Interesting article at the Daring Fireball: Broken Windows, comparing Mac and Windows security. The author compares Windows to a seedy neighborhood where the residents don’t care about keeping the buildings maintained and the streets free of litter. That tolerance for disrepair, he argues, opens the door for viruses and spyware to flourish. The Mac, on the other hand, exists in a clean neighborhood, where residents absolutely don’t tolerate disorder.

It’s a fine argument, but I must say that if Windows users don’t care about their neighborhood, they also act like cheap whores. I’ve used a fair number of different operating systems in my day, and I currently have a Mac PowerBook, a Windows XP box, and a couple of Linux boxes. My XP box is on 24 hours a day, and – knock on wood – I have had to deal with viruses exceedingly rarely, perhaps once per year or less. I have had to remove spyware on occasion, but for the most part my machine has remained clean. I don’t even run anti-virus software (mostly because Norton completely sucks, but I digress…) though I do have a ZoneAlarm firewall installed. Mostly, though, my defense is to be exceedingly careful about what software I install and what email I open.

One of the major problems in the Windows world is the appalling lack of sophistication among the users, and the even more appalling necessity that Windows demands they be sophisticated to use all the whiz-bang software Redmond keeps saying is good for us. (And if you can parse that sentence without getting a headache, you get a cookie.) Mac shows us that it’s possible to make an operating system that doesn’t take a genius to understand and use while providing excellent security. To keep Windows working properly, however, requires years of experience with its quirks and tendencies, and a tenacious attention to maintenance. Most users assume that they can’t break their computer, and that software should “just work.” Unfortunately for them, they’re only right if they’re working on a Mac.

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Sunday, June 6th, 2004 @ 1:43 am Computer & Gadget Matters
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