AuxBijouxEphemeres wrote:
The point is with Mac you have no viruses, spywares and such annoyances. I personnally run Linux, that's basically quite the same as Mac (Macos is derived from BSD) and I stick with it. But of course, if I was a professionnal retoucher, I'd go for a Mac as there are few professionnal-grade softs for Linux, for commercial rather than techhnical reasons. No Photoshop, no Illustrator, no Rhino or Inventor or Maya. Yet there are Gimp, Inkscape and Blender, they're free and they do the job.

Funny.  I was just reading about a Mac virus recently.   

picayou wrote:
I'm not a Mac Fan Boy but am hard on laptops, my main is a 17" MBP that I have used regularly since 2010. In the same time frame prior, I went through three PC based laptops. 1 Dell and 2 HP's, it is for this reason I have stuck with Apple. Next laptop will probably be a PC tho as 17" Mac's aren't made nor are they going to be supported anymore.

I am typing this on a 10 year old 17 inch laptop.

Jerry Nemeth wrote:
Funny.  I was just reading about a Mac virus recently.   

It's not impossible, it's only more difficult. No computer is 100 % safe ; that said, on Unix-like systems the authorisations system is such that one can't just write an executable file without, at least, getting noticed. So pirates concentrate on Windows systems, just like crooks on innocent retirees.

AuxBijouxEphemeres wrote:

It's not impossible, it's only more difficult. No computer is 100 % safe ; that said, on Unix-like systems the authorisations system is such that one can't just write an executable file without, at least, getting noticed. So pirates concentrate on Windows systems, just like crooks on innocent retirees.

I don't remember the details about the virus but it was introduced to the Mac in a different way.
I haven't had a problem with viruses.  I had one and cleared it myself.

AuxBijouxEphemeres wrote:
Yes, that's the major flaw on Macs : the price tag. But there may be an other advantage to them : they look "professionnal".
Not that you can't do a good work with other systems, it's just the hype. Just like you can't come to a shoot with a Holga, even if you shoot stunning pics with it, and some people do.

That is a very poor comparison!   

Jerry Nemeth wrote:

I am typing this on a 10 year old 17 inch laptop.

Still have a 2006-15" MBP that is functional but not my daily (has to stay close to an outlet). I use my 17" as my main computer and put it thru the paces daily, just sharing my personal experience. Going forward I will be looking at PC's again for the screen size and the new tech, like the Samsung 950 PRO SSD. Not excited about relearning Windows but speed and power do excite me.

Good Egg Productions wrote:
You would likely experience a bump in speed, but I have every doubt that it would be so great as to justify the price of jumping into a Mac.  Plus the learning curve from going PC to Mac will be frustrating at first and any benefits in speed you see Adobe programs will be wasted on relearning how to do simple things like moving files.

This ^^^ there is a learning curve for sure.

Jerry Nemeth wrote:
I am typing this on a 10 year old 17 inch laptop.

A friend of mine still regularly uses a 12 or 13 year old Thinkpad I sold him years ago when I upgraded to something newer.

Mac vs PC is like coke or pepsi.  Use whichever you prefer.  Comparable hardware will run the same as long as you don't make a mess of it, and that applies to both systems.

More malware is targeting Macs, and getting cleverer about it.  Apple hasn't been as responsive to these threats as MS is these days, but it looks like they're improving. 

The thing that throws most people for the loop is they comparison shop a premium Apple product against more bargain line PC hardware.  If you compare the better PC equipment you'll see it's fairs well against Apple, but you don't find a lot of that at Best Buy.  Hit up a Microsoft store or shop online and you'll find better PC hardware available. 

My biggest problem with Apple's hardware is that as well engineered as it appears, they often favor form over function and wind up leaving some performance on the table through questionable cooling capacity, etc. They've largely stopped doing so much of that now, fortunately.

Ryan C L wrote:
blah, blah, blah,...
I'm fairly happy with the speed at which I'm able to work.
blah, blah, blah,...

I think that's your answer.  I wouldn't switch platforms & spends tons of money if you are satisfied with your current setup.  There are (always) productive things you can be doing with your time & money.

