There should be some kind of sticky regarding the differences of various malware and how it pertains to the Mac universe.
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Flashback Trojan Returns With a Multi-Pronged Infection Strategy
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It's not "the pedantic definition of a virus", it's the accurate definition.
Actually, it's the original definition, the general public define of a virus is all 3. Much like the original definition of gay is happy... I'll let you guess the rest.
Also like how the definition of DDoS is becoming like the definition of DoS even though DDoS is actually a type of DoS (much to my own pedantic chagrin).
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No, it's not the original definition. The original definition was accurate. What the general public adopted is not. And has already been stated, our role in this forum is not to follow the general public, but to educate and inform, posting accurate information for the benefit of those who come here for help. Just because the general public is uninformed doesn't mean we should perpetuate that.
Then how about telling the news media that, and perhaps you might get lucky in convincing the rest of the world. But in short it's too late, even though I actually agree with you, the general public definition of a virus is all 3. Get over it like I have and move on.
That's not the original definition. It's called a virus for a reason in that it replicates itself and spreads much like a human virus. Your comparison has nothing to do with people's ignorance in the matter, the meaning of the word out of misinformation changed. A virus is still a virus and still does what viruses are coded to do regardless if you mistake it for something else. It's a lack of good information given to people regarding the matter coupled with a lot of ignorance. It's important to discern the difference as they (malware) all do different things.
You keep saying "all 3". All 3 what? I'm not trying to convince the news media or the rest of the world. I'm only interested in helping readers of this forum and others I communicate with. And as long as misinformation is posted here, I'll correct it... and then move on.
It's not "the pedantic definition of a virus", it's the accurate definition.
I see where you're coming from, but for most people "malevalent softwares" are called viruses.
It's not worth tilting at that windmill...
"Kilo" means "1000", not "1024" - but that's another popular error that's going to take a long time to eradicate. (And Apple OSX has taken the first step with "truth in labeling" for display text - now to get Redmond to switch to decimal....)
Hey, I'm all about some base 10 action, and I'd be the first to endorse the move over to a more realworld accurate numbering system....if they didn't have to label the corresponding analogs kibi, mibi, gibi. It sound so incredibly ridiculous. Say it three times fast in a crowded room, and everyone around you will think you're showing the first symptoms of an aneurysm. Kibi mibi gibi, kibi mibi gibi...:thump:.
At best, It sounds less like a unit of measurement, and more like cat snack treats.
Hey kitty! You want some gibibytes! D'awww, okay!
Golly gosh, a tonque in cheek reply and war breaks out! Definitely not the intention, only some humor was intended.....
However.... I cannot let this windows bashing carry on. I've been running Windows without any real time anti-(fill in whatever you want) since SP2 of XP and have not had any issues. Initially I did every week an offline scan but now I perhaps do it every 6 months. nada, zilch!
It requires only a few steps to completely secure your machine but hey who would want to educate the public how to set it up since that will quickly eat into the profits of Norton etc. (FUD anyone?)
Now in case someone has any thought of telling me that I am uneducated in security - well I am not. Was running firewalls from Windows 98 onwards and specialised in the field.
I've said all I want to say on the subject and all have a nice day.
However.... I cannot let this windows bashing carry on. I've been running Windows without any real time anti-(fill in whatever you want) since SP2 of XP and have not had any issues. Initially I did every week an offline scan but now I perhaps do it every 6 months. nada, zilch!
It requires only a few steps to completely secure your machine but hey who would want to educate the public how to set it up since that will quickly eat into the profits of Norton etc. (FUD anyone?)
Now in case someone has any thought of telling me that I am uneducated in security - well I am not. Was running firewalls from Windows 98 onwards and specialised in the field.
I've said all I want to say on the subject and all have a nice day.
mebi you have a point
Actually, it's "kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi".... See http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
Fortunately, though, if you're not talking about DRAM the pedantically correct (decimal) interpretation of kilo/mega/giga/tera is usually correct in practice.
