I guess the guy who thought he was so smart he did not need doctors to treat cancer is rolling over in his grave.
Sorry, Mac owners, a new report says Windows PCs are safer from malware | Mashable
I expect the Apple fanatics won’t believe this.
I provisionally believe the article, which appears to be reputable. I don’t believe your thread title, for which you have offered no support whatsoever. Got any cite for Mac viruses?
Umm…:
MacKeeper and MacBooster are insanely easy to avoid: just don’t install them. The main problem there is simply ignorance.
This experienced Mac user is unconcerned. Vulnerable people are those who mindlessly clicking on hyper-aggressive MacKeeper and MacBooster ads that regular Apple users know better not to, but certainly those same people would likely do the same stupid shit on a PC.
It’s in the Malwarebytes PDF cited by the article. Windows still has twice as many but only increased by 1% whereas Mac threats increased by 10%. In short, there were 2.4 million more threats to Mac last year than in 2018 as opposed to 400K more for Windows during the same period.
Whoops, I was looking at the wrong chart. For some reason, they switched to a vertical chart for Mac; Windows has nearly five times as many threats than Mac but Mac threats more than doubled in 2019 (4.8 million to 11 million).
I’ve always been a Windows person, and likely always will be, but I still thought those old “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” commercials were pretty funny 
Malware is not a virus.
Yeah, this is a losing battle…
You can tell people all day long that malware that you explicitly give permission to, and deliberately install on your computer is not a virus, and they will still call it that.
^^Yup.
Some folks need to learn that you don’t just click “Yes” or “Install,” unless you know what you’re installing.
And it’s not like there’s much that an OS can do to stop you from voluntarily installing stupid crap on your computer.
Ironically, a lot of the folks who install MacCleaner probably do so because they’re afraid of viruses.
^^^I think you’re right. MacKeeper is right up there as well as the worst thing to ever install.
The gals at work have installed shit that I had to get rid of. They click on stuff while going on-line during lunch or something, and the next thing I know I’m getting rid of MacKeeper or some browser hijacker.
True; the virus writer people need to up their game and release something novel and original. I fondly remember a room full of Macs (at a critical organization you’ve heard of) periodically telling people, “Don’t panic.”
^^^I remember years ago (back in the days of OS8) where there was a worm or something. But that’s the only so-called virus I remember.
How did the folks react when you told them “don’t panic.”?
Hehe, it was not I telling the people not to panic- it was the virus announcing itself 
Unfortunately (sloppy programming?) it also caused the systems to slow down and other corruption.
^^That’s going way back.
I clicked your link and now I understand. 
Mac viruses are almost always Chrome or Safari extensions. They are installed from websites – and not necessarily dodgy ones.
I’ve seen very few traditional viruses on PCs these days. Chrome extension malware has taken over. So while that one type of virus is growing, the vast majority of older Windows viruses are just not a problem. Thus, that sector is shrinking, while the extension malware – which infects both Windows and Macs – is growing. It’s probably the same rate of growth for both, but the drop in OS viruses makes PCs look better.
I’ve been an Apple user since 1982, started with the IIe, then the original Mac 128, and numerous machines since then, I’ve been an Apple Authorized service tech for decades, and in all my time, I’ve only encountered ONE virus, and no viruses on customer machines, strangely enough
The virus I encountered? nVIRan old virus that was malicious up to Mac OS 8.6, it was on a floppy disc with some old SyQuest external drive extensions (drivers), my freeware antivirus app nailed it right off the bat and eliminated it
Even if the virus did make it onto my Mac**at the time, it wouldn’t have done anything at all, as I was running Mac OS 9.2.2, and nVIR was incompatible with anything past Mac OS 8…
The only virus I encountered in the wild wouldn’t have done anything to my rig…
** HEAVILY upgraded 7600 with maxed RAM, processor upgrade, nvidia video card, three internal hard drives, ZIP drive and CD-RW, a very high performance rig for the time, I even had to jury rig in three additional cooling fans to keep it running cool),
The nVIR strain of viruses, I encountered the B strain in the wild on a compromised floppy, but since I was running Mac OS 9.2.2 it wouldn’t have done anything, my antivirus killed it as soon as the floppy mounted