21

Of course, any company’s first response to a customer claiming to have gotten a virus will be told: “It’s not us. It’s your computer. You need to buy anti-virus software and keep it up-to-date.”

I guess consumers are the only ones held to this standard. Businesses are exempt from following basic preventative measures.

Let’s just hope they run antivirus software on the financial and customer database computers.

Posted by Cellulose on October 19, 2006 at 12:51 PM (PDT)

22

Macs suck. Get over it Phillip.

So Macs don’t get viruses? Who cares?

Can Macs play PC games? Do they have decent video cards?

NO.

Macs suck. It’s a PC world.

Posted by Lost| on October 19, 2006 at 2:00 PM (PDT)

23

Look the root of the problem is this do you blame a manufacturer for having crappy products or do you blame the nut job who sold you the faulty stuff in the first place? my money is on the ##### who thought it was a good idea to sell it to me. besides its no secret windows is more virus prone which means apple should have been double checking their products. Or wait maybe you should blame it on the newspapers they read i guess they never knew this could happen, shame really.

Posted by Travis on October 19, 2006 at 2:41 PM (PDT)

24

You know, it certainly seems implicit in their statement that they didn’t have up-to-date anti-virus protection on the windows machine they were using.  You’d think that tech company would have competent IT support to prevent this kind of thing.  And frankly, how is it possible that the computer got infected anyways?  If you are using a computer to prep outgoing iPods, it should damned well be isolated from the internet and no one should be putting anything extra on it.

Posted by Dan on October 19, 2006 at 2:49 PM (PDT)

25

Ya, like Hairy Poon said Apple needs to inspect more. The Poon is right.

Posted by MacMeOff on October 19, 2006 at 3:32 PM (PDT)

26

“So Macs don’t get viruses? Who cares?”

My wife and I and the millions of other Mac users that don’t have to deal with the hassle and risk of them are pretty happy about it.  =)

“Can Macs play PC games? Do they have decent video cards?”

Yes, they can. Yes, they do.  They can also edit movies, create websites, make music, organize photos…all right out of the box within moments of walking in the door.

The PC can too….eventually.  If you really want, you can run Windows on a Mac too…but why?

My PC gaming rig? Sitting quietly in the corner.  My Powerbook?  Running stably (no restarts) for a few months now.

Posted by PorradaVFR on October 19, 2006 at 4:13 PM (PDT)

27

“We don’t have to worry about viruses on Macs.”

Are you serious? Dream on.

Posted by Dingo on October 19, 2006 at 6:31 PM (PDT)

28

That’s the best part.  I don’t even have to dream.  How long have I had my Mac?  About a year.  How many times have I had to restart because the OS froze?  Four times.  And guess which program froze the computer.  Yep, that’s right, Microsoft Word.

Posted by Phillip on October 19, 2006 at 9:23 PM (PDT)

29

Well, I suppose if we’re going down this road, I’ll mention the Dell laptop with WinXP I’m running nearly 24/7

How many times have I had my OS freeze/crash in the last year? twice

How many viruses have I had in the past year? none, but then I take proper security precautions

The point being, Microsoft OS’s are much more robust and stable than they used to be, yet Mac users still act like it’s the Win95/98 days. I’m in IT, and I find that approximately 95% of crashing/freezing issues with Win2000/WinXP are due to faulty hardware, though no one ever seems to want to admit it. They’d just rather point their finger at an easy (and rather large) target, instead of dealing with the root of the problem.

On the other hand, I do agree that Microsoft needs to beef up security, but I also believe people need to take personal responsibility for a lot of their security as well. From my experience, the biggest thing that people need to change is their internet surfing/download habits. I’m just amazed at how some people will download and install anything that a webpage tells them to. It reminds me very much of those people who blame the fast food restaurants because *they* choose to eat there and become obese.

Posted by BeefJerky on October 19, 2006 at 10:34 PM (PDT)

30

The people to blame aren’t really Apple themselves, but the company they contracted to make the iPods in question, who managed to a) infect one of their machines b) not catch it c) use it to copy the virus onto said iPods.

