Apple Mac and viruses?

Question

Someone just answered a question saying that to not worry about viruses...get an apple mac?

what the h***s that all about?

Answer 1

Mac's are less likely to get a virus because they are arguably more secure

Answer 2

Mac can get viruses as well! The reason they are not so prevalent is because there are not many about. A lot of Companies and privates users have PCs so it is larger to hit and cause problems.

I mean why take all the trouble to write a virus for 1,000,000 machines when you can do the same thing and hit 50,000,000!

Answer 3

There are fewer Mac viruses, because there are fewer Macs - they're not as profitable to target. It's nothing to do with Macs being inherently secure.

In fact, in a recent penetration test (Pwn2Own - three patched and updated laptops - one vista, one linux, one mac) - the mac fell first, within a couple of hours. The other two were not compromised.

EDIT: actually, the mac fell within 2 minutes on day 2.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/28/...

EDIT 2: the argument "I have a mac, and I don't need a virus-scanner - I never get any viruses" is inherently flawed. If you don't have a virus scanner, you'll never know if you have any viruses...

Mac viruses are not a matter for debate. They're uncommon, but they exist - simply google 'mac virus' if you wish to verify this.

Answer 4

macs don't get viruses because people don't make viruses for them plus they're secure unlike widows. so don't be a muppet get a mac.

Answer 5

Ok as a mac user for 16 years i will try to help.

Since so many people use windows the people who write the virus's figure they would have a better impact to write it for a windows computer.

Macs have a small user base(but its growing quickly) so its not worth their time.

The mac operating system is written to be secure so that you dont have to use an anti virus program. We all know how those programs slow down your computer and all of the time you can spend getting the latest updates for your anti virus. Plus you have to run virus scans.

Simply you dont have to do any of that on a mac. You dont have to buy any anti virus simply because its not needed.

Macs are made so that you can do what you want and not worry about other little stupid things.

Seriously i would suggest going to an apple store or their website www.apple.com

I think after a month of using one you'll never look back.