Apple Computers

[aznyron]

I have been thinking about buying the new apple pc with the new OS system called the leopard not it has been put on hold to get there Ipod out that ok I will not be buying it untill later in the year if I choose to now I never used a apple they say it different and I would like to read some replies from people who have used them and own them compare to windows and also about software application compatibility problems thank you Ronnie

[mosquitoman]

I had macs since the early 90s (my first computer was a classic) until 2006, my last being a powerbook G4

I then switched to PCs

I cant see my self going back to Macs

I am far happier with the performance of my PC than I ever was with any of my macs.

MM

[nikster]

I have been thinking about buying the new apple pc with the new OS system called the leopard not it has been put on hold to get there Ipod out that ok I will not be buying it untill later in the year if I choose to now I never used a apple they say it different and I would like to read some replies from people who have used them and own them compare to windows and also about software application compatibility problems thank you Ronnie

I have always used Macs and Windows in parallel - but I am planning to go Mac full time soon.

if you care about design, pretty much everything on the Mac is designed much better than windows - hardware and software. that's the main reason I am going to go back to Mac soon, simply because I realized I am looking at an ugly piece of plastic for 10 hours every day. Then I played with a friend's new MacBook and thought - why deal with it? I might as well stare at a supreme example of industrial design every day - in fact, I think I would prefer that. It's beautiful and functional. Whereas my PC laptop, which is one of the prettier ones out there, is just full of prettifying features that serve no purpose and design flaws that are just silly.

no viruses or AV software either, another notch for the Mac.

As for programs, same as on Windows. MS Office on the Mac tends to be worse than the Windows version. Most anything you need already ships with the Mac - text app, email, web, pictures, movies.

If you buy the Mac in Thailand, the friendly store will pre-install Parallels software which lets you run all Windows software at near-native speed. Quite amazing actually.

As for mosquito's speed comment - that's not true. I find OS X way faster than WinXP for most things. And don't even start on Vista which seems to be half the speed of WinXP for most intents and purposes. Especially since the Mac had hardware parity - switching to Intel processors and generally using the faster ones throughout - OS X is blazingly fast.

I am not sure how to describe the difference - OS X, once you know it, wastes a lot less time than Windows XP. But if you are used to XP, you will have to get used to OS X because many things are not better but just different. A lot of things that kinda-sorta-sometimes work in WinXP just work in OS X.

An example:

Sleeping the system is reliable in OS X. You close the lid of the laptop - system goes to sleep. You open - system wakes up, back to where it was. System survives in sleep mode for weeks, then goes to deep hibernation mode automatically. You never have to deal with it - it works. Period.

On XP, suspend mode generally works well. The system can't stay in suspend very long though - a few days to a week max, then the battery is empty. Then it goes in hibernation mode at which point things might or might not work on startup. Also, sometimes coming back from sleep, stuff just doesn't work and you have to restart anyway. My bluetooth and WiFi are prime examples. But it almost works, it's good enough, and I use it a lot. I just wish it would _always_ work.

[Phil Conners]

I have two different friends who switched from PC's to Macs recently, and both are swearing at it, having tons of problems getting things working. Don't believe the hype or buy for the coolness factor - for the money you pay for a Mac you can get a very cool PC anyway.

[Thaddeus]

I have two different friends who switched from PC's to Macs recently, and both are swearing at it, having tons of problems getting things working. Don't believe the hype or buy for the coolness factor - for the money you pay for a Mac you can get a very cool PC anyway.

What's their problem Phil .... can't get the codecs to view view movies they want

I have worked with both Macs and Pc's for over 20 years, I am equally at home with both platforms .... and I will just say this.

Straight out of the box, the Mac is no more functional than the PC, ease of use for a non-computer user is about the same.

Then you connect to the net .... one stays green, one goes red in a very short space of time..... you can be a total internet dummy using a Mac and come to no harm, the same can not be said for a PC, yes the software exists that will protect you, but why should you need to invest more to protect yourself and more importantly why do you only realise that you need some protection after the event.

I don't work anymore .... no permit .... but I get a fair few free beers from the local ex-pat community for sorting out problems with their computers.

I have both in my home.... I use the PC to check the status of my ipstar box and to play games, that's about it, I use the Mac for everything else.

[cdnvic]

I think Macs are a good product but one note about viruses and malware. Macs may not be very prone to viruses but exploits have surfaced from time to time affecting Macs, and they can be carriers of malware and pass it on to other machines so it's still important to run an antivirus of some kind to ensure you aren't forwarding infected emails and stuff around.

