Apple hints at .Mac updates next Tuesday

Maybe I should renew after all....

Wait till Tuesday!

well, i hope something is in the works. i let my account auto-renew, but honestly, i can't exactly explain WHY except sheer laziness and hopes that apple will improve matters somewhat.

- virex is now dead-ware (and will actually hurt your computer if you still use it... though they still offer the virex DAT updates. wtf?!?) so we really have no reliable virus scanning solutions out there. admittedly, mac os x doesn't have as many gaping, wide-open doors as windows, but still...

- backup3 has been cited as being not only useless, but quite harmful with even the most innocent of mistakes (i direct your attention to john gruber's archive at daringfireball, where he links to several expert opinions that backup3 should be a hell of a lot better than it currently is).

- idisk is still god awful slow. i mean, yes, it's nice to have idisk almost behave like a normal mac os x folder, but i'd rather have the speed of a normal ftp client. heck, panic's transmit does a pretty bangup job. and please don't tell me to use the "local idisk and then syncing" thing. if that isn't the textbook definition of "workaround," i don't know what is.

- homepage used to be nice... for 1999/2000..., but now it just looks like terrible template-driven designs. and of course, apple can never kill off those designs, since many users used the "springtime" theme for their wedding or something and would be upset to find it gone... i guess.

at least my email is mostly spam-free (except when they got nailed by the worm late last year... but hey, so did everybody, and apple had it killed in about 24-48 hours... by comparison, bellsouth still can't figure out how to prevent email with subject lines like "COME ON LITTLE-D1CK, SPEND 60 BUCKS TO INCREASE 3" disappoint" from reaching my in-box. my wife happens to LIKE that 3", thankyouverymuch.

what happened to the freebie software? i actually LIKED seeing what new piece of free shareware i would get, and felt good knowing some smaller developers were getting some fat check from apple to provide them. yes, we get the garageband sample jam packs, but if you don't ever use garageband, well, you get, um, tiger quicktime tutorials??? gee, thanks.

apple, just announce on tuesday that you are providing the latest versions of transmit, virusbarrier and superduper! (or carboncopycloner, or retrospect... though the interface is permanently stuck in 1998 ) to all .mac members, and i'd be happy as all get out.

absolutely true. It´s about time to renew, and I really hope it´s worth the decision. I just wonder what iWeb will do, and if I could trash iBlog :3

I switched to Gmail recently and didn't renew my .Mac subscription. iDisk is too little capacity, the e-mail is too slow - Gmail is so much faster. Virex was stopped - Apple should at least sell a virus protection for mac. Backup was useless.

However, I don't see myself renewing my subscription - for £70 it would need to be more than some video download thing which, let's be quite honest, probably wont work in this country anyway!

While I agree overall that .mac is a just a ploy of not so great services for Apple to take a litle more cash, I just want to mention virus protection. From what you say you we have NO scanning solutions out there for virus protection. This is just untrue. Norton is an obvious example of one and there are others if you just search versiontracker.com

It is disappointing that there is no virex. I know that even the Apple store employees are angry that they took it out. According to friends most Apple employees view .MAC as a joke as well. Its probably one of the worst products Apple has ever produced. It just seems that nobody has told Steve this.

The only two reasons why I continue to renew my .Mac subscription are:

1. E-mail -> I don't want to have to tell the hundreds of people that have gotten accustomed to my e-mail address (which I've been using since the very beginning of mac.com (i.e., when iTools first kicked off). Especially since I don't know exactly who they all are!!

2. Syncing -> I can't live without automatic Bookmark and data syncing. That's the only reason why I won't commit to Firefox, cuz there just isn't a way to seamlessly sync its bookmarks like I can with Safari and .Mac. Same goes with iDisk. I don't see anything out there that would make it as easy as iDisk.

With that said... $100 for this service is too expensive. I don't give a crap about any of the software, including Virus protection, because by golly we don't need virus protection on OSX. At least, not yet. Since I can't see them lowering the price, I hope they'll improve it by adding some useful functionalities.

I also wish they'd do something about spams. I get a good 50 spams a day to my .Mac account and Mail's spam filter just doesn't cut it. No matter how much I 'train' it, it doesn't get any smarter. I feel like forwarding all my .Mac mail to one of my Gmail accounts, just to get rid of the spam. I do that with my university E-mail account (which receives about as much spam as my .Mac e-mail) and Gmail does a wonder of a job... cutting out a good 99% of spam, with VERY few false identifications (it's happened maybe twice in the past... that is, out of thousands of e-mail I've received).

