Ubuntu 'more secure' than Windows, says Dell

the register ^

[Sudetenland]

Writing this in Ubuntu 10.04. I like it! Just a couple of complaints now. First my much preferred music software, MediaMonkey Gold is not ported to Linux and Wine operation is spotty despite the best efforts of a lot of volunteers. Second, my super realistic screensaver, MarineAquarium 3 is also unlikely to ever be ported.

Still in all, I like it. Only time will tell if I will switch.

[softwarecreator]

Linux Mint is about as close to a Windows UI as you’ll find.

Agreed, it is IMO the best distro available to those who want an easy to install software, without a learning curve, and tons of software installed.

I like Ubuntu, but Mint is better and far easier for the average user to switch without a lot of problems.

[antiRepublicrat]

However, the purpose was to wreak havoc and make a splash - not to make money.

You keep bringing up this irrelevant difference. The question: Is Mac big enough to target? Answer: Yes, smaller populations have been targeted. Whether it's for damage or money, they're both looking for effect. They take the time to develop malware for those products.

Maybe a worm or other malware could be designed to affect the Mac, maybe not - the truth is that in this environment, most cyber criminals are not going to make the effort because the potential return is so small.

Explain the malware for OS 9, and why it suddenly cut off for OS X and never grew to pre-OS X levels again despite a larger installed base. Yes, there is still damaging malware out there. There was no cutoff date where suddenly people stopped writing damaging malware. Even then, OS X was out long before your supposed cutoff. There were millions of OS X machines out there when someone was developing Witty to target only 12,000 machines.

Even for the money, I still don't see how a criminal could ignore 50 million lucrative targets when attacking them wouldn't cost any more. If they had effective Mac malware it would take no effort or money to target that rich environment.

But I'm sure one could be designed. No system is perfect.

If I were you, I'd be happy to be ignored by the crooks, not standing up shouting "why doesn't somebody attack me too?"

That is a dangerous thing to do. The basic fact people don't want to admit is that Jobs chose a very secure OS architecture, BSD. Allowing that little bit of credit to Apple would hurt too much for some.

[antiRepublicrat]

I wonder if the ardent advocates of the market-share position will remember their arguments then...

That will be conveniently forgotten.