Is a Mac more cost effective considering the value of your time spent dealing with Viruses and Spyware?
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M$9 Answers
I agree with the Mac supporters in these answers. To answer krowland's question best to apply to the most users: yes.
I however have used my home PC almost 3 years now with no anti virus and Windows XP Pro because I'm security-conscious. And I wholeheartedly agree about PC imaging if you're using Windows. I use Clonezilla personally. To protect myself against other threats that aren't labeled "viruses" I use FireFox with the NoScript add-on.
Fact: computers connected to the Internet are exposed to more malicious code than benign or beneficial.
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M$
There are many other reasons to choose either a Mac or a standard PC, (Mac is more styled, the de-facto standard for graphic design, etc, PC is cheaper, extendible, and is better at playing games)
I use AVGFree, a freely available virus scanner, which is light, complete, and updates very frequently. Personally, I consider it better than many for-pay scanners.
Virusses apart, I DO re-install Windows from time to time, (about once a year), and that's because it becomes sluggish when installing and de-installing many applications. This is partly my own fault, as I experiment a lot with it. Then again, a reinstall costs be about a day, including backup, installing Windows, Office and all other programs I want on it.
On the other hand, my PC is infinitely easier and cheaper to expand. I regularly buy new equipment like harddrives ( I now have five drives totalling 2,5 TB, using RAID etc) a TV card, etc, and it all fits, works with plug-and-play and is cheaper than any Mac equivalent.
As you can see, I am a PC adept. I like to make modifications to it, and love its flexibility. A Mac just doesn't allow that. A Mac really has its virtues (and some other answerer will undoubtedly mention those), and the choice is yours. Just don't think a Mac is going to be cheap.
Oh, here are some nice pictures I found. Just for laughs...
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M$
Here's what I do...
There is a full How To about this here: How To Back Up Your Computer Hard Drive. It has full instructions and even some videos showing exactly how to set this up. The guy who manages that page is a sexy beast, isn't he?
I bought Acronis True Image awhile ago for $10. They often run deeply discounted sales. They also have a free trial.
Acronis will save an "image" of your hard drive. You can restore that image at any time. Some folks call this "ghosting".
So, if you get a virus or have any sort of problem with your evil Windows PC (although it will work with Mac's too)... you simply press the F11 key when your computer is booting up and like magic, in 20 minutes, your computer works perfectly. The image that you saved earlier will be restored.
The only secret to this whole trick is to backup your documents, favorites, and other important files. For that, I use SyncBackSE. It's free. It will automatically copy those files wherever you want. Personally, I copy mine to a separate partition on my hard drive (local backup), to a NAS drive in my office, and also on the Internet. In other words, I don't loose files.
With this strategy, you'll never have a problem. If something (anything) weird happens, if your computer slows down, or whatever... you just press F11 and wait.
Easy peasy.
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M$
In the Pwn to Own competition the mac was hacked first.
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M$Let's take some examples. Many of us actually upgrade or replace our machines periodically. Let's say you upgrade the hard drive on your laptop,
On a Mac, once you move your files over from your backup, things work.
On Windows, Windows will refuse to authenticate. You get to call India, read off 64 digits, and try to convince some random perspmn that you are not a thief.
Let's say you get a new computer. Mac has an automated Migration Assistant to move everything over, but, if you are old school like me and elect to do things manually:
You drag and drop your applications to the new machine - and they work.
On Windows, the hooks are deep in the registry, apps will not work if you move them, you must reinstall them.
You want to buy a second computer. Apple has very inexpensive family packs for their OS and apps (iLife, iWork). Microsoft is just beginning to do this, and the prices aren't nearly as attractive.
There are tons of other timesavers, the ability to burn ISO images, to print PDFs from any application, the multiple desktop feature Spaces, etc.
It does depend on how much your time is worth, but the argument that all computers are pretty much the same simply won't stand up in terms of ease of use and the OS helping you rather than getting in your way.
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M$1) Install a quality anti-virus program. AVG offers a free antivirus which I have used myself and for others for years (http://free.avg.com/). Microsoft will be releasing their own free anti-virus product called "Microsoft Security Essentials" (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/) by the end of 2009. I am currently beta testing it, and this will be the free anti-virus of choice when it is released to the public as it is a high quality product.
2) Use a firewall. Since Windows XP SP2 and higher, the firewall is turned on by default and they work quite well. Household routers also act as a firewall. Vista and Windows 7 are much more robust in security over previous operating systems.
3) Don't install junk. Free screen savers, desktop buddies and the rest, stay away from them.
4) Don't go places on the internet you should not go. You know what I mean.
Following these computing practices and you will stay virus free on your PC and save you money over your lifetime.