[Thaddeus]

I think Macs are a good product but one note about viruses and malware. Macs may not be very prone to viruses but exploits have surfaced from time to time affecting Macs, and they can be carriers of malware and pass it on to other machines so it's still important to run an antivirus of some kind to ensure you aren't forwarding infected emails and stuff around.

I agree completely CD, no one will ever get an email from me that starts with FW:

[mosquitoman]

IMHO

My PC does everything my macs ever did and more

PCs are far better value for money than Macs

There is alot more software out their for PCs

Alot more outlets and people can repair a PC than a mac

Pcs are cheaper and quicker to get repaired especially if you live of the beaten track

Macs are just as prone to glitches as PCs, I had more problems with my macs than my PC especailly network/ connectivity

Macs are great if you want a fashion accessory.

MM

Edited April 16, 2007 by mosquitoman

[aznyron]

I want to thank all of you who replied to my question I will be buying a desk top when I buy and I also will continue to use my win/pc running xp home just a short story about win/xp my cd disk got damaged and I tried to replace them from micr. through the singapore office all I got was run around like send me you coa label which I did they have no record so they say I want to say my disk all 3 are legal copies 1 is pro which is damaged plus they want 30.00 usd for each disk I told them bye bye this is one of the reson why I am switiching to Imac plus I like photography I am not good at it but I hope to learn more another reson why I will switich to Imac but I want to wait until the leopard O/S come out that why I put this post up to find out as much as possibile about IMAC thank you all keep those post coming Ronnie

[cdnvic]

If you have a COA then the disk doesn't matter, you have a license to run a single copy of XP Home. Borrow a disk if you need to, just make sure you use your own license key.

[aznyron]

If you have a COA then the disk doesn't matter, you have a license to run a single copy of XP Home. Borrow a disk if you need to, just make sure you use your own license key.

Hi cdrivic I like having my own disk besides i don't know any one who has a legit copy of xp pro I do have one good disk of home xp i think they are different from pro to home but I am not sure thank you

[cdnvic]

Sorry, I thought I read XP Home. The same thing stands though, if you can get a copy of XP Pro or have one made you're still legal so long as you have the COA.

[nikster]

I think Macs are a good product but one note about viruses and malware. Macs may not be very prone to viruses but exploits have surfaced from time to time affecting Macs, and they can be carriers of malware and pass it on to other machines so it's still important to run an antivirus of some kind to ensure you aren't forwarding infected emails and stuff around.

That's a bit too theoretical for me. No AV software on my Mac until there's actual malware for macs out there. I am unconvinced any existing AV program would protect against future malware that hasn't even been written. But then I am one of those people who also don't go to the doctor unless they are sick.

Last real virus I remember was something like 10 years ago when there were MS Word Macro-Viruses that worked on Macs as well as Windows. I think MS in the meantime fixed Word so there are no macro viruses out in the wild anymore.

So I think when you say "Macs are not very prone to malware" it's misleading. I don't even know if it's true or false but I do know a more important fact: No malware exists for the Mac as of this time.

I am not talking about demo exploits either, I am talking about real, live threats.

[nikster]

I want to thank all of you who replied to my question I will be buying a desk top when I buy and I also will continue to use my win/pc running xp home just a short story about win/xp my cd disk got damaged and I tried to replace them from micr. through the singapore office all I got was run around like send me you coa label which I did they have no record so they say I want to say my disk all 3 are legal copies 1 is pro which is damaged plus they want 30.00 usd for each disk I told them bye bye this is one of the reson why I am switiching to Imac plus I like photography I am not good at it but I hope to learn more another reson why I will switich to Imac but I want to wait until the leopard O/S come out that why I put this post up to find out as much as possibile about IMAC thank you all keep those post coming Ronnie

BTW Leopard has just been delayed to October

[cdnvic]

That's a bit too theoretical for me. No AV software on my Mac until there's actual malware for macs out there. I am unconvinced any existing AV program would protect against future malware that hasn't even been written.

Many of the best AVs do this everyday. It's called heuristics, spotting virus-like actions.

So I think when you say "Macs are not very prone to malware" it's misleading. I don't even know if it's true or false but I do know a more important fact: No malware exists for the Mac as of this time.

OSX/Leap.A

Exploit.OSX.Safari

Exploit.OSX.ScriptEx.a

Opener/Renepo-A Rootkit

These were among 60 vulnerabilities that affected OSX, Quicktime, Safari, iTunes, and other Apple programs in 2006. Add to that exploits that target third party software that runs on OSX (Browsers, etc). Plus, as pointed out earlier, they can harbour malware that will spread on a network, to flash drives, and removable devices.

