You know, Mojave is pretty good!

[SecuritySteve]

Hello all. With all of the negativity we see regularly in these forums, I thought I would post a positive experience here, with a little bit of opinion. I have used Macs since OS 9, and since then I have used them more and more professionally as a developer and later a security researcher. I tend to pound my machines pretty hard with workloads, and after all of the various incarnations of macOS since OS 9, only two have given me zero issues since installing them, as an OS proper.

The first was Snow Leopard, the second was Mojave. This feels like one of the most stable OS releases Apple has ever put out, and with dark mode I no longer feel like my screen is too bright when my dark text editors contrast against bright windows. One year after updating, Mojave might not be too feature rich, but it was an excellent stability update to High Sierra, which caused my systems to occasionally kernel panic.

Anyways, just thought I'd drop that here. Enjoy your day.

 

[mikzn]

thanks for that post - agreed, and could not have said it better - IMHO

Been using MacOS and hardware since the OS was on floppys - lol

Love your post and totally agree, Mojave is really the best OS in a long time and even had a few new features added like voice memo / iCloud intergration, Dark Mode ( for me MEH), and others ( new files systems and support for SSD's and other hardware)

I don't know why the Stickies App is still there? - but cool - cause I still use it - lol !

I think as long as you have an SSD drive and you have the supporting hardware - the best MacOS is Mojave

 

[827538]

Mojave has been great, no complaints here. Just does what it's meant to do.

Unlike my Windows 10 install that Microsoft loves to break every 6 months.

 

[harriska2]

Mojave has been great, no complaints here. Just does what it's meant to do.

Unlike my Windows 10 install that Microsoft loves to break every 6 months.

Does Win10 really mess with systems including drivers? Because as much as I liked trying out Win10, I just couldn't move to something that might force things to break. Which is why I made the switch to macOS. Still running Win7 on a security system and my old machine still has a nice Canon scanner attached that works a charm. Otherwise I don't use the PCs.

And yeah, Mac just works. I don't know why. The only thing I would complain about is lack of scanner support. There are a few good ones out there but sometimes they drop all support for a working scanner upon a OS upgrade (Canon).

 

[timidpimpin]

I'm running Mojave on an unsupported Mac (late 09 Mac mini) and find it extremely stable and snappy. I'm sure my 8GB RAM and SSD help a lot.

 

[827538]

Does Win10 really mess with systems including drivers? Because as much as I liked trying out Win10, I just couldn't move to something that might force things to break. Which is why I made the switch to macOS. Still running Win7 on a security system and my old machine still has a nice Canon scanner attached that works a charm. Otherwise I don't use the PCs.

And yeah, Mac just works. I don't know why. The only thing I would complain about is lack of scanner support. There are a few good ones out there but sometimes they drop all support for a working scanner upon a OS upgrade (Canon).

It works great and is stable for the most part, then they launch one of their giant biannual releases for W10 and something always goes wrong. I've had all sorts of issues and I'm not alone. Usually I do a clean install to save myself hassle with each update. I just want a clean, simple, lean, bloat free, and ultra stable Windows 10... Yet Microsoft does their best to screw it up. I don't dislike W10, but I miss the days of W7 where it was just stable, lean and just worked, I just wish they would stop with these huge buggy releases that take a month to iron out.

 

[Gregg2]

Mojave is hot!

 

[Blue Hawk]

It's my first macOS ever and I love it. It works how you want it to.

 

[MBAir2010]

I like Mojave, nothing new.....like going from window 7 to 10 but the OSX seems responsive.
My last 5 upgrades always messed up my itunes were albums did not appear, album art work was deleted and I had to find 300 lost albums that did not play.
since I longer use that soundless app, i'm happy with the Mojave upgrade, even with a 4gb 500 spinning HD!

 

[Dc2006ster]

When I first got my 27” iMac with Mojave I was getting lots of kernel panics. Turned out be be a faulty Ram stick. Once that was replaced, free from OWC, Mojave has indeed been totally stable. Mind you it does seem slow to boot up compared to previous operating systems and I have an SSD as my startup drive.

