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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Web perils advise switch to Macs

BBC:

Security threats to PCs with Microsoft Windows have increased so much that computer users should consider using a Mac, says a leading security firm.

Sophos security said that the 10 most commonly found pieces of malicious software all targeted Windows machines.

In contrast, it said, none of the "malware" were capable of infecting the Mac OS X operating system.

This is similar to the reason I use Firefox: There's no evidence that it's inherently more secure than Internet Explorer (IE), but since hackers target IE almost exclusively, it's not safe to use. But I have two issues with this advice. First, if everyone switches to the Mac, there will be more hacks happening on that platform. Second, switching is hard, and making a blanket statement like "just switch to the Mac" is disrespectful of the difficulty real people will experience if they actually try to do so.

That said, my wife uses a Mac, at my instigation. So far, so good, but it wasn't a seemless process, and there are still issues. I have to think that households without a resident tech guru will have even bigger problems.

[ Posted at 12:04 PM | Permalink ]