Maybe they know something you don't apparently. It is widely reported that Safari - the browser only available on Mac OSX - has actually gained market share, and that the Mac OS is itself growing to beyond use of Safari (as many Mac users use Firefox or others.)

And for all that 400%, an arbitrary number but I'll not dispute, there has been no subtantiated issue that has been resolved in time. I recall seeing an analysis just between Firefox and IE - that IE was insecure some 280 days of the year while Firefox was insecure some 30 days of the year. I haven't got specifics for the Mac OS but from my pov it's of the same order.


To me the main security hole is the user's ability to keep up with patches and to only put in the password when it should be or conversely to use non-admin accounts. This seems to me the inescapable problem for non-instutional users (ie all us home users.) As a response you might think institutional users might be better off - but I fear they might be worse off as overworked tech support folks can only move forward in quasi annual leaps leaving most of the year vulnerable and there is plenty of nuisance software over the web that can bring a windows machine to it's knees. Haven't seen any of that for the Mac yet but I'm sure it's coming. I've been cooperating with the privoxy and clamxav folks to see if they can cover such problems.


I guess YMMV. I'll grant that any machine can be abused into being "broken" but on average I'll see a Mac last for years while a Windows machine will last less than a year before regular users start complaining.


I actually kind of agree with this - not exactly for the stated reasons. But that's good enough.

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Sounds like you've been just plain lucky. This town, and in fact this state and the institutions in it, including the college here in town, used to be predominantly Mac. They pulled away from Mac when the security concerns began to surface, tech support became much harder to come by, the quality of the systems dropped, and more crashes began to occur. Now, there are relatively few Macs around, and the college trashed all the macs they had in favor of better, more efficient Windows systems. It is not by chance that the Pac 10 college network is virtually entirely Windows PC's.

I find it almost amusing, too, that the cost of a really good PC is low, good quality for the money, while the cost of Mac has never been low. (Years ago, for instance, when I helped Bruce Willis with a Mac problem - as an aside, Willis is a real jerk, but that is personal opinion - he had a 5400, and through conversation, I found out that he'd paid roughly 2 1/2 times more than he would have on a compatible pc, and the mac would only run about a tenth as many applications.)

Back when my wife worked for Mac support, I also found it very interesting that Apple seemed totally unconcerned with the users. They often would reinitialize for the smallest reason, and if someone had an older OS, would virtually refuse them service. Two of my friends still do Mac support (they both use PC's at home), and both have explained that this stance has gotten worse, not better. If the product was honestly all that good, it would be doubtful that they would still be getting literally thousands and thousands of support calls each day.

As for how long a system will last, anyone who wants to keep up with the times, and yet expects their systems to last longer than three years, is going to be disappointed, regardless of which platform they use. The reason is that technology is moving so fast that by the time a system hits the store shelves, it is already being outmoded. Between faster processors, better RAM, larger hard drives, faster bus speeds, and better peripherals, even 3 years is pushing it. For instance, there are Mac systems out there right now that were barely on the drawing boards two years ago, and can do much more than the systems that were "new" back then, could do. The computer I'm using right now, in fact, isn't especially fast, yet it hums along nicely at about 3.4 gigahertz, and has a gig of ram, expandible to 2 gigs just by adding one stick. The only complaint I have with it is that it only has a 40 gb hard drive, but I have a 250 gb hard drive sitting on my desk, if I ever take the 10 minutes it will take to put it in. Even the RISC processor that was Apple's mainstay for so long, has been outmoded by the dualcore. Eventually, of course, they will have true multi-processors, but I expect that it will be at least another year or two.

Back in the very old days, when the Mac had first come out, I was doing tech support for a large state governmental agency. After several days of one of the Macs crashing with the cutesy anarchist's bomb and an error code, I drove into town to the dealer where we had bought them.

I showed him the list of error codes I had compiled, and asked his advice. He told me that the terms of his contract with Apple prohibited him from giving his customers any technical support whatsoever, unless we called Apple first, and they routed the problem to him. He then reached under the counter and produced a 4-inch thick manual, and said "All of the error codes and troubleshooting steps are in this book, which, unfortunately, I am not allowed to show you."

He then set the book on the counter and said, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make a phone call." He went into his office and closed the door--leaving the service manual on the counter for me to peruse at my leisure. I copied the relevant information and took it back to my office, and was able to resolve all of our problems.

That was when I developed my opinion of Macintosh as fascist computing: "You will do it our way, as we know what's best for you."

Sadly, this seems to be the attitude that Microsoft has also been operating under for the past several years.

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