World of Warcraft on a Mac...

I have some questions for the Mac users out there. I got hacked AGAIN tonight. This will make probably the 6th time in two months. All from one damn keylogger I think. I even downloaded the full version of AVG that cost me something like $80 and I'm still having it happen. It's really freaking annoying. On top of this, PCs have the standard PC problems. For some reason my computer just forgot I had a printer installed one day. I don't know what that was about. Also, it's been such a headache to get my laptop reconnected to my home network after I let a friend borrow it and he changed some settings.

All-in-all, I'm not to happy with my PC gaming experience.

The only computer games I play are World of Warcraft and occasionally Diablo. With this latest hack, I'm quite certain my wife will allow me to go buy a new iMac - the 24" beast with 4G of RAM and 1Tb of storage. Is it worth it? I had an iMac once before and I didn't get the FPS that I thought I should be getting. It turns out it was probably just setting, but I sold it and can't test it now.

How safe are Macs? Can I expect this same crap to keep happening with a Mac? I've heard Macs "just work" and take care of maintenance on their own. That's awesome. How true is it, though? What's the learning curve for switching to Mac after using PC for so long?

Thanks in advance (and I hope I posted this in the right spot),

Panzor the Invincible

I've been on a Mac since 2001.

In that period, there have been zero virus / trojan attacks against OS X.

They run Warcraft fine - I raid Sunwell as a tank on a MacBook Pro.
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Wait a month, buy one of those 7 dollar keychains they sell to prevent being hacked?

I do alot of work with Apple computers, and there's never been a major issue that's crossed my desk involving viruses or keyloggers with Mac.
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Learning curve is about two weeks - inside two weeks I was faster at day-to-day stuff on the Mac due to more consistent UI. Basically: All programs work the same.

Right now, I buy my own computers so I don't have to use XP at work. Haven't had to use a PC at work in my last three jobs - most recent one is the only time I've had to buy my own

If I had to go back? Ugh... Windows is just crap by comparison.
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I use a Mac for work, media and general productivity (web browsing, email, etc.)

I use Windows for WoW.

Never been hacked.

I'm actually thinking of shifting my WoW setup to my Mac Pro just because it is beefier but the Windows machine has the advantage of never loading another program, so more free memory in general.
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Turn In - http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/1444/

Its going to suck if you have to prepare legal docs for the courthouse in Wordperfect...

But hey, other than that...

Macs are handy, and pretty darn secure.

OSX is nothing more than Unix with a gui on it and a few nifty localizations. If you're a Unix geek you can even get into the command prompt and pretend there's no GUI (a friend I grew up with uses the Mac as if it was an old text-based terminal).

Being a Unix machine, it's on an OS that was designed with security in mind from the get-go.

DOS was designed to allow you to attach a floppy drive to a personal computer. Everything else is just a hack / addon.

Unix was designed to create the internet. "C" was designed to write Unix, and Unix was designed to write the internet, and the internet was designed to keep the military communicating in the event of a worst-case-scenario war with the USSR.

The design mentality that goes into those two different paradigms has resulted in some very different concepts of what it means to be secure.
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Have you actually reinstalled windows on that machine yet? o_O
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I have ADHD and OCD...I keep forgetting to wash my hands.

Mac user here too. Nothing but good things to say about it, really. And those good things have already been said.
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I've been playing on a PC for a long time ... Never had a problem.

Then again, I'm careful as to where I browse, I keep my AV/AS up to date, I'm behind a software and hardware firewall, and I'm a computer technician.
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Official thread killer

I love my Macs and will always use them. The computer just works and, like Sab said, you will never get hacked or any of that sort of nonesense.

Do keep in mind that Macs are not really optimized for gaming. I have a dual 2ghz G5 system with 3 gigs of ram and an X800 XT video card and still only get like 20-30 fps TOPS, usually less. (In actual playing situations.)
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armory | youtube | pally stole my bike

Hmmmm...if Mac is a derivative of Unix, does that mean the Mac client will work on a Linux (also a Unix derivative) system better then the Windows client?

I am security paranoid and running with a Windows / Linux dual boot, but the Windows client keeps bugging out on me in Linux.
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Earthen Ring EU
http://www.youtube.com/user/arsonwulf

If you have been hacked so much, I suggest you review your internet habits. Many website nowadays install keyloggers just by loading the page, and not all Anti-virus will catch them all in due time. Another problem is many webmaster don't even know their website is infected with a virus or keylogger. So stay off the p0rn sites and other dodgy websites, and stop downloading those untrusted shareware thats supposed to make your PC look pretty, faster or whatever.

A Mac is a good idea, even raided on a Mac mini at one point in desperation because my main rig was down. The frame rate wasn't that bad either. Or you could also buy one of those blizzard authenticator. I've bought one myself, in the EU shop they're back in stock again and mine arrived a few days ago. They're pretty damn easy to use.

Edit: seems the EU store is out of stock of the authenticators again, not sure on the US site though.
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True, the reason Macs don't get hacked isn't because of anything other than that they aren't popular. If you're looking to screw people over, do you go for the vast majority of the population using Windows? Or the much smaller market share of Macs?

That said, I play on a Windows box, and I've never been hacked. I don't even have antivirus on this machine. It's really as simple as using NoScript with Firefox and not clicking links about naked pictures of someone's teacher in the WoW forums. If you've been hacked six times, I hate to say it, but something is wrong with your internet habits, not your platform.

Also, get the authenticator when it's back in stock. GG.
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Stormreaver US

Modus | Governor

That is a misconception that is repeated often. The reason Macs are hard to hack is because you can't alter ANY system files unless you authenticate first as a priviledged users. So if you were to write a keylogger for the mac, the user would have to put in an admin password to allow the thing to install. That's the UNIX part of MacOS.

Any hacker wants recognition. The iPhone had a minute share of mobile phones but people worked like mad to hack it. Don't think there aren't hacker out there that would LOVE to be the guy that found a way to hack the Mac.
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Pallies do it in the Light