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Hard to argue with Apple's success, essentially no malware vs the cesspool of Windows malware everyone deals with.
I haven't dealt with Windows malware in a decade. Have you?
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Hard to argue with Apple's success, essentially no malware vs the cesspool of Windows malware everyone deals with.
I haven't dealt with Windows malware in a decade. Have you?
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You can’t set a bar for Apple because they just say nothing at all. Interpreting Apple is akin to reading tea leaves. It’s not a low bar, it’s just that Apple never says anything.
That means the bar is glued to the floor. OS vendors should be looking to help their users have a more secure experience, not finally getting around to stop lying about security through obscurity as a positive feature because they're no longer obscure enough.
That isn't what happened. It used to be true, now it's not so they changed it. Security through obscurity was a positive feature, there is little denying it.
Just because it wasn't going to last doesn't make it positive and just because you think it's not something they should be touting doesn't make it a lie.
> OS vendors should be looking to help their users have a more secure experience
For the record, Apple has been working on OS X anti-malware since 2009 when Snow Leopard was released. It was a pretty cursory effort yes, but considering Microsoft hadn't even released MSE yet at that point it's still not bad.
Marketing and engineering are two different departments. Just because someone is writing dumb copy about security in the marketing department doesn't even begin to indicate how engineers are tackling security issues in practice.
In other words, Apple is both helping users to have a more secure experience (what do you think Gatekeeper is for?) and rolling back their boastful copy now that it's no longer true.
How is that a bad thing?
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You can’t set a bar for Apple because they just say nothing at all. Interpreting Apple is akin to reading tea leaves. It’s not a low bar, it’s just that Apple never says anything.
That means the bar is glued to the floor. OS vendors should be looking to help their users have a more secure experience, not finally getting around to stop lying about security through obscurity as a positive feature because they're no longer obscure enough.
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Apple won big in smartphones, but Android has a bigger marketshare. Competition between all smartphone vendors have made the customer the biggest winner in any case.
If Microsoft's Surface and/or Windows 8 RT take off, then we may see an increase in Windows Phone 8 marketshare. Why? Because of syncing, similar interface, possible app sharing, etc.
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I haven't dealt with Windows malware in a decade. Have you?
Wow! 10 years of only using computers operated and actively maintained by users who can stay up-to-date on security best practices. You made it from before XP until now without ever dealing with Windows malware! You're pretty damn lucky - I sometimes use computers that belong to laypeople :-(
I will say that if I'm suspicious of a file (say, a dll I had to go find from a shady site), I'll scan it over with a few tools before dropping it in a program folder.
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It's pretty clear that the next Microsoft v. Apple war is being waged in the tablet market (the show is over for cellphones -- Apple won). Traditionally Microsoft hasn't done well at competing with Apple on their own turf (mobile, mp3 players, etc), but it'll be interesting to see what the Microsoft Surface means for all of this.
Apple won big in smartphones, but Android has a bigger marketshare. Competition between all smartphone vendors have made the customer the biggest winner in any case.
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That means the bar is glued to the floor. OS vendors should be looking to help their users have a more secure experience, not finally getting around to stop lying about security through obscurity as a positive feature because they're no longer obscure enough.
> not finally getting around to stop lying about security through obscurity as a positive feature because they're no longer obscure enough. That isn't what happened. It used to be true, now it's not so they changed it. Security through obscurity was a positive feature, there is little denying it. Just because it wasn't going to last doesn't make it positive and just because you think it's not something they should be…
Stop drinking the kool aid. It was never true. OS X was exploit central for years. It was only the BSD base that stopped it from being exploitable from the network. All the client side stuff Apple added for years was RCE-you-like.
Also a fundamental thing about security is the acceptance that security by obscurity is not a defensive measure. Genuine security doesn't rely on it. Smoke and mirrors might scare the wolves for a while but won't keep them away for long.
> For the record, Apple has been working on OS X anti-malware since 2009 when the sixth major release of OS X was released.
That's right, 5 major releases of the OS with no anti-malware effort, and it only became necessary for them to do it when it started to become an issue because people were getting owned.
> It was a pretty cursory effort yes, but considering Microsoft hadn't even released MSE yet at that point it's still not bad.
Don't even bother comparing it to Microsoft. The source operating system FreeBSD has been doing this for years before OSX even existed. Microsoft was doing security way before MSE. MSE was held back because it had the potential to damage industry partner relationships. If Apple releases an AV no-one cares. If MS releases a good enough AV product the AV industry jumps up and down because MS just stole their lunch.
> In other words, Apple is both helping users to have a more secure experience (what do you think Gatekeeper is for?)
Apple is not helping users to have a more secure experience. It's helping users to have a more controlled experience - the controller being apple. Gatekeeper is not a security measure, it's a tool designed to lock users into the Mac App Store. Do you really think that an App in the Mac App Store has no way of being malicious? Have you not seen what can be done by an app in iOS?
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Well, they must be doing something right at Cupertino, because they really don't get viruses. Not theoretically of future-wise: practically. 99.9% of things reported (and even those are not that many to begin with) are trojans. So, Mac viruses are like the Yeti, they might well exist, but very few people have seen them in real life. It's not just market share either. OS8/9 had several viruses with 1/5 the market shar…
>99.9% of things reported (and even those are not that many to begin with) are trojans How is Flashback a trojan? Also what percentage of new Windows malware over the past few years do you think are "viruses" according to your definition? Am I the only one sick of the pedantic quibbling and nitpicking over the word "virus" in every Apple malware story when everyone knows that viruses really mean modern malware in thi…
I can almost hear the computer saying "I'm sick dickface....I don't care what you call it."