I know that your writing style, and probably life, involves not making any commitmets or definate statements. Would you like to elaborate on which "gaping, wide-open doors" Mac OS X has? Or are you really just writing stuff down that sounds good?

The reason I have kept .mac is simply because of the host of people I would have to notify of an email change, business web site change, which wouldn't be that big a deal, but contacts would have to get used to it.

I like the email service fastmail.fm, which I also started using, the free version.

It will be good if Apple adds to the value of this subscription this week.

And I agree with Rawhead about the various spams that get in, too. I don't get nearly so many, but the various African ruses are there, and others.

Where is the information about Virex hurting a Mac merely by having it installed? I thought the only Mac virus program with security holes was Norton AV. FWIW, when I get a new Mac, I'm moving to the open source virus checker ClamAV:
http://www.clamxav.com/

I totally agree in regard to the dearth of free programs - it has really died out. Even a new game now and then wouldn't be bad. How about a Quicktime-streaming version of CNN Pipeline, just for .Mac users? That'd be a neat bonus.

I find iDisk speed passable - not as fast as FTP but it gets the job done. I don't keep large files on my iDisk anyway - it's just a convenient backup for small files so I don't have to carry a USB thumbdrive.

Thanks for that link to the ClamXav. I agree, it would be a plus to get some free software.

um, criticize my writing style? try criticizing your READING style, my friend. i said mac os x DOESN'T have those gaping wide holes... as in, DOES NOT.

and i'd like it if you shied away from the personal attacks about how i live my life, pal. you do not know me. at all. i've made comments, good, bad, informed and not, almost 3200 since the great AI blackout, and at least a thousand or two BEFORE that. i've had some very defiNITE things to say during that time, and i'm sure i have made some hard and fast commitmeNts as well. how many of your four posts have done the same?

my big problem with symantec's is a.) it involves kernel extensions, and, if i recall correctly, that shouldn't be necessay in order to scan for viruses. someone can correct me if i'm wrong, there (or am i being too non-committal by saying that, ingtones?) and b.) they recently had to issue a statement that their ONW virus-scanner had a security hole that could compromise the security of mac os x. oops. i just threw virusbarrier out there because, for a while, people really liked it. but a selling point for a while for .mac, whether it really drew people in, was the anti-virus app you got thrown in. but since it's useless (and apple actually recommends NOT using it if you're using tiger), then, well, it's not a selling point anymore.

i do hear a lot of good things about clamxAV, though.

I don't want to be confrontational, but I just gotta ask.

Why?

Why do you need, or even want, anti-virus software on a platform that hasn't had a virus outbreak in 8 years? (And that was a different OS). What are you protecting against? What's in those virus definition files?

Actually, I think I know the answer to the last question ... bunch of virus definitions for Windows. Again, why do you want it?

The only thing I can think of that might do any benefit, however little, is that by detecting Windows viruses (e.g., e-mail attachments, etc.), you lower the risk of transferring them to a compromise-able machine (i.e., Windows). Is that why? I just can't understand why people would want to waste resources (both monetary and CPU/HDD space) on anti-virus software for OSX at this point in time, especially when anti-virus software can potentially cause a lot of trouble itself, if not directly comprise a security threat (as in the case of NAV), by nature being a perpetually running application/service.

the best answer i can give, and i'm not sure it's a good answer... just the best one i can give... is that it's like carrying insurance. you spend most of your life paying for it, and never use it, and you hope you never have to rely upon it. but the one time you NEED it, you're glad you have it.

kinda like applecare extended warranties.

Well, I gotta object. For example, last year, I got malaria ;-) Although I pay crap-loads for medical insurance, and constantly bitch about it, I was happy then that I had it. The bill would have been in the mid-thousands, easily 4-5 times the amount I pay per year, as a student, on medical insurance.

AppleCare. I've had more than one repairs done on my Macs and iPods over the past 5 years or so, the most recent one being a relatively major ($5-600 worth) repair on my 1st Gen iMac G5. I've definitely "saved" more money paying for AppleCare than if I hadn't bought them (although admittedly, that has a lot to do with the fact that I get great student discounts on AC).

