Wall Street Journal On The Switch 91
An anonymous reader writes "Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's personal technology columnist, has long appreciated Macintosh, in a very unbiased, but still probably slightly business-oriented way. Today, in honor of tomorrow's "Panther" release, he has a very positive article in favor of "consumers and small businesses" switching for peace of mind. "If you're tired of the virus wars, the Mac can be an island of serenity.""
Macs are great for many reasons - so are pc's (Score:5, Interesting)
Yay (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yay (Score:5, Informative)
Got infected by Walker-E the other day. A Word macro virus that was written in 1999 actually infected Word on OS X. And all documents that passed through it.
Now, to be fair, this isn't a virus that runs on OS X, it's a virus that runs under VBS emulation. However, that's not a distinction most users will make...
Fecking Microsoft.
Could there be a *BSD Pulse? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mossberg, that shill? (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes I read his column and all he talks about is "oh, this program was fun to use", or "I didn't like this music player because it was hard to operate and the battery cover broke off". Like any of that matters.
His constant annoying praise for Apple products is clearly due to the quality of the product and it's usefulness to the average consumer, and not due to any objective standard like how big Apple's cash position is or how man deals they've cut with other computer companies.
This kind of yellow journalism must be put to an end.
Re:Mossberg, that shill? (Score:2, Insightful)
This guy will gush with praise about any product that's easy to use and free of bugs.
His constant annoying praise for Apple products is clearly due to the quality of the product and it's usefulness to the average consumer.
Reading is fundamen
Re:Mossberg, that shill? (Score:1)
Re:Mossberg, that shill? (Score:1)
Re:Mossberg, that shill? (Score:2, Funny)
No worries... M2 is a bitch.
*runs off to meta-moderate*
It is for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming neither KDE, GNOME, or someother desktop become as freindly as OS X, my next computer will be an apple.
Re:It is for me (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It is for me (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It is for me (Score:1)
Re:It is for me (Score:2)
That could be true, but in general, many Linux freaks really purchased powerbooks and iBooks after the MacOS X. Just compare the Apple section on slashdot in 1999 and today... oh wait, there was NO apple section on slashdot in 1999. But that's exactly my point
Console + Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
I do a PS2 + Mac myself. The way I figure it, the overlap on those two particular machines, game-wise, is a fantastic match.
Consider: we have watched the consoles eat a significant portion of the once-dominant PC game market. Consoles are custom game machines, that enjoy even better mass market economics than PCs, that have no compatibility problems or patches to speak of, and are usually the same approximate cost as the video card alone would be for the PC.
Most kinds of games work better on a console, especially with the console controller. There are two exceptions to this: 3rd-person shooters, which anyone half-serious knows you must use a mouse for; and Real Time Strategy games like WarCraft 3, which need the mouse and the keyboard... usually a multibutton mouse too.
The Mac gets almost all the big 3rd-person shooters ported (Quake3, Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor, etc), as well as many of the RTS games (WC3, Age of Whatevers, etc).
So a Mac + PS2 provides a pretty vast array of gaming. Not quite as vast as a PC of course, but if you want OS X the rest of the time...
Re:Console + Mac (Score:1)
Re:Console + Mac (Score:1)
no viruses on the mac (Score:5, Interesting)
A trojan horse or something that can slowly kill your hard disk is much more severe than something that adds characters to your Excel spreadsheets.
It makes me feel that the Symantec quote is more FUD than anything else. Aside from that, I enjoyed the read.
A good article for non-technical readers. (Score:4, Interesting)
Do we need to keep painting a target on our backs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, is it wise to keep pointing out so loudly that its so hard to write a virus for OS X and that none currently exist? I mean, it sounds kind of pompous and arrogant...like an invitation to try write one?
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:5, Insightful)
>virus free is their small market share, should we really
>keep telling people to switch, since a growing market
>share will make Macs a bigger target?
How much would it have to grow before it becomes a likely target? A factor of 10? 20?
