• Based on popularity : Windows has a huge no. of customers than Linux
• Popularity causes Vulnerability : Making Windows more vulnerable to attacks than Linux
• Linux uses a command line interface(CLI) which makes it complex to use for beginners(or Non-Tech People) on the other hand Windows uses a Graphical User Interface(GUI) making it easy to use for anyone
• Linux don’t require any anti-virus software due to its low level of popularity (no one writes viruses for it) and to gain access to its core or damage it (root level access is required)

No OS is completely risk-free nowadays but you can trust on Linux and avoid Windows if you are a tech guy or u have knowledge of linux commands✨

The blocking of malware should be a first-party solution. If your computer needs a third party add on to be safe, someone just sold you a broken computer.

Macs come with an in build anti-virus application Xprotect. Which silently blocks and removes new malware.

Because it is a first party solution it is more effective than the third party scanners. I have still yet to hear of any documented threat which would have been blocked by a third party app, and not XProtect.

The OS itself is pretty secure. And Apple are usually diligent about rolling out fixes. The belief that third party anti-virus solutions improve security is mainly marketing mythology. If you want to secure your computer. Don’t run Flash. Use two-factor authentication. Leave the default security settings where they are.

The other reason is that the malware industry is heavily invested in Windows. The malware writers, their tools, their libraries are all PC based. So for entirely historical reasons, a Windows user is far more likely to encounter more malware than a Mac user. This is not Microsoft’s fault. .

It’s not market share. When the Mac had the earlier OS, viruses were a serious problem. (with the same market share).

Originally, Apple made their own hardware, so they did not need an antivirus program. After the PowerPC, Apple switched to using Intel hardware, ie the same hardware as PCs use.

From this point onwards, Apple systems are vulnerable to some types of viruses that affect PCs, it’s just that the number of people who own Apple PCs is far less than the number of people who own PCs, so Apple computers are less likely to be targeted.

Here is a pie chart comparing usage of popular operating systems worldwide (source here.)

In the last couple of years, there have been a couple of nasty malware attacks on Apple as well as PC, but PC still gets targeted the most.

People write viruses to make money, by harvesting email addresses, and selling them to companies, or creating viruses to infect a machine, and then selling the user software to remove the virus they injected into their system.

Apple software has tighter security, requiring passwords when you want to install software. A typical Windows PC doesn’t behave this way, unless it is configured to do so. This type of protection can prevent dodgy programs from being installed.

Apple also restricts the software available on the App Store, which prevents dodgy software.being installed, so all round it is harder to install software on an Apple computer than on a typical PC.

So an antivirus program is still a good idea on an Apple Mac., especially if their user base continues to grow.

Apple Macs have better security features than windows. The problem with windows is that it is like an open source operaating system. The fact that a lot of people use it means that there is a large number of people that are supplying viruses. Windows is not that secure and that is why it is cheap. Apple Macs are very expensive because apple has devoted a lot of time to its software. They have made them as secure as possible. Windows also supports a lot of progrmas. Most of these programs are malware, especially the pirated ones. There is a higher risk of geting a virus on windows than on Mac. That is the reason why windows need an antivirus.

A computer virus is a specific kind of malware that replicates itself when executed, infecting other computer programs by modifying them.

Most viruses out there are Windows-executables that wont work under the Apple operating system. So you would have to rewrite an Apple virus from scratch, instead of, what most virus writers do, copy code from another virus.

Then there is the Apple Operating system, which is Unix-based. That makes it very hard/virtually impossible for a virus to replicate itself or do damage without the user’s permission. In other words, the user will have to ‘Ok’ the action with his password. But by then, the word virus does not apply anymore, as it is not self-replicating. The proper term then becomes (regular) malware. And there’s quite a bit of that running around these days, even for a Mac. You can easily download it by pressing the wrong download button on some obscure website.

So you don’t need anti-virus software, but you do need anti-malware software. Most malware is already caught by the built-in security within Mac OS. For anything else, I recommend Malwarebytes anti-malware.

