And, not a single Mac


The Register is running an opinion piece the point of which is irrelevant. The interesting part is the reiteration of factoids regarding viruses, worms and other forms of PC-specific woe. Here's a bullet-point listing:

• The Slammer worm did most of its work in 10 minutes;
• Nimda spread worldwide in about 30 minutes;
• Witty worm took 45 minutes;
• Code Red (v2) worm at one point was infecting over 2,000 new PCs every minute.

The topper is the stunningly perverse fact that a fresh PC running XP, right out of the box (network connected of course) takes on average only 20 minutes to become infected with something.

As we all know, the cost of this malais in down time and tech resources is measured in the billions of dollars. Moreover, this litany of woe will more than likely be repeated and repeated.

However, it is worth stating that not a single Mac was infected by any of contagions listed above. Moreover, you can buy a Mac and set it up on a network sans protection of any sort, and you needn't worry about becoming infected.

The next time some idiot whinges that Macs are expensive, show them this article.