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Apple Scales Back Marketing Language on OS X Security Following Flashback
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You are what you eat right?
They say that you are what you eat and this is no different, you browse garbage sites and download rubbish you will get garbage and rubbish in your OS, plain and simple.
If you are careless or dumb enough to download everything you can find online you shouldn't be complaining as it is not the OS company's fault, call it Microsoft, Apple or any other flavour.
That said I have been worry free since I moved to Mac many years ago and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I hope I am not wrong, lol.
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Hilarious man!
They say that you are what you eat and this is no different, you browse garbage sites and download rubbish you will get garbage and rubbish in your OS, plain and simple.
If you are careless or dumb enough to download everything you can find online you shouldn't be complaining as it is not the OS company's fault, call it Microsoft, Apple or any other flavour.
That said I have been worry free since I moved to Mac many years ago and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I hope I am not wrong, lol.
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Hilarious man!
Sometimes it's not about that. Recently popular web sites were injected with malicious code, anyone who went there on a PC with IE that did not have a certain patch was infected immediately. Without the user even knowing anything had happened. But hey, if sticking your head in the sand is how you like to deal with things, more power to you.
It was always misleading to say you had to do nothing to be safe/secure. They should have had that gone before the flashback stuff. Ultimately all a system can do is help people become more safe -- it can't prevent bad choices.
Apple's best message is to talk about how they can help a user choose a more secure environment.
Apple's best message is to talk about how they can help a user choose a more secure environment.
True, but when was the last time a virus hit Windows big-time? Nowadays it's mostly trojans and malware anyway.
The headlines are drawing a conclusion I don't agree with. Apple has added a metric ass ton of security features to Mountain Lion. This is the reason they changed the web page, not because of a specific trojan.
So much misinformation.
* "Just don't visit porn sites" is no longer true. Porn sites have cleaned up their act and are actually among the safest sites in terms of not getting infected. The worst? Blogs and personal sites. Social networking sites can be pretty dangerous too. Malware can lurk in ad banners.
* The vast majority of infections these days are trojans, not viruses. Even on PCs, viruses and worms are rare these days, and most true virus infections happen after the system has already been hosed by a trojan that downloads additional malware. But to an end user, an infection is a "virus" regardless of the correct semantics.
* You don't have to be fooled into clicking on Allow/Install or opening a file to get infected. Many infections happen when you search for something popular on the internet (e.g. celebrity news), click on an SEO-poisoned website set up by the hacker to be high up on a search engine result, and if your web browser, Java, Flash, etc. are out of date, you're screwed. They use code exploits to automatically run the software on your computer, and it bypasses the normal permissions granting install procedure. This is why Flashback was so bad: a serious Java exploit had recently come out but Apple was being lazy on patching it for OS X, so even if you were fully up to date, you could still get infected just by visiting the wrong website. Apple seems to have gotten their act together however and issued the latest update to Java very quickly.
* "Just don't visit porn sites" is no longer true. Porn sites have cleaned up their act and are actually among the safest sites in terms of not getting infected. The worst? Blogs and personal sites. Social networking sites can be pretty dangerous too. Malware can lurk in ad banners.
* The vast majority of infections these days are trojans, not viruses. Even on PCs, viruses and worms are rare these days, and most true virus infections happen after the system has already been hosed by a trojan that downloads additional malware. But to an end user, an infection is a "virus" regardless of the correct semantics.
* You don't have to be fooled into clicking on Allow/Install or opening a file to get infected. Many infections happen when you search for something popular on the internet (e.g. celebrity news), click on an SEO-poisoned website set up by the hacker to be high up on a search engine result, and if your web browser, Java, Flash, etc. are out of date, you're screwed. They use code exploits to automatically run the software on your computer, and it bypasses the normal permissions granting install procedure. This is why Flashback was so bad: a serious Java exploit had recently come out but Apple was being lazy on patching it for OS X, so even if you were fully up to date, you could still get infected just by visiting the wrong website. Apple seems to have gotten their act together however and issued the latest update to Java very quickly.
Hey, maybe I'm just crazy here, but I think Apple should just compete by building the safest consumer OS possible, then claim that, and only that. "Protection" by obscurity is hardly something to shout about anyway.
The definition of PC itself is arbitrary and misleading. So, an x86 Intel microcomputer running any operating systems except Mac OS X is a PC but running Mac makes it an Macintosh/Hackintosh? How about some low level virus written purely in x86 assembly language that can live in your ROM/EFI no matter of what operating system you run above it? (I believe there was such kind of virus before.) Does such virus count for a Mac virus or a "PC" virus.
That's an brilliant marketing and advertising idea. Market OS-X as the safest consumer OS available.
Don...what do you think?
Don Draper Approved.
If you read around, you see that Porn sites really are some of the cleanest as they have a vested interest in you returning. You are right on the money with the banners.
There's something honorable about advertizing that reflects actual truth rather than the all to typical BS. Apple gets a gold star on this one.
Yes, because it's so much easier for a virus to spread on a floppy disk than over the internet. History obviously proves you right.
/sarcasm
Seriously? Do half a moment's research and you'll find that the internet was the catalyst for a huge surge in the number of virus available for Windows. Also, internet usage was certainly widespread before OS X was released, and many of the OS 9 viruses and other types of malware did propagate via email or websites.
jW
Back when I was using System 6/System 7, every Mac user I knew was copying software with floppies, because it was so hard to source software otherwise (in the US, it might have been different). Which meant, if any of your friends' Macs were infected, you were certain to get it too when you swapped floppies.
Nowadays, downloading from legal sources is far, far safer (and there is far more free software available, so less need to pirate software). With lower software prices and digital distribution options like the MAS and Steam, it's easier to get it online legally (and thus, safely) rather than from a pirate site. Of course, it's just one of several factors.
ban marketing
don't we all know marketing people talk with their behind. whoever takes marketing seriously should check themselves. such a dishonest profession. marketing = disgusting in my book. If you are in marketing, quit your job and start doing something usefull.
don't we all know marketing people talk with their behind. whoever takes marketing seriously should check themselves. such a dishonest profession. marketing = disgusting in my book. If you are in marketing, quit your job and start doing something usefull.
If we are getting technical here... a Mac is just another "PC" "Personal Computer".
What I find funny is that the same people that jump on Apple for changes like this saying, "See! OS X is super vulnerable to viruses!" are usually the same people that jump on Apple for things like Gatekeeper. It truly boggles the mind.
I'm glad they changed their language. "It doesn't get viruses" is false. "Safeguard your data, by doing nothing" is also a fallacy.
Here's hoping they continue to take security seriously. Security-by-rarity is not the way to go considering how popular Apple products are becoming.
Here's hoping they continue to take security seriously. Security-by-rarity is not the way to go considering how popular Apple products are becoming.