hinder90 wrote:
4th party? You might as well have said 37th party to really drive the hyperbole home!
I was specifically talking about virustotal. The first party is Apple, the vendor. The second party is the customer. Third party is Mac software that is neither Apple nor the user. Virustotal doesn’t qualify for as any of that. It is often cited as a source of evidence of malware or malware activity by people who completely misunderstand it or are using it for malicious ends themselves. It should not be relied upon for any reason.
Some people would call Apple's actions as predatory as any virus
Anyone doing that would be so far outside reality that any attempt at rational discussion would be pointless.
Apple provide antivirus software with the operating system.
That would be news. I shudder to think what that would look like.
It wouldn’t be news because Apple has provided antivirus software as part of the operating system for several years now. Apple’s software usually does not flag any PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs) like some 3rd party antivirus apps. Legitimate software (software distributed by a company, with lawyers) usually has to do something egregious for Apple to block it. Personally, I think that’s a shame.
While sandboxing is not a bad approach, the "unknown software publisher" warnings are pointless because if you just obeyed them you'd be unable to write your own software, for instance.
Sorry, but that statement is wrong and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how Apple’s security works.
While constant virus scanning and running all of the extra rubbish to "protect" you from viruses will generally render your computer slow and crippled just badly as any malware could, you'd be wise to give your machine a check once if you ever install software you think might have been shady. There is plenty out there from allegedly trustworthy outlets.
Most people have no idea if the software they have installed might be shady. Most people have no idea what software they have installed.
You are welcome to continue the fight against software you think is shady. Unfortunately, you are just one voice on a very big forum, on an even bigger internet. You can’t ever hope to reach the same audience as even a minor scam-ware developer. All you need is a little bit of money to blanket a few shady sites with scam ads. People will click through and install. In many cases, they already have MalwareBytes installed. But you have to pay for the active protection. I think Apple realizes the futility better than most. Good luck!
