wrangle a privileges escalation than it is to get onto the system in the first place.
If you don't propagate you're just a trojan and will have limited penetration.
The hard part is propagating to other computers.
Egad, they actually are recommending Norton/McAfee
Poor MAC users, at least there's an option for Avast.
Going back to what I was saying before, something about the approach of AV seems inelegant. This article[1] (point #2) sums up my sense of AV. With it, you're always playing catch-up and that seems weird. I just wanted to get others to weigh in on that idea.
[1]: http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d...
People always want to know why I haven't looked at their email attachments, and the response is always the same: no attachments, no exceptions! (Ok, I'm cool with images attachments.)
Stay with us, we are closed environment just like M$FT, we just do it with a smile ;-)
While Apple isn't 100% open source, they are the closest among commercial end-user targeted OSes. Apple obviously feels, and honestly I think they're probably right, that fully open sourcing their OS would negatively impact their ability to run a profitable hardware/software business. That's absolutely their right.
I'd also argue that for mass consumer end users, there is no open source revolution. While I love and use Linux all the time, I'd never put my mother or my sister or my wife on it. Likewise with software, it needs to come with a nice printed or online manual that's easy to use, and a 1-800 number for the support department. Fixing an issue needs to not involve steps like "use vi to edit giant.xml which depending on your distro could be in one of these 10 long path locations".
goes to get coffee
2. Have you tried to develop and deliver an Iphone app? Don't you think Apple could have make the iPhone SDK some how more open and flexible. Wouldn't you as a Java guy be happy to have Java there in addition to the Objective C?
I switched to Ubuntu from OS X 10.5 and don't think will ever go back.
2. I haven't worked on an iPhone app. Not really my area. Sure Apple could be more open, although they obviously see reasons not to be, and that their right. However, I'd argue that they're generally more open than most of the widely used competition. You might wish the iPhone SDK supported multiple languages, but compare that to developing for the Motorola Razr, or the Blackberry? I think Apple is doing pretty well. Obviously not as well as some folks would like, but they're running a business and trying to ensure profits, quality, low support calls, all that stuff, and I respect that.
Your comment on the fact that software needs to come with a nice printed manual highlights why: of my mother, my sister and my wife, I'm the only one that reads the damn things.
edit: this http://contentconsumer.com/2008/04/27/is-ubuntu-useable-enou... makes me think we don't give non-hackers/programmers enough credit.
--edit-- My prevailing attitude is to tell folks to use OS X on the desktop and linux on the server, regardless if they are a hacker or my mom:)
Apple needs a closed environment. They need to make money from selling their computers. They do so because they need to pay their programmers, who are among the best in the world. They have to pay their designers, who are quite possibly the best in the world. (Apple's won more Red Dot design awards than any other company or single designer, and they've won with a ridiculous margin.) Speaking as a consumer, I'm willing to pay money for good service. That's how the economy has worked for centuries, and I think it's a proven workable model.
Apple's open enough for me. I can tweak everything I want, to my heart's content, because it runs on top of perfect Unix. I'm not a hardcore programmer, I don't yet see the point for emacs (though part of me feels that day is coming), but Terminal is enough to give me a keyboard-only environment when I need to do coding. Apple's got an excellent set of universal shortcuts, actually, which I don't recall Ubuntu having when I tried it.
The set-up on a Mac requires me to actively approve any virus on my computer before it launches. That's pretty close to foolproof if I'm cautious about it. Apple recommends it, sure, because that's responsible of them. That doesn't make it absolutely necessary.
On the other hand, when I installed Ubuntu, the graphics and sound cards on my perfectly-normal Dell box wouldn't show things right or play sound, installing third-party applications melted the entire thing, and eventually I had to reinstall Windows as well. The fact that Open Source makes it possible for me to accidentally destroy something (and I wasn't even messing with terminal) makes me think I'll stick with Apple, thanks.