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M$
I reformat my PC's HDD about once per year, as a type of Spring cleaning (not to remove viruses/spyware.) A careful user will rarely, if ever, infect their PC with spyware or viruses. PCs are like a loaded gun with the safety off - without the proper training, it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Macs have more safety nets, so it is more difficult to make critical mistakes, but the lack of expandability, high price tag, lack of enterprise-scale engineering software, etc... make the Mac a fancy media machine at best.
In the end, the money saved by purchasing a PC is just that - money saved. Viruses, trojans, and spyware are almost always a direct result of unsafe user habits, not the inherent vulnerabilities of a particular operating system.
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M$http://www.mobi32.com/Other-Software/Other_Tools/SpyNoMore.html
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On a Mac even if you have a malicious .exe saved on your disk it will be benign. There is practically no virus made for PC that will do any damage on a Mac. None of the leading anti-virus software makers have a Mac version. Doesn't that tell you something?
Still, spyware and malware are not reasons to buy a Mac over a PC. If you work in areas where there's better software for a Mac than a PC, you chose a Mac. Like video, graphics, sound, photography (to some extent), a Mac gives you an overall better computing experience.
The non-expandibility and non-upgradability is a myth. Get a MacPro and you have exactly as much flexibility as a comparable HP workstation. And plug and play and networking on a Mac is much easier for the non-geek.
Besides Macs are more environment friendly. Exactly like the bicycle vs motorcycle comparison shows. This bicycle will get you there reasonably safer and yet not pollute the environment.
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bdegrande you might want to do a Google search for viruses on OS X.
Spreads via iChat
http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/02/macosxleap.html
Apple itself acknowledges that Spyware and viruses are a threat for OS X and the upcoming release of Snow Leopard.
http://www.securemac.com/apple-acknowledges-malware.php
MAC Botnet
http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/04/17/mac.based.botnet.active/
Security Analysts tracking new OS X viruses
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/06/12/hacked-intosh
Let me point a couple things out here...
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Sophos, TrendMicro, Symantec, McAfee all make AntiVirus software for MAC and they are 4 of the top Antivirus makers in the world. On of the main reasons that there aren't a bunch of viruses on the MAC, isn't because the operating system is better as you indicate, it is simply because it isn't as widely used as Windows. When someone writes a virus, they are typically going for maximum impact, thus going after the largest number of people with the most ease. It is much easier to write one virus that focuses on Windows users and let it spread, rather than writing a virus for Windows and another for MAC (when there aren't all that many MAC users in the world).
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Hardware in a MAC give you better computing experience....Really? MAC switch to the x86 chipset meaning that they use the same Intel processors that a PC uses. So in a sense, a MAC is really a PC, but it is running a MAC operating system rather than Windows. If you were to purchase a MAC, you could basically wipe the hard drive (or replace it) and install Windows. Would you then call it a PC and sub par? It's still MAC hardware.
Paragraph 4
Plug and play is much easier on a MAC...hmmm. Last I checked, Microsoft invented plug and play. Plus you just said that you have to get the high end MacPro to get the same flexibility that comes in a standard/basic HP, Dell, Gateway, IBM, etc, but you get to save a lot of money by not going with MAC.
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More environment friendly...What planet do you live on, or do you fully believe the ads you see on TV? Lets look at the "green" MAC book AIR or the iPOD. How do you replace the battery if it goes bad?.....answer...you can't. You have to take it back to Apple and have them do it. Result, costs more money. How about when that iPOD is old and you want a new one. You are supposed to remove the batteries from electronics and recycle those apart from the electronic device. They have found that in some cases with an iPOD, Apple has soldered the battery right to the board. Supposing you go through the trouble of smashing the case open to remove the battery, how are you supposed to get it off the board? A blow torche?
Side note...
Did you even look at the article that dward linked to? MAC was hacked first.
craigm is simply wrong on a few issues.
There are NO real world viruses for Mac OS X. This is not because of smaller market share, and that's a fact, not an opinion. Proof? Mac OS 8 and OS 9 had FAR smaller market shares, and they had viruses. In fact, when viruses WERE an issue on Macs, Apple used to include antivirus software standard. It is not smaller market share, Linux and Unix (which OS X is are legitimately more secure for very specific technical reasons.
Anyone who thinks that plugging devices into a PC is as easy as plugging them into a Mac is simply dreaming. For one thing, the Mac comes with gigabytes of drivers with the OS, these don't exist in Windows. For another, the device driver layer has been a disaster for Windows, the vast majority of XP blue screens of death were due to device drivers, as Microsoft will tell you at their TechNet events. One example, I bought a network capable color laser printer which should work on all platforms. Plugged it into a Mac, it worked. Plugged it into Ubuntu Linux, it worked. Plugged in into Vista - it asked if I wanted to search the internet for a driver.