Colorblinded wrote:

A friend of mine still regularly uses a 12 or 13 year old Thinkpad I sold him years ago when I upgraded to something newer.

Mac vs PC is like coke or pepsi.  Use whichever you prefer.  Comparable hardware will run the same as long as you don't make a mess of it, and that applies to both systems.

More malware is targeting Macs, and getting cleverer about it.  Apple hasn't been as responsive to these threats as MS is these days, but it looks like they're improving. 

The thing that throws most people for the loop is they comparison shop a premium Apple product against more bargain line PC hardware.  If you compare the better PC equipment you'll see it's fairs well against Apple, but you don't find a lot of that at Best Buy.  Hit up a Microsoft store or shop online and you'll find better PC hardware available. 

My biggest problem with Apple's hardware is that as well engineered as it appears, they often favor form over function and wind up leaving some performance on the table through questionable cooling capacity, etc. They've largely stopped doing so much of that now, fortunately.

There are several levels of PC hardware.  I recently purchased a mid level laptop with Windows 10 that was on clearance.
Some people here like to comment with cliches.

空 wrote:
I use both mac and pc.
Different models perform differently.
What people often forget about the differences are is that many things on the mac are standard, such as screen resolution, etc.  If you added these 'standard' items to your pc laptop then the gap in price would be much lower.  There would still be a gap as Mac does put a premium of profits.

Nowadays most non-mac laptops are winning the resolution battle -- the MBP is something like 2800 pixels wide, the Dell and ASUS I mentioned above are around 3800.  The problem then becomes battery life since those high res screens suck alot of juice.  Both the Dell and the Asus suffer because of that.  But if raw resolution is that important then you've got no choice.

It's possible that Apple will refresh the MBP sometime soon and we'll see what they do with the resolution.

AuxBijouxEphemeres wrote:
The point is with Mac you have no viruses, spywares and such annoyances. I personnally run Linux, that's basically quite the same as Mac (Macos is derived from BSD) and I stick with it.

That is like saying that freedom is quite the same as being in prison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kv4uXUFJ3w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtHmKLHtZvg

AuxBijouxEphemeres wrote:
The point is with Mac you have no viruses, spywares and such annoyances. I personnally run Linux, that's basically quite the same as Mac (Macos is derived from BSD) and I stick with it. But of course, if I was a professionnal retoucher, I'd go for a Mac as there are few professionnal-grade softs for Linux, for commercial rather than techhnical reasons. No Photoshop, no Illustrator, no Rhino or Inventor or Maya. Yet there are Gimp, Inkscape and Blender, they're free and they do the job.

Unsafe browsing will ruin any computer eventually.  If you know what you are doing, you almost have nothing to worry about.  Virus scanners themselves are a scammy joke.

Chuckarelei wrote:
And if you serve porn sites a lot, Mac is much safer.   

It's true.   

Now the true reason.   

Tony Lawrence wrote:
Macbooks and Apple products are what most industry pros use.   Photographers, re-toucher, art directors, etc.   That doesn't make them better but is true.   While no OS is totally malware proof OS X is just much better overall against on-line issues.

Yes, there is malware proof OS and it was created by Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, the so called GNU/Linux. It is free as in freedom (ref. fsf.org) and there is community control of the source code, so nothing is hidden. You can't say that for any proprietary software.

Apple and Microsoft are both part of the PRISM program, so they are reporting directly to NSA. So you can't say OSX is better or worse. If you don't know what the computer is doing, the software is a closed black box and the machine is using you.

The other day I saw an article explaining how file system encryption works on latest Windows versions: as soon as the encryption process completes, the encryption key is automatically sent to your Microsoft account "so that it is safe and you never loose it". If that is not malware and spyware, I don't know what is. The fox guarding the chicken.

There is simply no solution to malware/spyware with Windows and OSX. Unplug the cable and work offline and use a separate Linux based system for communication (but not Ubuntu as it has spyware desktop feature too). But then of course using Google or Facebook is just the same problem as they are also spying on everyone and even if you don't use Gmail - others do. So perhaps the best advice is to spend as little money as possible and use only what is really needed.

