Wow, I had no idea that they said stuff like that on their site. Even though it specifies "PC viruses," the average computer user doesn't understand the distinction. Just last night a relative mentioned how Macs don't get viruses (which I corrected).
To lots of people (myself included), "PC" means "personal computer" and include desktop and laptops from Apple.
However in the 1980s/1990s, there were "PCs" and "Macs". PC was anything running Windows (etc.) and a "Mac" was from Apple (i.e. a Macintosh). Apple (and many Apple fans) continue to use "Mac" instead of "PC". I've had Apple fans ask me if I use "a Mac or a PC?" (Since I use Linux, I don't know what to say :P)
The difference being that back in the olden days Macs used completely different processors etc while now Macs uses the same IBM PC compatible hardware.
Originally yes. With the release of the IBM PC the term was used to refere to the IBM PC or compatibles. Since IBM is no longer making PCs the descendants of the PC are referred to as Wintel or Windows machines. The term PC is slowly reverting to it's original meaning.
In the 90s I remember Apple calling HD space 'memory'. Does anybody remember when the stopped doing this?
"PC" is more or less synonym of a generic machine that runs Windows (much like it once stood for a generic machine that ran MS-DOS). It comes from "personal computer" but I think the IBM brand overshadowed the original meaning.
BTW, the PC I'm writing this on, while perfectly capable of booting Windows, never did it. It is, nevertheless, a PC and not a Unix workstation (despite its dual 64-bit processors, gigabytes of RAM, specialized graphics hardware and fast network).
Really? That must be why when they switched to Intel they touted the compatibility, and why the even offer a utility called "BootCamp" to easily run Windows on your Mac, with automatic re-partitioning, hw drivers, et al.
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 share OS X has now.
If one considers that OS X is basically NeXTStep, and essentially a UNIX, do one really sees many viruses in UNIX systems? What I'm getting at is that the "administrator privileges by default", "can fuck with any file on the system" feature of Windows --up to Windows XP, which is where viruses really reigned, was not part of OS X from the beginning.
So, at worst, OS X since 10.0 was as secure as Windows Vista, which was not a swiss cheese OS like, say, Windows 98. Plus, OS X didn't have Active X, either, and used a custom PDF viewing (Acrobat is another common attack vector in Wintels).
Now, with the eviction of Flash and Java plugins as the default, and several other techniques (sandboxing, ASLR, signatures, etc), things will get even better.
>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 this context in general parlance and not really floppy bootsector or executable file viruses of the 90s? Anti"viruses" try to defend against all types of malware, so making a huge distinction here doesn't really help the discussion.
Well, theoretically they DO get viruses --but practically they don't.
All those past false alarms, touted to high heavens, were trojans. And they aren't even that many, at that. The one genuine virus like thing --which still wasn't a virus as it needed you to visit specific webpages-- infected like 100,000 Macs.
So, assuming ~ 20M Macs, 99.5% of the Macs out there haven't got any virus, ever. And with better OS X support for security (from better address space randomization to sandboxes to gatekeeper, etc), even fewer will get any in the future.
Geeks are quick to point the possibility of virus on Macs (or Linux, for that matter), but in practical terms it's like pointing the possibility of being hit by a thunder. It can happen, it even happened at some people, but normal people shouldn't be that worried about it.
If you disagree, please answer: should Ubuntu users also invest in an Linux antivirus? Because theoretically a virus can also happen there...
It's not the "lack of market share", either. OS 8/9 used to have tons of viruses with a 5 times less marketshare than OS X. Heck, even Amiga/Atari used to have plenty of viruses back in the day, with an insignificant amount of users, and NO actual monetary incentive (no web back then, no credit card details, no bots even).
Of course, are "viruses" the problem on PCs anyway? Or are trojans the problem everywhere? Viruses are hard to write, since you need several exploits, to get them to both install and spread. Trojans just need one.
