BleepingComputer.com: To Mac Or Not To Mac

So I'm thinking of buying a macbook pro, for shallow reasons (I think it's pretty), but also because apparently I wouldn't have to worry about being infected with trojans and worms.
Is this actually true?

Also is it too much trouble to use parallels and bootcamp to run pc only programs like autocad?

Could you point me to a handy link about parallels/bootcamp?

Thanks in advance!

I don't own any Macs. I do know however that when people say that "macs are invincible to viruses" that they are wrong. Windows has many viruses because most of the world uses Windows based computers so the virus programmers target the majority. Viruses could still be written for Mac OS X. If the entire population switched to Mac, people would stop making viruses for Windows and start making them for Mac.

Guide for choosing Boot Camp or Parallels to run Windows on an Apple MacBook

That was just the first result on Google. The keywords I used were: Parallels vs Boot Camp

lhamil64, on Aug 18 2008, 09:11 AM, said:

This really isn't very accurate.
If it were simply true that the more popular software would always have more exploits, then it would follow that the most popular web server software, Apache, would have more security incidents than the lesser used MS IIS. In fact the opposite is true.

There is one primary reason why Windows operating systems have exploded with viruses and spyware and why other operating systems have not: In every home version of Windows the user has either had full access to all of the OS's system files, or on the initial setup the first user was set up by default as the administrator/root account. No other operating system with a sane security policy will be set up by default to run all day as a full system administrator, by doing so you expose your critical system files to whatever malicious code you may come across, giving a 3rd party absolute access to your system. Apple systems, along with Linux, Unix, and every other OS with a permissioned file system don't suffer from viruses like Windows does, not because of anything to do with how widely they are used, but because writing a virus for these systems in almost all cases will do no harm to the computer. If a program with malicious code is run by a normal user who doesn't have permission to access the critical system files, the absolute worst thing the virus will manage to accomplish is wipe out the user's /home directory. If a user has no permission to access the system files, any program they run will also have no access, and will not be able to infect the system in any way.

And notably, now that all Vista accounts are set up by default as limited users and must be elevated to administrative permission through UAC, the number of malware incidents that Vista is vulnerable to has sharply declined. In fact, on Vista systems the UAC protection is more effective at defeating rootkits and preventing their installation than antivirus and antispyware programs are.

In short, the widespread use of a system isn't nearly as important a factor in terms of a system's vulnerability as properly implemented security policies are. Up until Vista, MS had severely dropped the ball in this regard. This isn't to say that OSX and other systems that aren't running as root all the time are wholly immune to viruses--there's no such thing as a 100% secure system. But it is far more difficult to write an effective virus for a system when you don't have access to a user running the root account.

...


To answer the original post, yes, you won't come across any viruses or malware running a current Mac. There have been no widespread virus or malware outbreaks since OSX has been on the market.
The previous link there about Bootcamp/Parallels looks very good, read up on that and decide what will work best for you.

This post has been edited by arcman: 18 August 2008 - 10:18 AM

I would suggest VMWare over Parallels.

I'm also thinking of getting a macbook pro! I hope I like it

Pish. macies. lol. All depends on what you are doing with it.
Windows: Programing, gaming, more of a developer computer, work
Macs: Pics and Movies, web, work