If you thought that you are immune to viruses, then most likely you live in La La land.
Regardless of updates, Mac OS X is still safer than Windows.

Hey--fixing these issues is much, much better than being too arrogant to believe they could ever cause problems and simply ignoring them, no?

This shows that Apple isn't stupid and wants to maintain their reputation as being secure, even if it exposes that there are potential issues with their original version. I applaud them.

Well, nobody is perfect, and a big group of people is even less perfect. so all we can expect is that they fix them.

Where are the outcries of malcontent?

I guess there's a big difference between a vunerability and a working exploit. :)

I guess hackers rather make an exploit that affects 84 out of 100 households rather then 4 out of 100....I guess wasting time on the latter just doesn't make much sense for anybody smart enough to actually take advantage of a vulnerability...:)

This is the 3rd edit I've made, basically because I was right the first time (sigh).

It's 6 out of a hundred, not 4 out of a hundred.

(Based on current Gartner estimates)

I would like to know where did you get it grow at 30% a year.

actually...it dropped from 4.7% to 4.3% over the last year...

According to Gartner, the marketshare is in fact 6% and growing at 30%/year

------------------------
Gartner has Apple’s market share at 6.1 percent with a 31 percent growth rate year-over-year for the third quarter. The growth rate, according to Gartner, tops all other computer makers and puts Apple in fourth place overall for market share.

"Actually"?
What's your source? Gartner (very reputable) claims 6.1% and GROWING at over 30%.

"Similarly, Apple's share of the personal computer market in the United States also remains relatively flat at 3.6 percent. Although this figure is down from 3.8 percent in the first quarter of 2005, Gartner's data indicates that Apple gained one tenth of a percent in share over the fourth quarter of 2005."

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1781

"On the other hand, Apple did not place within the top five PC manufacturers worldwide, and therefore data on its worldwide market share and PC shipments was not included in Gartner's preliminary third quarter results.

"Since these are preliminary figures, we only have the top 5 vendors worldwide at this time and Apple was not in the top 5," a spokesperson for the firm told AppleInsider."

Ouch...not even top 5...yep hackers must be REAL interested in the mac...

Your reference is from June. Another report in July at http://www.macdailynews....s_market_share_in_q2_06/

shows 4.8% for the second quarter 06. Those are IDC reports. A more recent report from IDC shows 5.8%

In the SAME article (from MacWorld), Gartner is indicating over 6%

http://www.macworld.com/...9/marketshare/index.php

Personally, I'm going with the more recent estimates (i.e, October, vs your June report)

WOW, 6%? What a market share. The original point still is valid. Six percent is hardly worth pursuing for the exploit crowd.

I'm sure I could leave my windows and doors unlocked and open all night (and brag about my safe neighborhood) if I moved to the moon.

or the middle of the desert. much the same thing really.

Guess you don't understand calculus. Much more important than 6% market share is the GROWTH RATE which is currently over 30%/year

Then look at the 2nd derivative!

Unless Apple really screws up (and Microsoft stops screwing up), Apple has nowhere to go but up!

The only problem with that is that it is like me measuring the amount of spending money I have, as I have budgeted it, right after I receive a paycheck. I've worked out a system where a savings portion of my account can act as credit for my spending money, so my current spending money can go below $0. If I measure the average spend vs. earn before a paycheck (going back any length of time) and the current balance of the spending money is negative, I will be able to project utter debt. If I measure it after payday (unless my spending money was horribly in "debt"), I will be able to project unlimited growth.

If you take that interpretation of 30% growth to the extreme and assume it will remain so forever, then Apple will exceed 100% market share in just under 11 years.

Sounds like there's a lot of controversy surrounding apple market share...believe what you choose to believe I guess...:)

http://secunia.com/product/96/?task=statistics

look at that jump! RDF in action!

No networked operating system is safe. MacOS tends to be safer than Windows, but that is largely due to a smaller market share than Windows. Why go over an OS that has 5% market share when you can go over an OS that has 90% market share.

That's supposition. While it's easy to guess that MacOS is safer because it has less users (thus is a smaller target), there's no real way to prove that's the case. It MAY be that with the roles reversed, OSX would still be doing better than XP.

Everything else you say is correct though. No point targetting the minority. :)

I don't know though. I wouldn't under-estimate hackers. I'm sure if it was flipped it would be pretty close to XP. It may not be the same kind of hacks, just different one's.

"MacOS tends to be safer than Windows, but that is largely due to a smaller market share than Windows."

Has anyone taken an OS design course or actually worked with OS design?

Let's see, so OpenBSD, arguably the most secure OS in existence, is likewise ONLY more secure than Windows just because it has smaller market share!? Right!

Hallucinate on!