I've met well known pros at the stores.

Being well known is not a an equivalent for understanding how hardware and software works. Some stores deliberately "feed" known names to keep them around. Marketing tricks everywhere.

anchev wrote:

Yes, there is malware proof OS and it was created by Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, the so called GNU/Linux. It is free as in freedom (ref. fsf.org) and there is community control of the source code, so nothing is hidden. You can't say that for any proprietary software.

Sorry.. but no.

If Heartbleed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed) taught us anything it's that open source software isn't immune to catastrophic security problems.

And the tens of thousands of dollars my company spends each year to make sure our Linux machines (nearly a thousand of them) stay secure (both from internal and external threats) belies the notion that any Linux distro is malware proof. We are constantly upgrading to deal with newly discovered vulnerabilities.

The likelihood is certainly small.. but the threats are definitely real and can have huge ramifications. My clients are very protective of their data that we have stored on our servers.  If we just said "Hey.. we use linux.. it's malware proof!" they would first laugh at me and then tell me to delete all of their data and never call (or pay) us again..

anchev wrote:

Yes, there is malware proof OS and it was created by Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, the so called GNU/Linux. It is free as in freedom (ref. fsf.org) and there is community control of the source code, so nothing is hidden. You can't say that for any proprietary software.

Apple and Microsoft are both part of the PRISM program, so they are reporting directly to NSA. So you can't say OSX is better or worse. If you don't know what the computer is doing, the software is a closed black box and the machine is using you.

The other day I saw an article explaining how file system encryption works on latest Windows versions: as soon as the encryption process completes, the encryption key is automatically sent to your Microsoft account "so that it is safe and you never loose it". If that is not malware and spyware, I don't know what is. The fox guarding the chicken.

There is simply no solution to malware/spyware with Windows and OSX. Unplug the cable and work offline and use a separate Linux based system for communication (but not Ubuntu as it has spyware desktop feature too). But then of course using Google or Facebook is just the same problem as they are also spying on everyone and even if you don't use Gmail - others do. So perhaps the best advice is to spend as little money as possible and use only what is really needed.


Being well known is not a an equivalent for understanding how hardware and software works. Some stores deliberately "feed" known names to keep them around. Marketing tricks everywhere.

AuxBijouxEphemeres wrote:
The point is with Mac you have no viruses, spywares and such annoyances.

then what the $#^#@! are these people talking about?

http://www.howtogeek.com/223116/how-to- … -your-mac/
http://www.howtogeek.com/210589/mac-os- … has-begun/
http://bgr.com/2015/10/21/mac-malware-increase-2015/
http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg-defense/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/05 … _explodes/
http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/06/first-os- … cted-macs/
https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blo … e-evolved/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02 … -returned/

Peter Claver wrote:
Sorry.. but no.

If Heartbleed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed) taught us anything it's that open source software isn't immune to catastrophic security problems.

Can you distinguish OS from network protocol/cryptography library? What you are discussing is that no software is 100% bug free. Bug != malware as the later is deliberately created to behave maliciously. When you have community control there are thousands of eyes looking at the code and malware simply can't survive. And very often bug reports are processed within hours. Try to report a problem to Microsoft and see when it gets fixed (if at all)...

If we just said "Hey.. we use linux.. it's malware proof!" they would first laugh at me

And for a good reason (no sarcasm). Linux is just the kernel. People with Win/Mac background call "linux" everything that is put on top of that and certain distros definitely include non-FOSS software. These same people really like to point out certain "severe security problems" in free software packages which have already been fixed long ago and don't affect them in any way, while they happily use the latest shiny box with telemetry reporting features (reporting their mouse moves and keyboard strokes to companies who get their money).

Also there is a big difference between a virus and overall system vulnerability. Of course you can write a virus for any OS. The question is that without root access and without explicitly running it that piece of software won't damage the system. It can damage your user files for sure but if you install software only from the official repositories, you are safe. Considering you are always working as administrator in Windows and you can damage anything at any time.

Tony Lawrence wrote:
Linux is community driven.   No stores.   Little help beyond forums.

