Submitted by “Apple has updated its .Mac suite of online tools, giving subscribers more for their $99.95 yearly fee. They’ll now get more storage (1GB, up from 250MB), a new service called Groups for creating instant online shared spaces, and a simplified backup tool. .Mac has always been good, but Apple has never committed the resources to make it great. More storage and top-notch backup and antivirus tools would seem essential. The suite no longer offers an antivirus utility either.”
No antivirus? So far, there’s not much need of an antivirus on OSX. Yeah, I know, people are going to say someone COULD write a virus for OSX, but the fact remains, at this point, an antivirus would just sit there.
The new backup IS pretty good. It’s a hell of an upgrade from their old backup software, and it’s going to be good enough for most home users (which .Mac isn’t targeted toward corporate use anyhow).
The groups, I’ve checked them out, and they aren’t bad. All the web stuff, the page templates and all, are sort of limited and amateurish, but if you know nothing about making web pages, at least they work pretty well for their limited scope. But the new Groups are actually pretty interesting.
Really, the nice thing about .Mac, though, is the iDisk. With 1GB of space, it’s actually useful now. You can use it as simple online storage, it integrates with Apple’s backup program, or you can set multiple Macs to automatically sync with each other, over the iDisk, to keep your address book, bookmarks, and some other settings up-to-date, wherever you are.
I’ll admit, it’s not everything, but it’s pretty well worth $8 a month.
Please point me to a virus that can Bork my mac
Then your antivirus claim makes sense.
I subscribe to .Mac (second year now), this is where I host my website and make backups of my important docs to use on the many computers that I use on a day to day basis.
The linked article from 2 years ago saying “viruses do exist” is ridiculous. That was a DHCP vulnerability, which could be used to compromise a Mac. Fine, even if it *is* compromised, that’s hacking. It’s not a virus. I am not aware of a single Mac specific virus that exists today.
Note, this does NOT mean it’s impossible to write a virus for OS X. I’m relatively certain it is possible. But it’s not as easy to write one as it is for Windows, because, by default, applications MUST authenticate to make system level changes. A security hole could get around this. So it IS harder to have a propagating virus on OS X than Windows — so market share is NOT 100% of the reason there are no Mac viruses, as the Windows bigots would purport.
Also note it IS very easy to write a trojan for OS X. I could write a little script that did “rm -rf ~” and it would BLOW AWAY a users home directory if executed. I could make it an executable BASH script, call it “Microsoft Office 2004 installer” put it on a P2P network, and boom… Easy. But that’s a trojan, not a virus — it doesn’t spread, and it requires user interaction.
Finally, there ARE some viruses that can live on a Mac, and be propagated via users on that Mac. Specifically, Microsoft Office Macro Viruses. If a Mac users gets an infected spreadsheet or word document, it *can* be passed to other users. And I believe it can spread to other spreadsheets as well. I have seen this one in action. But then again, it’s not really a Mac specific virus; it’s an Office virus. But this is the one case I’ve seen in my life where Anti-virus software on a Mac would have some value.
“market share is NOT 100% of the reason there are no Mac viruses, as the Windows bigots would purport. “
While I agree with your overall premmise of your response, the context with which you were using the words “market share” makes no sense. Market share is an indicator of quarterly sales… not the total number of Macs in use. Install base is the term you were looking for.
Its miss-used instances of the word “market share” which cause people to think that Apple’s install base is smaller than what it is.
Apple has approximately 4% market share. They have approximately 10% install base.
I personally think that Apple should offer .Mac for free to people who have bought Macs and/or bought a legal copy of OS X, or at least offer it cheaper.
I have used .Mac since I bought my first Apple machine two years ao. I have never looked back. It’s quite nice having a “mac.com” suffix on an email addy, and the tools have been useful. It’s nice to get a lot more space now, and the updated Backup utility is great.
No antivirus? What would I want it for anyway? All in, I think .Mac is great and Apple should continue improving the service (which I’m sure they will do as more people switch).
“market share is NOT 100% of the reason there are no Mac viruses, as the Windows bigots would purport.”
True. There were plenty of viri for Mac OS prior to OS X.
“Finally, there ARE some viruses that can live on a Mac, and be propagated via users on that Mac. Specifically, Microsoft Office Macro Viruses. If a Mac users gets an infected spreadsheet or word document, it *can* be passed to other users.”
Those can only be passed to Windows Office users. They do not work on Mac office.
$99.95 per year is $8.32 per month. I spend that much on lunch. You get an awful lot for $8.32 a month.