That said, there are two main reasons why viruses on the mac are less common:
1) Mail.app makes it more difficult to launch an application sent to you directly and warns you. It doesn't keep you from doing so, but its not as easy (or defaulted, like it used to be on Outlook).
2) Better security model. The damage one app can cause, even in an admin account, is limited unless it's given extra permissions, which requires giving it a password.
>Also, is it wise to keep pointing out so loudly that its so
>hard to write a virus for OS X and that none currently
>exist? I mean, it sounds kind of pompous and
>arrogant...like an invitation to try write one?
The question would then be, providing you (or whoever) could actually write it, "how long would it stay in the wild."
The low marketshare means that even if you could get it to be as infectious as a virus on windows (same infectious characteristics) it wouldn't have a large pool of systems that it could infect, this means that it is more likely to fizzle than become an issue.
Even providing you could get it work and people to run it.
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:2)
Well, maybe. No-one actually knows, because OSX hasn't attracted much attention from virus writers. It might be harder solely because OSX is newer and virus writers have less experience of it, I suppose, but as of yet, that's the only reason that can be known with any degree of certainty.
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:4, Interesting)
It also has been out for several years. Don't you think that any enterprising visur writer would have written one by now?
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:1, Insightful)
Probably about 20, since that would bring the sub 3%ish market share up to parity with MS. If the goal is to infect as many people as possible, 49.9% market share doesn't really need patching. Computer A gets infected, what are the odds it will find another to infect? You have the market share raised to a very high exponent, and 0.93^n is a much fatter target than 0.03^n.
Macs more secure by design? Maybe. We'll nev
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:2)
Granted no one can protect a computer from a dumb user but this comes pretty close.
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:1)
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:2)
Two different things entirely.
Abandon .SIT archives (Score:3, Interesting)
Aladdin has created a
Re:Abandon .SIT archives (Score:1)
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:5, Informative)
Compare [netcraft.com] Apache's webserver market share to that of Microsoft IIS. Compare the number of exploitable vulnerabilities in those products, and the severity of the results.
Compare [cr.yp.to] Sendmail's SMTP server market share to that of Microsoft Exchange. Compare the number of exploitable vulnerabilities in those products, and the severity of the results.
Compare [esj.com] Oracle's (or IBM's) SQL RDBMS market share to that of Microsoft SQL Server. Compare the number of exploitable vulnerabilities in those products, and the severity of the results.
Deduction: Microsoft manages to lead in introducing exploitable vulnerabilities to market segments, with severe results, even in segments where they do not enjoy market share leadership.
Now that's innovation! :)
To be blunt and honest, Microsoft designed and maintained its operating system product(s) in ways that failed to take security (and multiple users, and networking, and...) into consideration for far too long, and now finds itself in the unenviable position of being the only operating system vendor most people have even heard of that doesn't have a properly secure operating system.
-Dan (whose new "cheesegrater" G5 has fewer holes than Windows)
Re:Do we need to keep painting a target on our bac (Score:2)
Impressive response, nonetheless.
Favorite Quote: (Score:2, Funny)
Like Microsoft, Apple issues periodic security patches, but they are less frequent than the Windows patches -- and some of them are needed to repair flaws in the software programs Microsoft writes for the Mac.
Re:MS viri on the Mac (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:MS viri on the Mac (Score:2)
It's okay if you're not using IMAP [I'm one of the unfortunate]. Apparently MS didn't conform to the RFC. Imagine that...