The whole point being... these things definitely happen. They may not have happened to you (and you should consider yourself lucky if they haven't), but they have happened to people you know (right?). You hear about those things happening to other people (like me!).


Now, viruses on Macs? That just has not happened to ANYBODY in the past 8 years, and never since OSX debuted. You don't hear about it at all, cuz it just doesn't happen.

Of course, you could argue that that's still anecdotal. The 8-year winning streak doesn't mean that it won't happen in the future.

And you'd be right.

But the point is, no-one even knows what an OSX virus is going to be like. Well, some people might, but you don't (and I don't). Similarly, neither you nor I know if the anti-virus software from Company X is going to be any good when the outbreak occurs. Or, whether that product/company will still be in existence then.

That's why I won't waste any resources on an anti-virus software now.


If and when (and I do believe it's a question of when) an outbreak, or, even the first inklings of an outbreak occur, I will, at that point, decide which software/vendor is worthy of my trust and money (by observing who reacts to the threat quickest), and then and only then, buy me an anti-virus software.

Just my 2-cents.

Why have an OS X virus scanner that scans for (a) common Windows viruses, or (b) Mac viruses? I'll tell you why!

a.) Unfortunately, not everyone's a Mac user. If I send some poor Windows user a poisoned file, they aren't going to be happy.

b.) There's no infection where there's no flesh, and right now, there's little flesh. But. Macs will become more popular. Mac viruses don't spread well because there are so few Macs, but the machines will gain popularity. They're doing it right now.

Sell? Why? ClamAV is free and there's a really nice GUI front end too. I use it on my servers alongside Spam Assassin (also free). If Apple wanted to be nice they should just pay the ClamXAV guy and donate some resources to keeping ClamAV up to date.

It amazes me people PAY for anti-virus, especially on the Mac.

http://clamxav.com/

Mac viruses don't spread well because there are no Mac viruses.

well, okay, my applecare comment was a kinda-joke (saved my wife's ass when our pismo's motherboard died 2 years and 11 months into the 3 year extended warranty). but it IS insurance, and you just cannot go after such protecion thinking you'll be safe when you notice "inklings." for example, you can't get storm insurance when there are "inklings" of a hurricane coming your way (trust me on this one), and the first indication of a mac virus will likely be a story on macminute saying something like "hey, damn near all mac users got caught off guard this morning by virus insert-name-here, and if you checked your email this mroning, you probably have it to" kind of notification. by then, you kinda are already screwed.

but, hey, if that's the way you wanna operate, good luck to ya. i'm just waiting for an anti-virus app that gets high-praise from a lot of different sources. i just hope such a thing comes out and i can afford to get it before something beomes a problem. and it WAS a selling point to a .mac membership at one time.

That was the one thing I thought might be a valid argument, as mentioned above. But I wonder... how will that happen? Since there aren't any Mac viruses/trojans that will self-propagate, the only way something like that could happen is if you actively send an infected file, like attaching it to your e-mail. Now, why would you do that? How can that happen?

The only scenario I can think of goes something like this:

You download a file from the internet, or, alternatively, you are sent, via e-mail, an infected file --> you consciously forward the file to someone.


Now I never attach a file that I downloaded from the internet and send it off to somebody, needless to say a suspect file that was sent to me via e-mail by someone. If it's available on the web and I know that the person wants/needs that file, I'll just give him/her the link.

The only files I will send as e-mail attachments or via some service like yousendit.com, are files that I myself create, mostly digital photos, PDF files, Adobe Illustrator files, etc. I think that such very simple precautions are infinitely more effective in preventing yourself from propagating viruses than installing a virus checker (that is, on OSX).

Well rok, I actually kind of agree. At least, that is a plausible scenario.

But I ask you this.

How will your anti-virus software, which, on that morning, will NOT have the definition for that particular virus or even for anything resembling it, be able to defend your computer better than mine?

And what is wrong with sending a Windoze user a virus? After they've lost everything a few times, they might see the light and switch to a beautiful new Mac. >:-)

Good points you have. A virus is not a happy thing. A few years ago, using Mac OS 8.6 on a G3, I got a letter in Word from a woman I was writing. I have no Word, so I downloaded icWord in order to read it. As soon as I opened her letter, the cursor began to make disappear everything it touched, as it went across and down the screen, icons, folders, etc, and wreaking havoc. I was not even able to turn off the Mac, until I just unplugged it. Then every time I would start up the same thing would happen. I had to reinstall the OS and use TechTool Pro, and DiskWarrior many times, and finally got rid of it after several weeks of this. She acknowledged that other people had said the same thing to her, and she was a pc user. I do not understand how that worked, but it did happen.

