Why do Apple computers have so few spyware and virus problems?
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at
6:24 pm
I have been using both PCs and Macs for many years now, and have always made sure to run both spyware and virus protection programs on the PCs I use running XP.
On my macs, I have never thought about this and I have never had any kind of problems related to either of these.
I’m not trying to start a debate here, but this just seems to be how it is. Why are Apple computers not plagued by this? Is Vista helping the problem?
Tagged with: apple computers • macs • spyware • virus • virus protection programs
Filed under: Tech News
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because unix is the basis of the mac os. it has been around over 50 years and had the bugs mostly worked out of it. Where windows has been around a little over 20 years and they keep changing the source code and starting over every few years to keep up with customer demands for new gadgets. The core is based on windows nt technology but the source code is new.
Because the people who write those programs want to spread them to as many computers as possible. They therefore pick the most common operating system to attack; Windows. If Macs ever get as popular as PCs running Windows, then they too will start to become targets of viruses and spy ware programs.
Windows Xp is heavily plagued by virus / spyware because of it being a product of microsoft lol. Macs themeselves don’t have any difference, its more OS dependent. probally that you go on more junk on your pc then your mac.
Think like a virus writer or hacker for a moment.
80% (or something like that) of the world’s pc’s run Windows. Are you going to write a virus that could potentially attack 80% of pc’s….or 20%??
Put under scrutiny, Mac’s are probably just as vulnerable as pc’s running Windows, it’s just nobody bothers to write viruses for mac’s.
People write virus HTML or other sorts of codes built for PC computers because they are rude. They send them out to erase files. MACS don’t have HTML, they have an unaccesible format that is completely different from the PC, so no one writes viruses for them.
The more popuar an OS is…will exponentially it’s populatority to be hacked.
As more users begin to test and look for vulnerabilities more will be discovered.
OSX is not as popular a system as their nasty commercials want you to believe. Microsoft has a HUGE user base so if yoiu were someone writing code trying to become famous for your 15 minutes would you work on a windows system of 100,00million users or mac that has in comparison only 1 million… (obviously i am not using real numbers).
More and more threats about MAC OSX and even the tons of vulnerabilities about the iPhone are being published daily.
Security it always a toss up… a balancing of what is secure and ease of use.
good luck
Simply put, there’s more Windows-based pcs than Apple. They want to target the larger population.
Its easier to program a virus for windows then it is linux and mac.
There is much more info about programing with windows and even a school kid could make a virus using batch scripting
but linux is harder to program and mac is too.
Put your self in the shoes of a person who writes the virus, do you want to Attack 1,000,000,000 Computers that Run on Windows or 1,000 Computer that Run On Mac OS. Think about it.