Switcher here, some help?

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welcombwelcomb
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Hi there, i am ready to switch to a mac, having followed the scene for a few months and am definitely ready. Im going to get a MBP in sept if it comes out and here i go.



I have some questions regarding Mac OS X,

1. Are there any types of security issues (Viruses, worms, spyware, adware, trojans, etc.)



2. Does Finder crash



3. Does Mac OS crash



4. Is it sluggish at any time



The reason i ask is because my 3 year old DULL is constantly crashing and had to be reinstalled with XP (yes i was saved from Vista, but i have experienced the horror of vista hands on; the wireless internet wont even connect even when my horrible DULL does connects easily, so that would be another step back). This is about the 10th time i had to reinstall windows. I have to reinstall about 3 times a year. and sometimes i dont have a choice, i get fatal errors such as windows cant boot, etc.



Then there are problems that crash only Windows Explorerr (the finder basically) which microsoft knows about but are unresolved.



I dont overload it (20 gb of the 80 are always free), i dont have viruses now (see below) and it still acts up.



One time: It also had so many viruses that the anti-virus program (Semantic, AVG, everything i tried) could not remove them and some didnt even notice them, huh?



Then now i have to hunt down drivers from DULL's horrible website (there are 56 possible drivers that i have to decode through, yes i know dull doesnt make anything easy)



Oh and for vista (USB keys dont work, printers dont work and never will and same for scanners) its worse, it is slower on my family computer that has twice the processor, 6x the RAM, and 4x the HDD. And it also crashes programs.



Then there is Microsoft Update (500 updates to go on my reinstall of XP), its horrible, there are about 50 updates a week, no exaggeration (that is Vista), and XP well i stopped installing them b/c 2 times that i had to reinstall windows was b/c of a patch or security whatever causing it to crash to death



So how would my experiences be on the mac



PS: the biggest issues i hear of on the mac are nothing compared to windows, cause the

windows issues that ever make news are the big ones cause nobody cares reporting about the little ones anymore



BTW: internal M$ doc says vista went to press with only 60% of known problems resolved (whats the Mac %?)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    guinnessguinness Posts: 473member
    1. Exploits maybe, viruses, trojans, no

    2. Sometimes, but I think in my case, it's samba that's the problem.

    3. Not from running normal apps and whatnot.

    4. Can be, but so is any OS if you load it up with enough running apps, and have to use swap space/VM.



    I've never had problems with viruses or other malware on Windows, only advice I can give, lay off the pr0n and torrents, don't open suspicious e-mails, don't use IE (Opera 9.5 or FF3 are what I use on Leopard and Vista).
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  • Reply 2 of 4
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,185member
    Mac OS crashes very rarely ... I've had it happen maybe three times in as many years. Individual Applications crash more frequently ... generally third-party apps... though even that is not common. The nice thing is that the individual Applications can be killed (Force-Quit) without affecting the rest of the running Apps or the OS.



    I run NO virus type protection and a wide-open cable internet connection and have NEVER experienced any virus, trojan, exploit of any kind on my Macs.



    As for OS sluggishness?... either max out the RAM or limit the number of apps you have running at the same time... My personal experience is that OSX runs much "snappier" with all the eye-candy turned on than Vista does (on similar hardware.)
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  • Reply 3 of 4
    admactaniumadmactanium Posts: 812member
    1. Not to speak of. There are exploits available out there but there haven't been any serious threats on the Mac platform in a long time and none to speak of for Mac OS X. Not to say that there won't be in the future, but right now it's pretty clean.



    2. The finder can hang up sometimes but it's pretty rare. Before the most recent updates it used to have pretty long periods of temporary lock-up when you'd disconnect from a server. Recently I haven't had a finder lock-up since the last system update really.



    3. It can happen. It doesn't happen often but I'd be lying if I said I've never had the UI lock-up, which is basically a crash for all intents and purposes for me. I've had a few Kernel Panics but again, since the last update I've been dead solid.



    4. Rarely for me but I load up my computers with tons of RAM. It's cheap enough now that there's no excuse not to.
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  • Reply 4 of 4
    bbwibbwi Posts: 812member
    1) There are very few viruses/trojans/worms for Mac but they do exists. The numbers will continue to rise as Mac becomes more popular. Also, it should be noted here that just because you can't be infected by a Windows virus you can still spread them through email by forwarding an infected email.



    2) Finder is pretty stable in my experience.



    3) I've had the same experience with OS X crashes as everyone else on this board. They happen rarely. It's mainly third party applications that crash more often, but when they do they rarely take down OS X with them.



    4) All things equal between Windows and Mac I have to give the responsiveness of the OS to Mac. I work on Windows all day everyday and switched my home PC to a Mac three years ago and am REALLY impress with OS X. I love my MBP
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