Yes Mac Malware is rare, and a fully patched Mac is probably not vulnerable, but these things do surface from time to time, and an AV with good heuristics is an excellent defence.

I'd never trust my Linux or freeBSD to blind faith.

[nikster]

That's a bit too theoretical for me. No AV software on my Mac until there's actual malware for macs out there. I am unconvinced any existing AV program would protect against future malware that hasn't even been written.

Many of the best AVs do this everyday. It's called heuristics, spotting virus-like actions.

[

Do you have any statistics on how well these work? From what I saw in my limited use of AV programs, they mostly generated lots of false alarm. Which doesn't improve security, rather, it makes security worse by numbing people to warnings.

I don't have any statistics either but I do follow security news and most of the time new zero day exploits are not detected by heuristics like Norton's bloodhound.

My gut feeling is that a real test of these systems would show a very high noise/signal ratio - many false alarms with very few real viruses detected. In addition, when you say "scanning for activities" it means malware is already active, at which point it's too late - the AV program has already been disabled.

For heuristics to work, you would have to analyze the .exe file and determine whether or not the code contains code that can replicate itself, or does something else that's suspicious, but you would have to do that _before_ the malware is even running.

I do know that even the earliest viruses were hiding their code in the executable, they would scramble the instructions and only un-scramble it at runtime. That was when I was studying, 15 years ago. So analyzing the .exe file is a pretty hard thing to do.

So I think when you say "Macs are not very prone to malware" it's misleading. I don't even know if it's true or false but I do know a more important fact: No malware exists for the Mac as of this time.

OSX/Leap.A

...

Heres a good article on most of these: http://www.viruslist.com/en/analysis?pubid=191968025

I quote from the conclusion: Even though malware like IM-Worm.OSX.Leap.a and Worm.OSX.Inqtana.A and exploits like Exploit.OSX.Safari.a and Exploit.OSX.Script-Ex were all proof of concept code, and had no obvious malicious payload, these proof of concept programs showed that Mac OS X does contain security flaws, and that these can be used to compromise the system.

They're all proof of concept exploits, some even written by security researchers (Inquanta).

They show that the Mac can be infected. They do not cause any harm to the user. Hence, there is no malware out there for the Mac. Q.E.D. Symantec says on its page on Leap.A that is has infected "0 - 49" systems!

Quite honestly, most of these proof of concepts are really the most simplistic of all - they aren't even real attack vectors. If I send you an executable via email, and you run it on your system and enter your admin password, sure it can do anything it wants. It's trivial to write virus like that. I realize that many popular viruses out there work following this principle and using social hacks to get people to open them. And enough do want to see AngelinaJolieNaked.exe or ILoveYou.exe. The latter was, I believe the first such virus.

But if you have half a brain, you can protect yourself from these by not opening strange attachments that somebody sends you. The OS can't really do anything for you there (*). AV programs can protect you from the varieties they can detect, and that's pretty much their only function. Hence, if you have half a brain, you don't need the AV program.

Windows is a different story - there are thousands of viruses out there, they have infected millions of machines, and they are doing real harm. In addition, there are many attack vectors that require no user interaction - just visiting a web page with IE - which itself may have been hacked - can run a piece of malware and you would never know about it. AV programs do not protect from that because they are the first thing the malware will turn off. And that's the reality of it.

Please note that I would never claim that it's impossible to write a worm/trojan/virus for the Mac, even one that does real damage. Its just not been done yet. I just think it's unlikely to happen, not just because 90% of the world runs windows but also and more importantly because Windows presents such an easy target.

(*) Well it could sandbox applications like mail and web browsers. But nobody's doing that at the moment. Vista is supposed to sandbox IE except that it's not working - I hope they get it to work at some point, that would be excellent. Sandbox means that the operating system acts as police and does not let an application change anything outside its own directory, or maybe even nothing at all except saving bookmarks and history. It's the only concept that could work and I am sure at some point, it will... but it's not in OS X or XP or Linux and non-functional in Vista...

Sorry for the length, but security is a difficult subject, I tried to make this as short as possible.

Edited April 16, 2007 by nikster

[cdnvic]

Nod32 gives me on average about one false positive per month. Back in the day that I used Norton (long ago) it was almost once a day. I'll have a look at that article you linked to in the morning. Looks like a good read.