Re:MS viri on the Mac (Score:2, Insightful)
You forgot one MS app--internet explorer. There have been a couple security updates in the last year that dealt with internet explorer vulnerabilities. IIRC, not biggies, but there all the same.
p.s. outlook 2001 (and outlook express do "exist for the mac". They're os
Re:MS viri on the Mac (Score:2)
I was trying to point out that while Macs can get Word/Excel/PowerPoint-based viruses, there really aren't that many being produced anymore. If you look at Symantec's Latest Virus Threats [symantec.com] list (W32.Marque@mm is the newest listed), there's only two that uses Word/Excel/PowerPoint as it's carrier: W97M.Rochitz.C and W97M.Tabi.Trojan. W97M.Rochitz.C doesn't do anything but spread. W97M.Ta
Old Joke (Score:4, Insightful)
There's an old Microsoft joke of an error message that says:
With that said: heterogeneous computing environments, whether within small networks or on the global network increase security.
Re:Old Joke (Score:1)
Combined with the positive word from ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Combined with the positive word from ... (Score:2, Interesting)
all of them pretty much justifiable, but he's always been one
of those straight-shooters that's been able to see around
the "Apple is dying" bullshit a lot of his peers loved to spew.
Re:Combined with the positive word from ... (Score:1)
Re:Combined with the positive word from ... (Score:1)
times in which they admittedly deserved it. But even then,
he wasn't one of the "write-an-article-predicting-Apple's
demise-beca
works for him and what doesn't and has no problems saying so.
Extreme Bias (Score:2)
Re:My issues with this article (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, the parent is not flamebait. It's unfairly moderated.
That said,
For the individual user, opportunity cost, lost productivity, and essentially waste of resources are far less of a noticeable factor than for MegaCorp Inc. I should know, I'm building an incident response team at a large international bank--they blew millions and millions either preparing for or responding to shit that never should have happened in the first place. Check the CSI/FBI computer crime survey, Gartner, whatnot--you'll find absolutely stunning figures. Whether they're the result of underlying flaws in Windows, or just of a higher suscepbility of that OS to attack because it's further spread I won't argue--I have made up my mind on that already.
Furthermore, while I have no issue with your general comments, there's one important thing you're missing--vulnerabilities in Linux/BSD tend (note careful choice of words) to be results of configuration errors, or of vulnerabilities in software running on top of the OS.
I just had this discussion with a colleague recently--your fundamental difference, compared to Windows is that (a) the existence of Linux workstation in a corporate network does not require you automatically to run vulnerable services as part of the core OS (vulnerabilities in OpenSSH notwithstanding, it's a far more secure mechanism for administering distributed boxes than mapping a C: drive via RPC), and (b) if you do have to run service, I can't think of many (and if you mention NFS, I'll throw a shoe at you) which cannot somehow have their running privileges limited (run as different user, chroot, jail, whatever.)
Of course, if you allow remote root logins, that's your own problem.
Re:My issues with this article (Score:2, Insightful)
ANY computer is susceptible to a virus written for it. Money? The last time I checked security patches were free.
They are free - however the cost in bandwidth and the cost of IT for businesses isn't free. And the design of *n
Re:OSX Underhood (Score:4, Funny)
You mean, quote, "Ars Technica - The PC enthusiast's resource", end quote? Sounds like an exellent place to find some unbiased information on Apple
The invasion of humanity.. (Score:3, Funny)
My issues with this story (Score:1, Flamebait)
ANY computer is susceptible to a virus written for it. Money? The last time I checked security patches were free.
Almost every week, they are supposed to install patches to the already patchy operating system to plug these sec
Re:My issues with this story (Score:2)
Actually I'm debunking FUD but lets carry on.
Most of it doesn't even make sense, as when you claim that hardware for Linux is free ("typical computing tasks? Linux can do all that too - for free"),
I didn't say hardware for Linux is free - that would be extremely silly now wouldn't it? There are certain things I think that we can take for granted, such a
Re:My issues with this story (Score:2)
Microsoft
Re:My issues with this story (Score:1)
eheheheheheh
I'm actually not going to argue with that. It has been done before by quite knowledgeable people. Just following your logic here, which is more fun.
OK, and with this huge crowd of mac-haters out there, there's none with just a smidgen of intelligence to write an OS X virus.
Which should be just as easy to do a