“as you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses” - well, no they aren’t, Apple exploit that fact at every opportunity, so the statement is one big “ha ha; we gave you a virus… but sorry”. Not something you want from a company like Apple.

And the Mac isn’t just virus free because of it’s small market share; it is harder to distribute viruses on the Mac. If the user base was large enough, and people devoted more time to finding security holes then I’m sure we’d see more viruses for the Mac, but even then, Windows machines are still easier to infect.

Posted by Levi on October 20, 2006 at 2:37 AM (PDT)

31

Macroshaft is correct on this one. Apple, as well as everyone else, knows full well that Windows is a petri dish for computer viruses—so much so that an entire industry has grown up just to develop software to combat the viruses, trojans, spyware and assorted baddies that call Windows home. Knowing that, how could you NOT check?

Posted by MPLB on October 20, 2006 at 7:41 AM (PDT)

32

You guys saying that MS is to blame because of buggy software are funny.

If steve jobs said you should jump off a bridge.. would you.  Well yes, I guess you would.  LOL.

The funniest thing is that Steve Jobs plan worked.  Who cares about the fact that they have to use PCs to send out their apple ipods for some reason.  Or the fact that their QA sucks so bad that virus’s got out.  Cause he’s got everyone up in arms about his comments about it.  The man is a genius.  You got to give that to him.

Posted by brent on October 20, 2006 at 8:34 AM (PDT)

33

It seems to me windows users can’t read, apple did take responsibility. Frankly anyone, including Apples manufacturing partners, who use windows for mission critical applications deserves what they get. I don’t give a flying fig about windows users, although I do make a nice living from fixing your virus laden crap boxes.

I thank you, my bank thanks you, as does my bulging Itunes music collection.

Posted by Aussie on October 20, 2006 at 8:41 AM (PDT)

34

Windows is so vulnerable to viruses—it’s like the AIDS patient of operating systems.

Posted by Damian on October 20, 2006 at 1:41 PM (PDT)

35

The real point here is,

This headline is funny:

“Apple ships iPods with Windows Virus”

This headline is impossible:

“Microsoft ships Zune player with Mac Virus”

Nothing more to it!

Posted by MB on October 20, 2006 at 5:22 PM (PDT)

36

I am a WinXP user, both at work and at home.  I have up to date anti-virus and firewall software.  I haven’t had any virus problems.  And I know that because I do online virus scans as well,so it’s not like my installed software is compromised.
So this BS about Windows being infected with viruses is a bit of a stretch,to say the least.  Yeah, nobody wants to target the Mac platform for viruses because they are 2.1% of the worldwide base.  Oh no,make that 2.8%...woo hoo.  The Mac platform is insignificant and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. If someone is stupid enough to click on a link and download a virus they deserve to get their machine hosed.
The iPod is a great piece of engineering but Apple shouldn’t blame its mess on some one else.

Posted by WinUser on October 21, 2006 at 12:46 PM (PDT)

37

I bet all you pansies who mouth off about how macs suck have never actually sat down at a mac and used it.  And I don’t mean play with it in the store, I mean USE it. And why don’t you tell me what’s so great about xp, besides the fact that it runs a lot of programs?  I end up spending a day out of my week to keep spyware, viruses, and adware out of my old computer.  Aren’t you tired of constantly running those updates?

Posted by Mento on October 23, 2006 at 4:38 AM (PDT)

38

Damian writes:

Windows is so vulnerable to viruses—it’s like the AIDS patient of operating systems.

And MB writes:

This headline is impossible: “Microsoft ships Zune player with Mac Virus”

I can’t believe you guys are so sucked in by the Apple marketing machine.

MacOS is no less susceptible to viruses than Windows. In fact, Windows is probably less so because it has had so many more years of much more intense scrutiny.

The lack of viruses on the Mac is nothing to do with the supposed robustness of the OS. If MacOS had even half the users Windows had, it would be just as targeted by viruses. But it’s such a niche machine, what virus writer with an ounce of pride would bother with it?

Posted by Dingo Junior on October 23, 2006 at 7:26 PM (PDT)