Mac is safer than PC

This is an excellent editorial on the security of Macs versus PCs:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2140674,00.asp


Some while back, a friend of mine bragged that he does all the right things to make his Windows machine 100 percent safe from viruses. He is quite right...it is certainly possible to make your Windows machine bulletproof.

However, he missed an obvious point:

Most Windows users do not know how to secure their machines, aside from following a few simple recommendations, such as install antivirus and antispyware. No amount of education is going to change this.

Note that this is simply a statement of practical reality. Of the hundreds of millions of PCs out there, a large proportion are under-secured.

Put simply, for most of these users, they'd be far, far safer if they were using Mac. This is not idle speculation. Hell, it's not even an educated guess. It is an absolute statement of fact! It would take someone whose head was shoved way up his ass to even try to refute this.

As of this very moment, a Mac user enjoys greater security than a PC user, for all the reasons that we've discussed. Some have suggested this may change in the future, and as I don't have a crystal ball I can't argue against the suggestion.

But even if Apple faces greater challenges in the future with regards to security, it is not a foregone conclusion that they will fail to correct the situation. They may struggle or they may not, but one way or the other the Mac will continue to be safer than a PC. Only Mac-haters will look at the worst case scenario and write off the Mac platform. For that, shame on you.


http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2140308,00.asp

At any rate, in spite of what Apple still hasn't done with regard to security, there are Mac exploits, but there are no mass Mac exploits.

Is this merely a function of Apple's small market share? Mogull grants that yes, the security shortcomings he sees in Mac OS X would mean that Apple might be having some problems if it had Microsoft's market share. Still, it's a pretty secure platform, he said. "It's not like it's wide open." Even after the CanSecWest security conference, when hackers broke into a Mac in a Pwn-2-Own contest, Apple had the vulnerability patched within eight days, he noted.

"Macs are not the bastions of security a lot of people would have you believe, but it's not like Apple's doing everything wrong, like some of the hacker types would have you believe," Mogull said.


Feel safer...buy a Mac.