New worm spies on you

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Wrong on both counts.

#1, a Mac OS X computer equipped with Microsoft's own (well, bought out from Connectix) Virtual PC (included with Microsoft Office Professional for the Mac [which is better in many respects than the Windows versions of Office -- e. g. the outstanding "List Manager" feature in Mac Excel since 2001, and the transparency feature in the charting abilities of both Mac Excel and Mac Powerpoint v.X and 2004 -- and if you think that transparency for charts is just a cool-looking but unnecessary gimmick, try looking at the data in the back rows of a 3-D area chart, where the back rows sometimes dip below the front rows, without it]) can run more software without rebooting to another OS (and do so simultaneously, with full copy-and-paste between them) than ANY other OS, INCLUDING Windows. These include:

(A) The entire Mac OS X software library (which includes many excellent programs available nowhere else, such as the new Apple Motion 1.0, GarageBand, etc.)

(B) Almost the entire Mac OS Classic software library, thanks to the built-in Classic Mode. This is a rather large software library, and there are still many programs available on it that are not avialable on any other platform (such as the most realistic gameplay in any pinball simulation that I have ever seen [and I've played them all, on both platforms, including Visual Pinball {with VPinMAME}, Virtual Pinball, and the entire Pro Pinball series] -- the completely free Royal Flush pinball game for Mac OS Classic had the brilliant idea of allowing the MOUSE to be used for bumping the table, instead of the keyboard, which means that you can nudge in any direction, at any speed, with any amount of force, unlike with the keyboard which limits you to preset amounts of left, right, and center bumping -- and this is just ONE example).

(C) Almost the entire Unix software library, including X-Window applications. This, too, is a vast library. Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 out of the box can only run POSIX-compliant Unix apps which is a much smaller subset of text-only command-line-only Unix apps.

None of the above require Virtual PC, by the way. But with it, we can also run (granted, albeit at a moderate slowdown):

(D) Almost the entire Windows library, including applications (with obvious exceptions such as low-level disk utilities, but we wouldn't need those anyway) for any version of Windows, and any legacy apps including DOS apps insofar as they are supported in the version of Windows being run under VirtualPC emulation.

(E) Other x86 OSes, such as QNX. Of course, this would include Linux too, but there are native PowerPC versions of Linux and other Unix OSes (including Mac OS X itself), so why bother?

The other thing you're wrong about is that it's the small market share of Mac OS X and Linux, etc. that protect them from the malware writers. While there may be some truth to that, it is also true that the UNDERLYING FOUNDATION AND "PLUMBING" of Windows is INHERENTLY ***FAR*** less secure than that of the other OSes (especially the BSD-based UNIX OSes, of which Mac OS X is one, but Linux is not). XP Service Pack 2 does help a lot here, but at a cost of compatibility with legacy apps (one of the main reasons to run Windows in the FIRST place).

More malware programs come out EVERY DAY for Windows than have EVER EXISTED for the Mac (even if we go all the way back to the 1983 LISA, and of course include the ORIGINAL NON-UNIX Mac OS and even the LISA OS)! There has yet to be a SINGLE known malware program targeting Mac OS X specifically (though some macro malwares for Office can infect documents on Macs running Mac Office, but those aren't as much of a problem anymore even for Windows now that all recent versions of Office ask permission before running macros -- also, presumably, some UNIX-generic malwares could conceivably affect Mac OS X systems, and, of course, if you run VirtualPC then it will run many Windows malwares as well)! Malware is one software category that Windows can indeed claim VAST numerical superiority over any other OS, but that's not exactly a good thing for Windows.

Posted by: Joel R   Posted on: 08/26/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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