Are you saying that if you buy RHEL or SLE you won't get the enterprise support from RedHat and Novell?

The spying and NSA backdoors are a different subject for a different thread.

You mean companies are doing this separately from selling their good clean product?

Please don't get me wrong. There is also non-free software which is good. What I am saying is - don't spend too much money for shiny nonsense and don't connect to the Internet from devices which run non-free software, especially if that software has a long proven history of being a spyware itself.

If that is not a good advice then I am afraid I can't give any better one to the OP.

Leonard Gee Photography wrote:

then what the $#^#@! are these people talking about?

http://www.howtogeek.com/223116/how-to- … -your-mac/
http://www.howtogeek.com/210589/mac-os- … has-begun/
http://bgr.com/2015/10/21/mac-malware-increase-2015/
http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg-defense/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/05 … _explodes/
http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/06/first-os- … cted-macs/
https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blo … e-evolved/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02 … -returned/

Well I was trying to be objective ! I don't use a Mac, I use an old laptop I found in the recycle bin for internet browsing, and an assembled PC with a Nvidia graphic card for photo, 3D etc. The latter is not connected to the internet unless I need to install new software. Both run Debian with Mate desktop. I'm not sure no-one can spy on me, but it's a thing to be spied on by the NSA or the like, and it's another to have your data going to some unknown Russian hackers. It happened here in France : in 2011, our homeland security ministry's data went somewhere in Russia.
What I do is legal by present-day standards. But what if, say, the EI takes over ? Would they consider artistic nude photo innocent ? Or behead me ?
Well we're getting far away from the original question.I'll stick with Linux ; Autodesk, Black Magic and Dassault System started releasing Linux software, so hopefully one day Adobe will do too ?

AuxBijouxEphemeres wrote:
What I do is legal by present-day standards. But what if, say, the EI takes over ? Would they consider artistic nude photo innocent ? Or behead me ?

Spying is not about being legal. Laws are created and changed by the ones who spy on others. It is about total domination for the benefit of an elected "elite".

Autodesk, Black Magic and Dassault System started releasing Linux software, so hopefully one day Adobe will do too ?

A piece of closed proprietary software can still send data from your PC to a company. It doesn't matter much what OS is underneath as long as the software needs root access to install itself and the computer is connected to the network.

anchev wrote:

Can you distinguish OS from network protocol/cryptography library? What you are discussing is that no software is 100% bug free. Bug != malware as the later is deliberately created to behave maliciously. When you have community control there are thousands of eyes looking at the code and malware simply can't survive.

Of course I can.. read what I wrote again.  I chose the heartbleed bug as an example very carefully.  It is in an open source library (OpenSSL).. there was code review of the commit that cause the bug.. and yet the bug still survived and was not discovered by code review.  Open source software is categorically *not* malware proof.  Richard Stallman can eat as many toenails as he pleases.. it won't make it true.

And no there are not thousands of eyes looking at the code.  There are thousands of people who have *access* to the code.  But it is naive to think that they're all willing and even able to audit the code they've downloaded.

And for a good reason (no sarcasm). Linux is just the kernel. People with Win/Mac background call "linux" everything that is put on top of that and certain distros definitely include non-FOSS software. These same people really like to point out certain "severe security problems" in free software packages which have already been fixed long ago and don't affect them in any way, while they happily use the latest shiny box with telemetry reporting features (reporting their mouse moves and keyboard strokes to companies who get their money).

I've been using linux since almost as long as there *was* a linux.  My job is to write software that is used by hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of linux users every day.  The GNU/Linux vs Linux fight was lost years ago.  Just accept it.  It's just Linux now and that's how everyone who isn't a pedant (ie. the FSF) names it.

Also there is a big difference between a virus and overall system vulnerability. Of course you can write a virus for any OS. The question is that without root access and without explicitly running it that piece of software won't damage the system. It can damage your user files for sure but if you install software only from the official repositories, you are safe. Considering you are always working as administrator in Windows and you can damage anything at any time.

There are *plenty* of local and remote privilege escalation bugs on linux.  We harden our network and installations against them constantly.

You're living in Richard Stallman's fantasy land.