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With no viruses, spyware and zombies to worry about, Mac users enjoy a freedom Windows users can only dream of.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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Why are Macs so much safer than Windows PCs? Your first guess might be wrong


Nov. 9, 2005


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard

   Windows users who flee to an Apple Macintosh computer bring along their old habits -- including their worries about viruses, spyware and the latest Windows threat, zombies. (Zombies are virus-like invaders that hijack a Windows PC to turn it into a spam relay.
   On all three counts, Mac OS X users have no reason to be afraid. Even though Mac OS X, the current Apple operating system, has been around for five years, there's not even one virus that targets OS X. That's five years for virus writers to try their skill at fooling Mac security measures. They've failed.
   No one has yet discovered any spyware directed at OS X, either. And zombies are exclusive to Windows.
   Why are OS X Macs so much safer?
   You'll find a lot of misinformation about this. "Experts" who are clueless about the way OS X is designed insist that the Mac operating system isn't actually any safer than Windows; it's just not targeted by the bad guys. According to this theory, the idiots who make viruses, spyware and zombies don't want to waste their time aiming them at Macs because there aren't enough Macs anyway.
   This is nonsense. The last reliable estimate of the number of Mac OS X users worldwide, made more than two years ago, was 25 million. Since then, Mac OS X computer sales have risen steadily -- more than 60 percent in the last quarter over the same period a year before that. You don't need a Windows calculator to figure out that there are a lot of Mac OS X users out there.
   And that means there would be a lot of targets for viruses, spyware and zombies -- if only Macs were designed the way Windows PCs are.
   But they're not, and that's the reason they're safer.
   Modern Macs are Unix computers. Unix is an operating system that predates Windows. Over the years, it's been greatly improved. It was designed with safety in mind. Windows was designed with different goals; Microsoft tried to add security later, without a lot of success.
   With no viruses, spyware and zombies to worry about, Mac OS X users enjoy a freedom Windows users can only dream of. But something is out of place here. Symantec, the largest maker of antivirus software for Windows, sells an antivirus program for OS X Macintoshes.
   If you buy the notion that your Mac needs protection against viruses that don't exist, you're missing the point. Symantec's antivirus software for OS X has only one function: Since it can't protect your Mac against specific OS X viruses, it wards off Windows viruses instead.
   The idea, I suppose, is to keep your Mac from passing along Windows viruses that arrive as attachments in e-mail. That's a noble goal. Far better, in my opinion, is the practice of not forwarding oddball items that arrive in the mail in the first place. (If you don't know what the item is, don't forward it. Delete it instead.)
   But don't be smug. Even without the worry of viruses, spyware and zombies, you still have to be careful on the Internet. I'll tell you why Mac users can't be complacent next week.