Of course, this was with the older Mac OS, I am just saying that it is not too much fun. I have had no problems anything like this while using OS X.

So while I do not use an antivirus now, nor really feel the need for it, I can certainly see the point about not wanting to spread anything to someone else.

Perhaps Apple will once again find their way to provide an antivirus.

That Clam X AV sounds promising, I am going to look at that.

Maybe its just me but how the hell do you send a virus. I use hotmail (sorry but everyone uses msn), and even if someone sends me a program file (with no virus) its blocked. And a virus can't spread if its just code in a word document. CAN IT???

Troll

Sending a virus...I don't know how I would send one. I don't know if what occurred to me is what anyone would define as a virus, but it certainly caught on in my Mac, right after I opened the letter in Word. Other friends of hers told her that they had those kind of problems, too, after receiving letters from her. If I had known the guy at Trend Micro that I met later, I would have sent it to him to quarantine and study, or whatever they do. He used to send me news of new viruses, none of which would ever affect me.

To get back to the thread subject, it was good of Apple to include Virex as long as they did. Now, that fellow who mentioned the idea of Apple buying the ClamXAV programme, and putting it in .Mac had a good idea, that would spread good will about Apple.

Not only is it good insurance, but there is a matter of politeness. Nortons does catch PC virus's. I get one, here and there.

It's not cool to pass one to your PC using friends and collegues.

I also have never had a problem with Nortons Anti-Virus. Virex, however, has had problems on X for a long time.

I also don't trust open source checkers. Not because they may have problems themselves, but because you can't count on them being updated regularly.

Usually, they are, but not always. Reports have generally shown them to be less effective.

The only problem with Norton's is that it's slow.

I assume that's a joke.

Source?

I've, in general, found them to be more quickly updated than the commercial products and less invasive. This is evident in ClamAV and Spam Assassin which btw Apple considers good enough to ship with Server and support directly in Mail. Often the ClamAV programmers create fixes for viruses that they've named some hours before Symantec et al name a virus.

I call BS. Source?

Not only are they quickly updated (as aegisdesign said) but their code is free, so if the company/developer just doesn't update it anymore, the code is free and open for anyone to continue updating it.

Apple knows that, that's why they include ClamAV with their Server edition of Tiger.

I guess, by that metric, no open source application is good because they're less effective. Including, but not limited to, Linux. Just check Anandtech - he breaks it down quite nicely.

Yeah, I get PC virus's every once in a while, too. The e-mail messages with the virus file, in those cases, go straight to the trash can to be immediately deleted permanently.


You don't provide an answer to the question I posed: under what kind of scenario would you, as a Mac user, pass that file on to your PC using friends and colleagues unless you are a complete moron?

Now, you might argue that anti-virus software for the Mac is good in that respect; i.e., moron-proof. And I might actually agree. But I think few, if any, people visiting these boards, myself included, will actively do such a stupid thing. And since without a virus/trojan for the Mac, there's no way for that file to self-propagate.

I mean, is that something you do? Like, you receive a suspect e-mail with a suspect file that's named "MyPinkPlumPu**y.jpg .exe" and you forward that e-mail to your friends, complete with the attachment???

Quite often I'll get them forwarded to me by morons I know (mentioning no names). It's polite to tell them your virus checker caught it and would they please now check their PC and install a virus checker.

Sometimes, it works out well for me as I can sell them hosting with Spam Assassin and ClamAV built in already to solve their mail spam/virus problems. ;-)

No, it's not BS. This evening, when I'll have the time, I'll try to link for you.

E-mail is not the only way to get virus's. I've gotten virus's at my company in various files over the years. I've gotten them from customers giving me Quark files, PS files Excel files, etc. I get them at home from similar sources.

I've dragged images off pages from a site whiuch contained virus's.

Even packaged software, over the years, has contained virus's. This has included, Lotus, MS, Adobe, Apple, etc.

I even bought a Dell for my company (because we needed one Windows machine in the graphics dept. to properly open PP files) that came with a virus already installed!