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Switcher Hangout (Windows to Mac)
I want to make sure I'm absolutely safe. Long, and lots of questions!
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<blockquote data-quote="IvanLasston" data-source="post: 1042350" data-attributes="member: 145676"><p>Maybe we are approaching this wrong. Everyone says Mac is more secure than Windows but no one gives a reason why. So before you keep asking about random things happening on your computer please try to understand why the Mac (or Unix in general) is better than Windows.</p><p></p><p>So lets start with the bad - Windows has its roots from being a desktop operating system. So basically one person would be logging in and using the computer. A lot of the vulnerabilities came from the fact that one user had complete control over the machine. Also this registry concept - 1 registry for the whole machine, made it very difficult to protect the machine. A lot of malware puts data into the registry. The point is when you log into a windows machine you are an administrator with full rights to screw with anything. In Vista and Windows 7 they have cleaned up a lot of this but their implementation of user access control is crap. But I digress - with all the updates and latest browsers and virus protection/malware protection you are pretty safe with Windows Vista/7. It's like Ford - people still remember the bad old days even though it doesn't apply to today's cars.</p><p></p><p>Mac OSX is based on BSD Linux which is a form of Unix. Unix as an operating system was designed to be on a network with multiple users. Mac's whole architecture is designed so that only 1 login can really truly screw up the system. That login is the root login. When you create an account you can set them up to be Administrator and you can do a lot on your machine but there are still a few things that are off limits until you enable the root account. So most people just log in as administrator and use that one account. If you want to be truly safe - setup a second account as a standard user. Even if some virus or malware gets loaded onto your computer - a standard user cannot modify system files. So that limits any malware/spying/virus to that one user. If worse comes to worse you could just delete the user that is infected and start again. The only way to modify system files is to log in with an Administrator login or Root login - so you would really have to not be paying attention to get something installed that is system wide. This is especially true with a standard account - because you'd have to put in the username AND password to modify the system. So if anything tried to put itself onto the system requiring Administrator Access you'd see the login dialog pop up. If you aren't expecting to modify system files - then don't log in, nothing gets installed. </p><p></p><p>If you look around most trojans/viruses/worms/attacks for a Unix based system revolve around getting the root login because a standard user has very little power to do anything useful unless they are logged in. </p><p></p><p>So if you are ultra ultra paranoid you could make another login purely for "safe browsing" and Safe programs (Quicken for example). Use that login to go to known sites, like your bank, 401k, credit card, etc - and those sites only. That way even if you had some kind of keylogger/malware etc it wouldn't get anything useful because your other login is the one you use for your financial information. Note this is Uber paranoid to the point of crazy but some people are like that. </p><p></p><p>Anyway the point of this long post is you are allowed to be paranoid - but there are reasons why Unix style operating systems don't have many viruses. And don't let the windows hype fool you - yes the majority of desktops are windows - but most of the Web runs Linux. If it were easy to attack Unix machines with Malware people would have done it to attack web servers too. That is not to say you should be lax in updating and watching what you do - be ever vigilant, but understand what it takes to actually affect a Mac system, take a breath, and be glad you switched.</p><p></p><p>If you want a personal story - my father in law was a windows user until I bought him a mac mini G4 in 2002. I would spend hours cleaning his windows machine every time I visited. Finally I got fed up and bought him a Mac. He hasn't looked back and he hasn't got infected with anything since. Now he does get a lot of spam but that is a different story for a different time...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="IvanLasston, post: 1042350, member: 145676"] Maybe we are approaching this wrong. Everyone says Mac is more secure than Windows but no one gives a reason why. So before you keep asking about random things happening on your computer please try to understand why the Mac (or Unix in general) is better than Windows. So lets start with the bad - Windows has its roots from being a desktop operating system. So basically one person would be logging in and using the computer. A lot of the vulnerabilities came from the fact that one user had complete control over the machine. Also this registry concept - 1 registry for the whole machine, made it very difficult to protect the machine. A lot of malware puts data into the registry. The point is when you log into a windows machine you are an administrator with full rights to screw with anything. In Vista and Windows 7 they have cleaned up a lot of this but their implementation of user access control is crap. But I digress - with all the updates and latest browsers and virus protection/malware protection you are pretty safe with Windows Vista/7. It's like Ford - people still remember the bad old days even though it doesn't apply to today's cars. Mac OSX is based on BSD Linux which is a form of Unix. Unix as an operating system was designed to be on a network with multiple users. Mac's whole architecture is designed so that only 1 login can really truly screw up the system. That login is the root login. When you create an account you can set them up to be Administrator and you can do a lot on your machine but there are still a few things that are off limits until you enable the root account. So most people just log in as administrator and use that one account. If you want to be truly safe - setup a second account as a standard user. Even if some virus or malware gets loaded onto your computer - a standard user cannot modify system files. So that limits any malware/spying/virus to that one user. If worse comes to worse you could just delete the user that is infected and start again. The only way to modify system files is to log in with an Administrator login or Root login - so you would really have to not be paying attention to get something installed that is system wide. This is especially true with a standard account - because you'd have to put in the username AND password to modify the system. So if anything tried to put itself onto the system requiring Administrator Access you'd see the login dialog pop up. If you aren't expecting to modify system files - then don't log in, nothing gets installed. If you look around most trojans/viruses/worms/attacks for a Unix based system revolve around getting the root login because a standard user has very little power to do anything useful unless they are logged in. So if you are ultra ultra paranoid you could make another login purely for "safe browsing" and Safe programs (Quicken for example). Use that login to go to known sites, like your bank, 401k, credit card, etc - and those sites only. That way even if you had some kind of keylogger/malware etc it wouldn't get anything useful because your other login is the one you use for your financial information. Note this is Uber paranoid to the point of crazy but some people are like that. Anyway the point of this long post is you are allowed to be paranoid - but there are reasons why Unix style operating systems don't have many viruses. And don't let the windows hype fool you - yes the majority of desktops are windows - but most of the Web runs Linux. If it were easy to attack Unix machines with Malware people would have done it to attack web servers too. That is not to say you should be lax in updating and watching what you do - be ever vigilant, but understand what it takes to actually affect a Mac system, take a breath, and be glad you switched. If you want a personal story - my father in law was a windows user until I bought him a mac mini G4 in 2002. I would spend hours cleaning his windows machine every time I visited. Finally I got fed up and bought him a Mac. He hasn't looked back and he hasn't got infected with anything since. Now he does get a lot of spam but that is a different story for a different time... [/QUOTE]
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Switcher Hangout (Windows to Mac)
I want to make sure I'm absolutely safe. Long, and lots of questions!
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