I would add that PC Magazine has been generally pretty fair to the Mac and Apple. They give the iMac, G5 desktops, and Tiger excellent reviews with high ratings.
The ONLY reason for a Mac OS X user to have AV software is to protect Windows users from infected files that you are forwarding from your e-mail account to theirs. This is just in case their AV software isn’t up to date or just no good.
As far as .Mac. I’m on my third year of subscribing.
I too create and host my websites using HomePage and while it doesn’t give you a lot of features, those it does give work well because they are very fast to create and update. Having a good (maybe not great) website that I can update really quicky is important to me.
Sync’ing. I’ve got multiple Macs. To be able to have them act like one computer is amazing. I use Sync and Backup 3. When I’m done at one computer I sync and run backup. When I go to the other computer I sync and restore using Backup. All my work, all my bookmarks, all my contacts are all updated. And since I have the same apps on both I just work away.
Is this worth $99 a year? Are elephants big? Hell Yes!
the .Mac tools for website building are rather “toyish”. With other tools out there that are far superior, it might be going away. The one I use is RapidWeaver. They “finally” got it setup to handle “folders” so you can create a “layered” website. Simple to use, some have said Apple should acquire this and make it part of iLife. . .
Yes, I’ve had .Mac for several years too and it’s great for sync’ing my two machines and other stuff too. With more storage, and better integration with Tiger, makes it a bit more usable. “Must.. Get.. More.. Bandwidth”.
I agree that osx integration of .mac syncing and idisk make it a very attractive package. also, mail.app integrates very well with the .mac mail account. and like john c. dvorak, i get no spam.
There is a free version of antivirus, never in my entire Mac life has been inflected by one, not even on Mac OS 9 prior.
As a side note, can anyone recommend a tool similar to Backup 3 that allows to backup to remote hosts and has a pleasant UI?
I think Backup 3 (being the first backup application I try) is awesome, but it still has (for me) two drawbacks wether or not you are a .mac user:
– Regarding backing up to remote host, it has no support for webdav, ftp or ftp servers. Just iDisk (no thanks). “Network volumes” seem to be an option, but I do not know what kind of servers (besides any of those three that I mentioned that are not supported) it allows.
– It does not allow incremental backup to CD (wether or not this is considered as a sane backup option, I’d like to have it).
So, anyone knows of a nice alternative?
As a side note, can anyone recommend a tool similar to Backup 3 that allows to backup to remote hosts and has a pleasant UI?
I think Backup 3 (being the first backup application I try) is awesome, but it still has (for me) two drawbacks wether or not you are a .mac user:
– Regarding backing up to remote host, it has no support for webdav, ftp or ftp servers. Just iDisk (no thanks). “Network volumes” seem to be an option, but I do not know what kind of servers (besides any of those three that I mentioned that are not supported) it allows.
– It does not allow incremental backup to CD (wether or not this is considered as a sane backup option, I’d like to have it).
So, anyone knows of a nice alternative?
As a side note, can anyone recommend a tool similar to Backup 3 that allows to backup to remote hosts and has a pleasant UI?
I think Backup 3 (being the first backup application I try) is awesome, but it still has (for me) two drawbacks wether or not you are a .mac user:
– Regarding backing up to remote host, it has no support for webdav, ftp or ftp servers. Just iDisk (no thanks). “Network volumes” seem to be an option, but I do not know what kind of servers (besides any of those three that I mentioned that are not supported) it allows.
– It does not allow incremental backup to CD (wether or not this is considered as a sane backup option, I’d like to have it).
So, anyone knows of a nice alternative?
.Mac is an okay service in that the reliability is pretty good, but everything about it is slow, slow, slow. It is the only choice if you have several Macs to keep in sync, but for people with only one computer who also need on-the-go access, there are better options.
I plan on using my Site5 web hosting account (cheaper and more powerful than .Mac): http://www.site5.com/?=805 to replace .Mac. Yummy FTP http://www.yummysoftware.com has a synchronization/backup function (and happens to be my favorite Mac ftp client). PHP iCalendar is an iCal file parser, for that functionality. Site5 has Horde/IMP (webmail/calendar with vCard & .ics support) built-in, and is considering getting Zimbra. For me, .Mac is horribly lacking in areas like webmail, which (still!) has a small bug with Internet Explorer for Windows. .Mac webmail does not have features available elsewhere like address autocomplete (Horde/IMP, GMail) and WAP support.
For removable disk backup, try the free Lacie SilverKeeper. I used it before getting .Mac, and will return to it when I opt to not renew next year.