 

[Zelda Chestnut]

Great post! I was just thinking to myself how negative so many of the comments are on here. It's nice to see an appreciation thread, so thank you! I totally agree, I think macOS Mojave is phenomenal. I love Dark Mode (can't wait for it to make its way to iOS), it's synchrony with iOS, and just about everything about it. It's seamless, intuitive, pretty, and I enjoy using it, compared to Windows 10 which, I'm sorry, can be so frustrating! I use a Window machine for work, and there is such a difference in usability and (sometimes) performance. (To be fair, the performance could be that my iMac is way more powerful than my Surface book, but hey, that's my experience )

 

[StellarVixen]

Well, it is. It’s general consensus. Rarely anyone is having problem.


I do have two slight problems: 1st - sometimes audio cuts out over Bluetooth, and 2nd - iMessage refuses to send photo. It “sends”, but the people I am sending to do not see anything.


Everything else is fine so far.

 

[nouveau_redneck]

Zero issues here with Sierra, High Sierra, or Mojave. Coming from Windows to macOS was like a breath of fresh air.

 

[MBAir2010]

Well, it is. It’s general consensus. Rarely anyone is having problem.


I do have two slight problems: 1st - sometimes audio cuts out over Bluetooth, and 2nd - iMessage refuses to send photo. It “sends”, but the people I am sending to do not see anything.


Everything else is fine so far.

I read that mojave “beta next upgrade? fixed the iMessage “thingee not thinging” something thing.
[doublepost=1552780707][/doublepost]I hafta use windows at work,everything there is very tiny, and hidden

 

[DuncanGarp]

I concur with all of you.

Mojave is now my "go to" OS.

 

[Starfia]

It might be my favourite major update in a while. I've been waiting for a dark theme for years, and I'm extra-delighted they imposed it in a truly system-wide fashion with such care.

I also love the gallery view in the Finder (some people have lamented the disappearance of Cover Flow – I think this is way better), the visible metadata, the Quick Actions, the new screen shot stuff, Continuity Camera, the Home app, iCloud syncing for voice memos, the new tracking prevention in Safari, and the per-app permissions.

There are still a few rough edges to the macOS experience that remain, but I don't think I can think of anything Mojave has made worse.

And, you know. It didn't even cost $129.

 

[Crunch]

Hello all. With all of the negativity we see regularly in these forums, I thought I would post a positive experience here, with a little bit of opinion. I have used Macs since OS 9, and since then I have used them more and more professionally as a developer and later a security researcher. I tend to pound my machines pretty hard with workloads, and after all of the various incarnations of macOS since OS 9, only two have given me zero issues since installing them, as an OS proper.

The first was Snow Leopard, the second was Mojave. This feels like one of the most stable OS releases Apple has ever put out, and with dark mode I no longer feel like my screen is too bright when my dark text editors contrast against bright windows. One year after updating, Mojave might not be too feature rich, but it was an excellent stability update to High Sierra, which caused my systems to occasionally kernel panic.

Anyways, just thought I'd drop that here. Enjoy your day.

Thank you for your post. That's great to know! You equate the stability to Snow Leopard. That's a pretty significant statement too.

Is APFS on external spinning drives mandatory on Mojave now or is it possible to stick with HFS+ without a big old hack? I know of at least one poster on this forum who offers a somewhat convoluted way of doing it, but I'd rather avoid something like that.

How does it work anyway? Once I install Mojave and connect an external HFS+ hard drive to the system for the first time, does the OS automatically convert the drive to APFS in the background or does it at least tell you that it is about to do so?

Thanks again!

 

[Ritsuka]

It converts only the disk on which it's installed. It doesn't convert anything else.

 

[SecuritySteve]

Thank you for your post. That's great to know! You equate the stability to Snow Leopard. That's a pretty significant statement too.

Is APFS on external spinning drives mandatory on Mojave now or is it possible to stick with HFS+ without a big old hack? I know of at least one poster on this forum who offers a somewhat convoluted way of doing it, but I'd rather avoid something like that.

How does it work anyway? Once I install Mojave and connect an external HFS+ hard drive to the system for the first time, does the OS automatically convert the drive to APFS in the background or does it at least tell you that it is about to do so?

Thanks again!

As long as you are not booting from that external drive, it will not reformat it.

 

[Crunch]

As long as you are not booting from that external drive, it will not reformat it.

Thank you, my fellow Californian.

