Comment by coldtea
6 days ago
As a 20+ year heavy mac AND linux user, both are true.
It doesn't get viruses, especially if you don't install random junk from warez sites and stick to MAS, brew, and a few trusted vendors. Even if you do install crap, it's trojans not viruses, which are more like the Yeti (something like that might exist, but few have seen it) than a problem mac users have.
And things "just work" way way way way more than they do in Linux (and I've started using it professional as desktop and for dev work in late 1990s, I'm not weekend tourist to it), which is exactly what I expected as a pragmatist. Only some non-existing carricature user that exists in strawman arguments expected everything to be perfect.
The "they don't catch viruses" is a bold lie, but back then when i worked in tech sales the apple promoter wanted us to repeat the lie ad nasueam. They definetly catch malware and it's as easy as in any other platform (also because today the malware will likely be running in a headless chromium instance)
I've had a macbook since 2010, and to me its software quality has been going downhill since snow leopard, today it's completely unrecognizable.
I think apple jumped the shark more or less in 2012 with the flay layouts, when they also started changing ages old defaults, hiding and then removing features for power users, too much handholding and telling you what's best for you, things like that.
My macbook from that era is still with me, but it runs debian now, same as any other PC i use for work or leisure, and it's really so much better for me as a programmer and as a user. Freedom. It's really freedom (and KDE's ergonomics really clicks with me). I recently had to install unsigned software on one of our worplace's mac minis (which i'm glad i don't have to use anymore) and it was so incredibly frustrating i wanted to smash that thing.
>The "they don't catch viruses" is a bold lie, but back then when i worked in tech sales the apple promoter wanted us to repeat the lie ad nasueam. They definetly catch malware and it's as easy as in any other platform (also because today the malware will likely be running in a headless chromium instance)
Malware is not a virus. And it doesn't catch malware if you keep to trusted sources and keep on OS protective layers like SIP.
Install junk from warez sites and the like, and YOU installed something (still not a virus: a trojan). If you couldn't install it at all (also totally possible) you'd be crying how macOS restricts you.
In over 20 years of OS X use I've never had any virus, nor did anyone I know. Over 30 years of Windows I've had plenty.
>They definetly catch malware and it's as easy as in any other platform
If you install it, it's not a virus (and you can't avoid that in any OS, unless they lock you out of arbitrary program download and execution and only have you run in sandboxes).
Even so, you can very well install and not give it privileges, and then it can't even touch important directories. If you install it && enter your admin credentials to let it do whatever, it's on you.
>I've had a macbook since 2010, and to me its software quality has been going downhill since snow leopard, today it's completely unrecognizable.
It has, but that has nothing to do with now allowing viruses or even malware (in fact, regarding the latter, is more secure than it was in 2010 via multiple measures).