Whatever you geniuses do, don't look at what similar architectural elements have been implimented in OSX.

Quote the silly marketshare reference all you like as you folks continue to selectively ignore the fundamental architectural differences that Apple has chosen to incorporate from the bottom up!

The architectural differences are real and effective, whether the market share is 0% or 100%.

And of all the major OSes, Window's fundamental architectural security exposure is the greatest. Besides, it would be difficult for anyone to conceive of a more flawed security exposure than ActiveX.

>>Has anyone taken an OS design course or actually worked with OS design?

Yes

>>Let's see, so OpenBSD, arguably the most secure OS in existence, is likewise ONLY more secure than Windows just because it has smaller market share!? Right!

Yes, OpenBSD is very secure, but is NOT the most secure OS in existence. There are many closed OS architectures that are more secure than OpenBSD. However, OpenBSD is one of the MOST secure mainstream OS, please note the difference.

>>Quote the silly marketshare reference all you like as you folks continue to selectively ignore the fundamental architectural differences that Apple has chosen to incorporate from the bottom up!

Here is your problem, you seem to think OSX = OpenBSD. Wrong, very wrong. Just because OSX has the Mach/BSD kernel does NOT mean Darwin and everything that sits on top of the BSD technologies is as secure as BSD.

You are such an apologist you are quick to dismiss every layer that sits on top of the BSD kernel and just assume that Apple has been as 'complete and brilliant' as the OpenBSD engineers. Wrong again.

Just to prove that OSX is not BSD, look at the exploits and patches from Apple in comparison to the exploits and patches from OpenBSD. There is a MASSIVE difference. Security an a secure OS design is NOT ONLY Based on the kernel concepts.

If I were to use your logic, like when you knock ActiveX, I could say, that NT is one of the most secure OS kernel designs in history, but that means VERY LITTLE if the upper layers of the OS do not respect nor adhere to the underlying security.

In further example, NT is a very secure and well designed Kernel architecture that was designed with security being the #1 concern in the development
However, when MS developed Win2k and WinXP they took the route of compatibility and allowed applications and the Win32 subsystem to circumvent the inherent security in the NT kernel so that it would not break applications from the Win9X era. Thankfully MS learned this lesson and Vista doesn't allow this, and many of the security advances in Vista are simply ENFORCING the NT security model that has been in NT since it was first designed.

Just from what you say, you understand very little about Windows, especially the NT kernel and architecture. (Please go read InsideNT before you post another bloviating philippic rant.)

OSX is no more secure than Linux, Solaris, or many other OSes, and shockingly it is not any more secure than WindowsXP. Just because the exploits in OSX or any other OS are not known, does not mean they don’t exist.

The reason I make a point to state OSX is not more secure than WindowsXP is a simple fact. WindowsXP IS POPULAR and has taken a MASSIVE beating that has been the result of exploits and security flaws that experts didn't even 'conceive' to exist prior to them being used against WindowsXP. In a way a lot of even the exploit and security steps other OS vendors have taken in recent years are the result of concepts that were first brought to light being used against Windows.

So right now WindowsXP with SP2 is the result of being 'massively' tested against exploits, and that is why you haven't seen any major outbreaks or problems with WindowsXP SP2. This is also why you see Apple posting 10x as many fixes to security and exploits as MS is having to post for WindowsXP.

So from someone that IS an OS Engineer and OS Architectural Theorist, you have a lot to learn... Let’s start with OSX != OpenBSD.

Hey nitwit, NO ONE ever said OpenBSD is the same as OSX! I said thay share many of the same architectural underpinnings, and as both are derivative of BSD and BSD is a derivative of the original AT&T system, that is a fact. And OSX is the most POSIX compliant UNIX variant. But as an underachieving OS theorist you must know of the concept called security that MS still considers an abstract theory and still in the experimental stage.

And as far as other more secure OSes, you might want to inform DARPA, the NSA and NIST. OpenBSD and Sun's BSD variant still own the title. Even AIX and HP-UX don't qualify. And some other etheral OSes to which you evidently adhere aren't approved.

And Mach is NOT the BSD kernel, genius! But OSX does use a hybrid Mach and BSD kernel.

Apple has posted 10x the total number of fixes than MS has? ROFLMAO!! The only way one could even begin to make that case is to credit MS with an even greater case of negligence.

And why knock ActiveX? MS went into a rage when we challenged it back in 1996 when NT came out- as we requested a method to disable it in order to render it secure enough to even bring into the project development phase at Lawrence Berkeley within the internally secure environments for use in government funded projects. The irony is that they never denied the fatal flaw incorporated! They instead wanted to know how we found out! And then politely requested that we not advertise the fact! Oh, by the way, there was no way to disable it! ...Just another neat feature in their exhaustive testing environment! Hahahaha!