I guess that settles it. I'll get ready to rock and roll with 10.14.3 shortly then.

Since you're a security guy, I am very interested in your opinion of macOS as a whole as it pertains to user privacy and back doors, as well as how it compares to Windows 10 and its complete lack thereof.

I know a whistleblower who kept getting hacked mercilessly on his Windows 10 machine and he said he had to delete entire sections of that operating system to prevent at least some of the hacks that he was facing on a regular basis.

I wonder how macOS stacks up against Windows in that regard, and if you could let me in on some inside info on how to make macOS as bulletproof as possible. (...and I mean besides stuff like Little Snitch, HandsOff, specialty firewalls, or NoScript)

I highly appreciate your insight. Thank you again!

 

[SecuritySteve]

Strictly speaking, the most common attack vector that individuals see these days are web application exploits, and malicious files getting clicked. A good antivirus like Sophos would do nicely if you feel you need it, or download lots of files. Generally though macOS isn't as targeted in the US as it is in Europe. Windows tends to get more of a focus because of it's usage in enterprise locations, such as servers and datacenter. With the exception of SMB being open by default (samba on macOS) Windows isn't any more or less secure than macOS these days, assuming you are fully patched.

The best advice I can give you, regardless of what your OS of choice is, is to keep your system updated. This does not mean install the latest OS (Win10 vs Win8.1, or Mojave vs High Sierra) this means install the latest security update patch that comes out monthly (in Window's case) or whenever for your OS. Why? Because these updates patch tons of security vulnerabilities. Not patching can have serious ramifications, for example, WannaCrypt (also known as WannaCry) was a ransomeware campaign that was launched based on a patched vulnerability that users simply hadn't patched themselves for. I know it sucks to install updates because then you're not doing work, or not playing the game you want to play, but it really matters for security.

Many vulnerability scanners (I work on one) such as Nessus or Retina work by checking the software versions of all of your installed applications. I suggest updating those to their highest versions for the same reason too, because they are just as likely to be targeted as an OS vulnerability, and in some cases more likely.

In short, just update your software. Seriously. It's in my signature.

 

[dfs]

Hello all. With all of the negativity we see regularly in these forums, I thought I would post a positive experience here, with a little bit of opinion. I have used Macs since OS 9, and since then I have used them more and more professionally as a developer and later a security researcher. I tend to pound my machines pretty hard with workloads, and after all of the various incarnations of macOS since OS 9, only two have given me zero issues since installing them, as an OS proper.

The first was Snow Leopard, the second was Mojave. This feels like one of the most stable OS releases Apple has ever put out, and with dark mode I no longer feel like my screen is too bright when my dark text editors contrast against bright windows. One year after updating, Mojave might not be too feature rich, but it was an excellent stability update to High Sierra, which caused my systems to occasionally kernel panic.

Anyways, just thought I'd drop that here. Enjoy your day.

" I no longer feel like my screen is too bright when my dark text editors contrast against bright windows. " Let's take a close look at this. Put up at any page of text (this one, for ex.) and you'll see a whole lot of white background and very little black type. It's difficult to calculate but I bet that even page bearing a lot more text than this one does is at least ninety percent white. Well okay, whatever it is, all that white is achieved by lighting up pixels. On a desktop Mac that's not a very significant factor, but on any battery-operated device that translates into battery drainage. Now flip the situation by switching to dark mode. Surely the demand goes way way down and if a user is heavily involved with reading texts doesn't this translate into significantly improved battery life? Surely ten percent powered pixels is better for batteries than ninety percent. I've never read a discussion of this or heard of anybody attempting to measure this consequence of dark mode, but I think it merits investigation.

 

[meme1255]

I mostly agree, but the Windowserver needs some "maintenance" – memory leaks occur too often.

 

[tarsins]

Mojave's been great on both my iMac and MBP. It seems especially more stable than Sierra on network shares.

 

[MacGizmo]

With the exception of Mac OS 8 and Mac OS X Lion, every version of the OS has been better than the previous version.

I'm hopeful that I can continue saying that next year, but the fact that 32-bit apps will no longer run on the next OS is surely going to shed a bad light on the OS itself. Unfortunately, there are a ton of old apps out there that simply are not going to be updated to 64-bit.