Yet another virus??

[Benchwayze]

If I may I'd like to offer some clam and collected virus / computer advice...

1) .....Macs have fewer viruses primarily because they have a much smaller market share so are less interesting to hackers (and the design of the OS is somewhat better than Windows). As Mac market share grows so will the number of viruses.
......

I really must take issue with this view propagated by many. The Apple OS is based on UNIX. UNIX has been around for years and years and years. It is open source. It has been pored over time and time again. It is inherently much more secure than Microsoft. Hackers may try attacking vulnerabilities in the application software but that is at a different layer from the OS. The only way that a virus is going to get into a Mac is if the user accepts it by entering in their Admin password. No OS in the world can guard against a dumb user.

I never open any spam type mails, not even from my bank! Especially not from my bank! Which isn't HSBC, the usual phishing 'identitiy'.

John

 

[wobblycogs]

xy, you would be more secure with that set up (hard drive + live cd) but your computer would be a pain to use. Boot times would be much longer, every application you wanted to run would have to be on the cd, you would either need to customize the cd or do some set up each time you boot, and you would only realistically be able to run Linux.

Live CD's (and equivalent read-only OS'es) have their place but it's mostly for things like firewalls or other dedicated systems. One thing a live cd is good for is doing your online banking. Online banking only requires a browser, which is available on most live cds, and you want to be sure that you are using a virus free system.

 

[xy mosian]

wobblycogs,
That's roughly what I reconned. I use a live cd, current favourite is Puppy Linux, for my online money transactions.
A lot of the current crop of live cd's are set up to be easily remastered, Puppy is one of them, and installing extra software is by no means as bad as it once was. Trouble is the range of software choices for Linux is somewhat limited, and it is difficult to find others with user experience for small queries. Of course that last point also applies to Mac's.
Thanks for your thoughts.
xy

 

[wobblycogs]

I'm about to open myself to a huge flame but...

Most linux distributions are based on either RedHat or Debian layouts (there is apparently a standard for system layout but I don't think anyone sticks to it terribly well). If you have questions about your particular distribution that you can't get answered on the dedicated forums it's often worth asking on the forums of what ever the base distribution is as normally they are similar enough that you'll get a useful reply.

I agree about the limited software choice though. As a software developer I used linux (Debian followed by Kubuntu) for years but eventually I got fed up with booting into Windows at the end of every work day in order to use my computer for anything else. As a development system it's hard to beat linux but I'm not keen on it any more as desktop system.