Disks, busses and networks have no "power of two" issues, so decimal numbering is fine.
A gigabit ethernet link is 1,000,000,000 bits per second (10^9), not 1,073,741,824 bits per second (2^30). Disk capacities and bandwidths are also decimal.
Your 128 GB SSD has a usable size of 128,000,000,000 bytes (or slightly higher rounded to some power of 2 sector/track/cylinder boundary). It probably physically has 128 GiB (137,438,953,472 bytes) of flash memory, but the 7.5 GB difference is used by the disk controller for wear leveling and other housekeeping activities.
Kitties also think that birds are cat snack treats. That's another thing that makes us angry.
Actually, it's "kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi".... See http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
Fortunately, though, if you're not talking about DRAM the pedantically correct (decimal) interpretation of kilo/mega/giga/tera is usually correct in practice.
Disks, busses and networks have no "power of two" issues, so decimal numbering is fine.
A gigabit ethernet link is 1,000,000,000 bits per second (10^9), not 1,073,741,824 bits per second (2^30). Disk capacities and bandwidths are also decimal.
Your 128 GB SSD has a usable size of 128,000,000,000 bytes (or slightly higher rounded to some power of 2 sector/track/cylinder boundary). It probably physically has 128 GiB (137,438,953,472 bytes) of flash memory, but the 7.5 GB difference is used by the disk controller for wear leveling and other housekeeping activities.
Kitties also think that birds are cat snack treats. That's another thing that makes us angry.
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I just switched off both Java and Java script, guess what, I upvoted someone's post and instead of getting one vote up the page reloaded with no upvote from Me.
So, Macrumors IS using Java-JavaSript
It's using Javascript. About all websites do. It's not using Java though, that's quite a distinct technology.
Without Javascript, about nothing "interactive" works on the Web.
BTW, the person you replied to never mentionned Javascript, so I don't know why you brought it up.
I still use win7 even though I've dipped in to Apple with an iPad2. I have never had a virus, trojan, malware or whatever else since win7 came out.
Never had anything on Vista either.
Sorry My bad.
Posted without thinking.
BTW, I got scolded on a forum( W8) a couple of weeks ago, said there are no viruses on a mac, it's always the same, I didn't say they can not get viruses, they can but there just aren't any around.
Honestly I have never had any of that either. Had Vista on a computer I built and no issues, dual boot Win 7 on a Mac now, still no viruses, trojans, etc. I don't remember any of these issues with XP either.
It really is up to the user in a lot of cases
Read all 169 posts and you'll find out
But, I'll keep you from having to read them all, yes they can get viruses but right now there is no known virus out in the wild, nor has one out in the past.
This IS about a virus and not malware, those have been out but overall not widely spread.
Never had any problem until now.
That might be true but what I don't like about it is that you always need to have a virus scanner running in the background and some of them are just horrible programs eating up resources.
Java vulnerability of course
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Trojan ≠ Virus.
And I know that UNIX currently has a lot of things that prevent a virus from infecting the system, and nobody has ever written a Mac virus. It's unsure.
You'd think that with all the college students using Macs and all the Mac-haters, there would be at least ONE virus out by now. Mac OS is certainly extremely secure.
But wait... could the Java Virtual Machine get a virus? I mean, it's like its own OS.
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Trojan ≠ Virus.
And I know that UNIX currently has a lot of things that prevent a virus from infecting the system, and nobody has ever written a Mac virus. It's unsure.
You'd think that with all the college students using Macs and all the Mac-haters, there would be at least ONE virus out by now. Mac OS is certainly extremely secure.
But wait... could the Java Virtual Machine get a virus? I mean, it's like its own OS.
For security purposes, you should disable Java. That's not the same as JavaScript, which a great number of sites use. Leave JavaScript enabled.
You're right that there are no viruses. If someone scolded you for that, they didn't know what they were talking about.
Yes, Mac OS X can get a virus, like any OS can. However, we're still waiting for someone to develop the first one and release it into the wild, where a Mac user can encounter one.