About Macs and AV software

Well it's pretty clear that threats exist for all platforms, Windows users are more exposed, and unless you really know what to look out for, then most people would do well to run on-access protection all the time. Mac users (I use a mix of both Macs and Windows PCs at home) often feel they are secure because of their OS choice - this is demonstratably false, however there are still significantly fewer threats on the Mac - so for most reasonably savvy users, occasionally running a good online scan will probably be sufficient. Only the less tech-savvy should look to install 'resident' on-access protection. Ultimately, this sort of thing always gets boiled down into a 'Your OS is s**t, mine is awesome!' argument, but when it comes to security, the OS you choose is only ONE element in how secure your computer(s) will be - a persons individual atttitude to security is perhaps the most important thing, and taking the attittude 'I'm Safe, I use a Mac' is dangerous. As for Waethorns assertations that he knows of situatutions where the use of Macs has nearly brought a company to it's knees - well, true or not, there are examples of people ditching a platform in their business in favour of something else all over the shop, some of them are true, some are embelished and some are downright fiction, but these stories do not, in any way 'prove' that the ditched platform was universally and fundamentally bad, it just shows that someone, somewhere along the line, got complacent - and got screwed over as a result.

Sharky: Sometimes words have more than one meaning. From dictionary.com: "jihad: 2. any vigorous, emotional crusade for an idea or principle." Sounds like Waethorn and "mikegalos" to me.

I guess robertsjoe school doesn't allow mobile devices, or I'm sure we would hear from him during the day. Since he doesn't deny it, he is just in school, probably high school, and doesn't have any real world experience except what Steve has told him. Another reason to ignore him, which I should take my own advice...

"It's kinda hard because the original blog post was a religious attack." So, y'all think of this stuff as some kind of a religious war? That would explain the use of terms like "jihad".

I think that the name calling just antagonizes and makes matters worse. The Mac crowd gets angry and posts a rebuttal, then the name calling [by BOTH side] starts a perpetual fight. Read some past threads and see. Wae, the 1TB FreeAgent Pro drive is pretty good. I think that you recommended Seagate drives [5 yr warranty]. Two of us bought one. This was from Frys.com. Newegg is getting slow in delivery. The shipped from less than 2 hrs away and it took business 5 days due to a hand off from DHL to USPS. This happened twice.

I know of a couple of people who had those $500 laptops. They didn't want to pay for software, so they downloaded pirated versions from torrent sites. Some of them obviously came with Viruses or made the computer crash. They decided it was Windows that was the problem (obviously). Now they've bought $1600 iMacs and paid for some software too. Their experiece so far has been far better. I've noticed, at least among the people that I know, that they're willing to spend more on Macs and on Mac software. In such cases, I don't think a direct comparison of the two ecosystems is even possible.

"Obviously you haven't, so next time, do your homework." Lol you still have not provided anything genius. In 2008 (NOT 2003) in the PWN 2 OWN contest, Vista, OS X or Linux could not be hacked at all until the user went to a web sight and run some malicious code. All 3 went down by user initiated attacks. They could not be hacked just sitting there on the network. Blaster/sasser attacked a OS hole, on XP and 2000. NO USER INTERVENTION required. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasser_(computer_worm) www.rif.org might help.

@Mike that feature is only two years late... http://www.technewsworld.com/story/52262.html?wlc=1228400809

Lindy The goal was to summarize it all without the religious biases. Security is too important to fall into the "ur os suxorz" stuff. Personally, I think Apple corporate's willingness to encourage and exploit the "we're protected by magic" mindset in their users borders on criminal neglegence and I wish they'd get past it before somebody decide to take advantage of it. If I really were doing OS religious wars I'd be encourage Apple to keep doing what they're doing because if that zero-day system attack ever hits, the psychological damage to the Mac community will likely damage the reputation both far beyond what is deserved and probably beyond repair. While I thing Apple corporate deserves a black eye for encouraging this stupidity, the damage to the industry would hurt society in general.