Installed my Apple iMac as my internet computer

[zardoz]

I'm not going to open up that old chestnut of which is better or which O/S do you use. Just thought id ask how many on here use an Apple to go on the internet ? Reason being it is inherantly safer as no viruses are written for the Apple. I just wondred if anyone knew if it was any safer when it comes to being infected by website tracking cookies and the like ?

 

[ian of fev]

as for o/s zardoz i dont realy know what is better ive never used apple but on my desktop i use xp and firefox browser and avg 8.5 antivirus ive had the desktop now for 5 years and allways used firefox and avg and luck has it ive never had spyware or a virus and pc runs like a dream (never had reformat it unlike the other 3 laptops i got) as for o/s i think its all down to personal prefrence ian

 

[bump]

Reason being it is inherantly safer as no viruses are written for the Apple. I just wondred if anyone knew if it was any safer when it comes to being infected by website tracking cookies and the like ?

False, there are plenty of viruses written for Mac's. One of the headline stats I got last week at Internet World was that 48% of Macs are infected with some sort of virus.In addition recently a Macbook air was broken into and full control enabled to a remote machine at a tech conference, within 10 seconds (I forget which one it was now). As for tracking cookies these will be as prevelent as they are on any system that access the internet.

Use firefox in kiosk mode is my advice as this will flush all personal data on closing the browser.

Also look at the smoothwall project. For a decent free firewall / routing device, if you can lay your hands on an old pc.

 

[Arsonista]

Asus EEE pc Running Linux.

 

[bump]

Asus EEE pc Running Linux.

Good choice, have you checked out any of the mods or alt distros out there?

 

[Arsonista]

have you checked out any of the mods or alt distros out there?

Errrrr... No. If I knew what that meant, I'd give you a more sensible answer.

 

[bump]

Have a look at the previous mods undertaken by other users. There is also a list of alternative distros that can be used on the eee. these offer a more usual linux type functionality.

 

[tux]

Good choice, have you checked out any of the mods or alt distros out there?

I take it you are a Linux user then Bump? Which distro(s) do you favour?. Always had a soft spot for Red Hat and more recently Fedora myself.

 

[Archie]

I'm no serious techie but I'd dispute that 48% of Macs were infected. Yes, there are a couple of viruses for Mac but they really are very, very few. There was one the other day which got a few people who downloaded illegal copies of iWork and CS4 but it could be removed by deleting one file. There are also a number of proof of concepts for viruses mostly published by anti-virus firms.

All I can really say is that I have had a Mac for the last 8 years and I have never had a virus of any kind despite having no anti-virus protection whatsoever.

 

[bump]

I take it you are a Linux user then Bump? Which distro(s) do you favour?. Always had a soft spot for Red Hat and more recently Fedora myself.

I tend to vary upon usage, laptop runs Ubuntu / XP as a dualboot (would love CS4 to operate under *nix), servers are usually running RHEL occasionally I'll go for SuSE. Debian gets a look in on some of the desktops.
Studio Ubuntu is well worth checking out if you do anything on the creative side, I have that hooked up to a couple of MOTU boxes at the moment.
I should be gaining another laptop as a play machine in the not too distant future, it's only running on 512Mb ram, so possibly Damn Small to go on that one. Thinking keeping it light and portable.

As for the Mac virus stat, I am regurgitating stats there, it isn't a field I have done any research into personally. It wouldn't surprise me if there were several nasties out there though.

 

[Psymon]

Ruddy computers, whats a computer anyway? Mine is currently switched off to save power its not a virus thats always the problem. I had two hard disk crashes in a month. MAKE SURE YOU ALL HAVE STRONG BACKUPS. Bit of good advice there