"NT is a very secure and well designed Kernel architecture that was designed with security being the #1 concern in the development"

What cereal box DO you get your information from, ignorant fanboy?!

David Cutler acknowledged back in 1995 that WNT (as HE labeled what became known as NT - the 'next' generation VMS) was never intended to be a fundamentally and integrally networked architecture. Could it be networked, sure, but it was designed to exist in a closed distributed environment just as the VAX had been! Network security was not a primary concern as it was primarily seen as either a standalone workstation or server, or as a clinet server configuration within a relatively closed environment with centrally managed external connectivity! And this is further evixenced by the fundamental inclusion of ActiveX, enabling communication via the various parts of the Windows and MS Ofice universe while not providing for ANY reliable means of authentication! An oversight STILL haunting Windows today! DUH!

And if you recall, even Bill Gates and MS had to backpeddle and make a major mea culpa when they FINALLY reversed their position and were forced to acknowledge that Windows would have to support a network called the Internet! DUH!

Where did such an erudite scholar such as yourself get your degree? It would do well to come with a squeegee to clean that window you have in your stomach so that you can see where your going with your head crammed so far up there! Please tell us, as it will serve as a well needed head's up for all of where to avoid!

EDITED: I lost it, sorry. Just sick of this guy's drivel

His only purpose here is make everyone look stupid. He needs to get laid

I certainly appreciate you two cooperating and reducing my workload! But you give others far more credit than they deserve. Few achieve the levels of stupidity that you exude. ;-)

Bend over.

*sigh*
Rarely in my life have i meant anyone as arrogant and self centered as you. it truly is an amazing feat you have pulled off. I'm terribly sorry that your parents didn't love you, I feel horrible that you haven't found anyone to give you that love you never got as a child, and I do hope that someday you'll grow up and realize just what kind of an a****** you are. But the simple fact is, your wrong. Not wrong about your mac v pc rants, I frankly couldn't care less, it's your opinion of other people thats flat out wrong. Its sad really that you have to resort to hate speech to try and get your flawed and ever changing points across. For that, you have my pity.

you mean annoy the hell out of the rest of us.

I thought MAC's were "SAFE"

They are, comparatively. No real viruses to speak of. Actual exploits are few and far between - but Apple patches potential threats anyway.

Nope. Not even your iPod is virus free. There was an article here (on betanews.com) that some iPods installed virus when you connect it to your computer.

" They are, comparatively"

Ha...Comparatively huh? Lets talk "comparatively", shall we?

first, market share:
In Aug. of 2006, OSX market share was: 4.33%
Secunia advisories in 2006: 19
Windows XP market share: 84.18%
Secunia advisories in 2006: 39

Now we all know (and this is not "supposition") that hackers/virus writers will always target the more used OS, Windows XP has 1944% the amount of market share of OSX...sounds like windows will be a much jucier target then OSX huh...I bet many more hackers are finding vulnerabilities in XP rather then OSX....the more people target a system, the more vulnerabilities will be found, we can all agree on that right?

So if "comparatively" OSX is safer...lets bring OSX market share up by 1944% (to 84% market share), along with that though, it makes it 1944% more appealing to hackers to target, so here we go:

19 Advisories x1944% = 369 vulnerabilities!!

Lets bring XP down to OSX levels:

39 advisories / 1944% = 2 vulnerabilities!!

Sounds like XP is MUCH safer then OSX, doesn't it? :)

Perhaps, it is safer in that convoluted, theoretical scenario that you just came up with. But in the real world, this is not so. :)

Mac = "Security By Obscurity"

And MS doesn't patch potential threats? I'm not saying one is more secure than the other, or making any other points except that you seem to imply that MS just lets vulnerabilities stay out there without making any efforts to eliminate them.

In case you didn't read the article, there were 22 vulnerabilities corrected in this latest set.
What is your definition of "few and far between"? Just because Apple doesn't release patches every month (e.g. MS's "Patch Tuesday") doesn't mean they aren't needed or warranted.

No, in the "real world" apple's market share slipped by about .4%, while Microsofts market share grew (I don't feel like looking up by how much right now).

So yea...in the "real world", my theory is impossible at apple's current rate of growth. :)

OK, you complain about windows insecurity, let me ask you, how many exploits have you been hit with? How many of these unpatched or new found "vulnerabilities" have you been hit with? How many have you heard about people getting hit by? Exactly. Very few of these vulnerabilities are ever exploited.

you also forget that MS patches vulns created by THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, hence not theirs. Thus since MS has so much more software available for it, many with sloppy programmers, it has more to patch. Apple, on the other hand, has nobody making software for it really, so less vulns.