I'd be inclined to believe that most people who ditch IE will switch to Firefox as opposed to Safari.
Yup. Safari is nowhere near as good as FireFox 3 on a PC.
I'd be inclined to believe that most people who ditch IE will switch to Firefox as opposed to Safari.
The front page article makes a misleading statement:
Which makes it sound like Safari's market share was higher at some point before August 2007. Maybe it was, but since August 2007 was the first month for which they provide statistics, it shouldn't be called "a low."
Or maybe I'm just being too picky.
I just never surf the web with Windows. It is messing up the stats.
Yup. Safari is nowhere near as good as FireFox 3 on a PC.
I thought the same thing when I read it.
When was Safari for Windows first introduced?
It really surprises me how many people still run Windows. I don't think the Windows Fanboy base is 90%. It would have to be under 5%. I big percentage of that 90% are the lemmings Joe Dell users.
itll get to a point where its a big enough market share, and then enter Virus protection.
Then, we will be just like windows in that regards.
Enjoy it while it lasts, it wont be forever!![]()
The era of the classic style computer virus is over. These days it's all hidden code inserted into websites that open backdoors onto your machine. The numbers of SQL injection attacks on web servers is going through the roof. That's mostly probing to see where the vulnerabilities are, so that redirection strings can be inserted into legitimate sites that take the unknowing users to trojan download locations. All done in the background and quietly.itll get to a point where its a big enough market share, and then enter Virus protection.
Absolutely. Virus-protection is the spawn of a default-permit programming mentality, where it is OK to program crappy code 'cause someone else will come along and protect it for you. Windows has always been default-insecure, making it too easy for viruses to become downright commonplace.Don't rely on anti-virus. The vendors simply can't keep up.
Right. It crashes when visiting some pretty standard web sites (yahoo mail), and it consumes huge quantities of memory. While that may make it much closer to what PC users expect, it has regressed in terms of usability.
If you said firefox 2, on the other hand, you'd have had a leg to stand on...
In addition, Net Applications reveals that 73% of visitors use Internet Explorer, 19% use Firefox and only 6.3% use Safari. Safari's marketshare, however, has also been on the rise from the lowest recorded figure of 4.71% in August 2007.
I think you see so many Windows computers is because
- They cost less. I can buy a decent $400 Windows desktop or $600 notebook many of these people would prefer a Mac but simply can't afford one
- People don't buy new computers very often, maybe only every three to five years. They might even be planning to buy a Mac "next time", in a couple years. few people can justify replacing a working and current model computer
Nice but I wonder how much distortion is due to the announcement of the iPhone 3G and WWDC taking place, events that probably garner significantly more interest from Mac users than PC users?
The historic answer as to why there are no Mac viruses is that Mac OS X is Unix. Unix was designed from the ground up way back in 1969 with the ide that the computer would have multiple users logged in and using it all at the same time. (computers were very expensive in the 60's and no one would think of letting one person have his own computer. They had to be shared.) So the OS was designed with strong protections so that it was imposable for one user to effect the work of other simultaneously logged in users. In fact that was one stated purpose of the OS - to isolate users from each other. Windows designers, on the other hand assumed there would always be only one user per computer and totally ignored the entire idea of protecting users from each other. And then the Microsoft business model was been "lock-in" and backwards compatibility and any security retrofits had to play well with the business model.
While that is true to a point, this is a different world than 1969. OS manufacturers have to be proactive at closing any vulnerabilities prior to someone exploiting them.
So far Apple has been doing a decent job but we should not get complacent about this. We need to complain and complain hard if Apple isn't properly correcting vulnerabilities with updates. We don't want to have the same kind of issues as Windows XP or Widows 98.
Right now Vista is more difficult to hack than OS X. In a hacking contest a few months ago, a vulnerability was found in Safari. To date that vulnerability has not been fixed by Apple. Thats pretty lame if you ask me and it is this attitude of "We are immune to all viruses" by users that will eventually be our downfall. This problem worsens as marketshare increases because it can spread faster through more machines which might happen to come into contact with an infected site.
But how can Apple be doing so well, when Apple is so e-v-i-l [enter Dr. Evil accent] with its iPhone 3G pricing structure, non-existent tablet computer, and its failure to embrace DRM-free music across the board.
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The historic answer as to why there are no Mac viruses is that Mac OS X is Unix. Unix was designed from the ground up way back in 1969 with the ide that the computer would have multiple users logged in and using it all at the same time. (computers were very expensive in the 60's and no one would think of letting one person have his own computer. They had to be shared.) So the OS was designed with strong protections so that it was imposable for one user to effect the work of other simultaneously logged in users. In fact that was one stated purpose of the OS - to isolate users from each other. Windows designers, on the other hand assumed there would always be only one user per computer and totally ignored the entire idea of protecting users from each other. And then the Microsoft business model was been "lock-in" and backwards compatibility and any security retrofits had to play well with the business model.
Apple QuickTime contains multiple vulnerabilities as described in the Apple Knowledgebase article HT1991. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial-of-service condition.
A vulnerability in the way implementations of SNMPv3 handle specially crafted packets may allow authentication bypass.
The MIT Kerberos implementation contains several vulnerabilities. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code, compromise the key database or cause a denial of service on a vulnerable system.