“Apple markets OS X as if la la la…” as opposed to people who do ads announcing all the flaws in their products? Got it.

I’m a Fanboy. I resent the use of it as a pejorative. I trust Apple too much? I’ve used Macs for 20 years without a single malware infection. At work I use Windows behind an industrial-strength firewalll, and those computers actually do get stuff from time to time.

As for Apple doing the right thing, well, the company has grown by a factor of ten in market cap in the last 10 years. They aren’t in business because they like to be hugged. They’re trying to make money. And they are succeeding.

You seem to think that we Fanboys are idiots. Mac owners tend to have more education and money, statistically, than Windows users. If Vista turns out to be more secure and stable than OS X, I might consider switching. So will a lot of “fanboys” I’ll get to use Vista at work eventually. Frankly I doubt that it will be more secure than OS X. Maybe it will be more secure than XP. Big whoop.

As for Apple improving the security of OS X (?) I read the blogs every day. If there’s malware in the wild for OS X, why haven’t I heard of it? My Mac is logged on 24/7. Where’s my spyware, worms, viruses, mal-cros? How much better than INFECTIONS=NONE does security need to get?

2. Rumpus really is quite nice, but why would anyone pay that kind of money for it with PureFTPd Manager being extremely free and extremely good?

3. In general the whole “everybody knows about x” thing is absurd in any context. You, your friends and everyone in every forum and website you visit accounts for 0.000000001% of all sites and users out there and doesn’t mean that everyone else is attaching to the same software or meme.

Thanks for a reasonable response. I agree that there’s no perfect, magical operating system. I opt for OS X because I find it easier and more enjoyable to use. I’m more-or-less aware that it’s developed using a less secure process than Windows; however, I take the appropriate precautions, so I should be okay. (Also, the lower marketshare of OS X makes it a less-attractive target for today’s mafia-linked money-grubbing bot-creating hacker.)

However, I’m annoyed by two things: 1) Apple markets OS X as if it is a ‘perfect, magical operating system.’ Recall the ad with the PC catching a cold: we can combine a Safari-provided DMG exploit with another local root exploit and easily get into a remote Mac user’s computer (who has been lured to a ‘dangerous’ website, or who has been victimized by a legitimate website being larded with an exploit–this happened to an ad network years ago). This is no different than a broken ActiveX control being launched through a similar vector. (One difference you could argue: turning off ActiveX makes the Windows browsing experience much less pleasant). The only reason we don’t see these things on OS X is because it’s not profitable for hackers to break into it.

2) Fanboys trust Apple too much. Of course, this is true for every operating system, but Apple’s rabid fans defend Apple from absolutely everything, whether it’s reasonable or not. More community outrage would cause Apple to start doing the right things.

Why do I read the blogs? I’m a masochist, I think. More precisely, I don’t think it’s the blogs themselves, but the comment sections. Most bloggers are reasonable, The Macalope included.

The MOAB really gets to me because the bugs they revealed are so glaringly dumb. There’s no excuse for them to be in OS X at all, especially not 5-6 years into its life. Microsoft has eliminated the easy, obvious bugs from Windows years ago, and it’s time for Apple to do the same. I’d love for the fanboys to look past the grating attitudes of the MOAB crew and instead focus on the bugs they revealed. These are the bugs that used to exist in Windows and MS Internet Explorer. (NOTE: I’m not saying Windows and MSIE are bug-free, just that their bugs are much, much harder to find and much, much fewer in number). If they were still present, they’d be screamed at by Mac fanboys as dangerous. I’d like the fanboys to do the same when it’s Apple making the dumb bugs–this will actually benefit us, as it should get Apple to improve the security of OS X.

Please point to the perfect, magical operating system that has none of these issues. Because that’s what it’s really about — opportunity cost.

The Macalope will admit that Apple needs to do a better job with security. The fact that it’s gotten by because no one’s writing exploits is not going to a comfort for much longer. Some more transparency and better response time would be nice.

But if Mac fan blogs are starting to annoy the hell out of you, why do you read them?

@TJL
In my dictionary ‘no-one’ is hyphenated but I concede that ‘no one’ is correct too so I rescind the ’sic’. (damn that wine!)

I have been using Apple computers on and off for 25 years and I bet there are thousands of apps around that I haven’t heard of. That still does not mean that no one else has. I appreciate the usage as hyperbole but those phrases I mentioned do push my buttons I’m afraid.

I do agree that by using the Rumpus example the MoAB team did highlight the utter lameness of their project.

@Rob F.
Rumpus is a FTP server not a client (See http://www.maxum.com/Rumpus/ where you will also find the name of someone was has heard of it!). It is meant as an alternative to the OS X FTP server you can enable from the Sharing preferences. Therefore it is hardly surprising that you have not come across it in your search for a FTP client.

Apple really does need to recommit to security. It’s not enough to say that taking “reasonable precautions” makes Mac users secure; indeed, you could say the same thing about Windows. If Apple wants to claim that it writes more secure code than Microsoft, it should actually write more secure code.

Note that I’m a Mac user. I have to say that Mac fan blogs are starting to annoy the hell out of me. I’ve yet to see anyone look past the attitudes of the people who did the Month of Apple Bugs to see that they found some relatively embarrassing and serious problems. Instead, I see lots of defense of Apple, but no striking Apple with the clue stick. Not to mention loads of annoying fanboyism.

Apple, take note: your fans are going to drive the more reasonable Mac users over to Vista.

I don’t really think the Mac is invulnerable. I think some competent hackers could have done a better job than the self-congratulatory dolts we had on the job.

“No one’s ever heard of” is a contraction for “no one has ever heard of”

As such, “one’s” is appropriate, if fairly informal conversational English grammar construction.

Regarding the comment that “no one has ever heard of it” I think it was clearly hyperbole, but I think if you polled 1000 “regular Mac users” (excluding the zealots and the MacStrawman family), many of them would have heard of Flip4Mac and VLC, but Rumpus? I would be surprised if you found 10 who had heard of it.

The Macalope is a benevolent mythical beast.