And, if you can, only install applications from the Mac App Store.

I normally don’t run antivirus (other then the built in Windows antivirus) as I don’t do anything that would put me at risk of downloading a virus. I do run antivirus on my workbench computers, which i use to recover data from other people’s computers.. so yeah.

Since Microsoft has locked down Windows so that permission must be granted for a program to run with administrators rights, it has gotten harder for viruses to automatically infect your PC. The virus\malware has to trick the user to granting it permission.

Prior to Windows Vista, all programs had by default Admin rights because by default, the user had admin rights. This was done because of software vendors bad programming requiring the user to have admin rights; or their application won’t work.

A more accurate question would be why mac user “feel” like they don’t need an anti-virus.

It has to do with immunology, as there were viruses for mac and windows.

1. There’s never been an absence of virus on macOS: History of Mac malware: 1982 – 2011
2. Custom hardware doesn’t mean no virus, it just meant less reward and more effort for people developing these things.

In the early days, macs were more often found at home and in a few design studios. For the majority of their users, the low prevalence of mac, meant little chance of catching a virus while exchanging files with PC users.

When internet became massively adopted, mac users had a brand new operating system based on a robust FreeBSD fork, Darwin. This allowed a clear separation of the system in multiple users and allowed mac users a level of security that wasn’t as common on PC before Windows Vista.

In comparison, Windows based PCs have been ubiquitous since the 90s. Public libraries, offices, schools, it took some time and effort to properly administration of these machines. During this time viruses proliferated and people got used to to the need of anti-virus.

I’m a developer. I’ve mostly run windows boxes that I keep up-to-date and without antivirus as they slow the machine down. The only times one of them caught something was when I left too much privileges to my girlfriend.

Because you are mislead by someone?

Mac has viruses too, so does Linux, so does iOS. There is no major OS that doesn’t have viruses, bugs, exploits, issues.
It is only the people looking to mislead who say “Mac has no lags, stutters or hangs”, “Mac has no viruses”, “Mac makes a grain of salt perform better than an i9”

Mac definitely has lesser viruses because of one reason - Mac has less userbase. If I were making a virus, it would make less sense to make a Mac virus, knowing that about 10% of the Market is Mac, whereas >80% is Windows!
Also sadly, bigger fact is people who use Windows and Windows Laptops treat them like sh*t. If people respected Windows, obeyed the Warnings that Windows Defender and SmartScreen make, maintain Laptops like they do with Macs, Windows is just as secure if not more, will be just as long-lasting if not more!
And one last “problem” with Windows is the MUCH MUCH larger App Library from the Internet. Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn’t have a leash on the developers and every app being made for Windows, so there are many Apps that are poorly coded or secretly malicious apps that users would install for the “Utilities” these apps advertise

Times have changed.

XZ Utils says hello!
That small component with a single developer who was kindly helped by others to improve the compression software.
These nice strangers over a long period installed a backdoor which was discovered “in time”. Upstream (not the stable) versions of Ubuntu were however affected. The backdoor targeted SSH, which is a common way to remotely access systems.

The problem is that this kind of breaking the system is not what we assume as virus behaviour.
Nor is the Mirai malware, which is still evolving and targets Linux systems, although in a (semi)automated way. The propagation is not by human action, but by exploiting system vulnerabilities. Useful when targeting servers instead of “personal computers”, phones and other human operated devices.

Nowadays I assume many user operated devices are not directly connected to the internet, they are not allowing inbound traffic without first initiating the connection. This is a lot safer than the 1990’s where people would connect their computer directly to the internet on their modem. Since early days I had a separate computer to separate my devices from the internet, first Linux and later OpenBSD.
The modem/router provided by an ISP has similar functionality, making the separate computer redundant for most people. This modem/router reduces the attack surface significant.

I’d argue that from basic security perspective you expect the same kind of protection on human operated devices. Something like Windows Defender.
Yet these are not the most interesting targets anymore. Who wants to target petty humans for $1000 each when you can DDOS or ransomware a company and demand a significant multiple of that amount.
Malware is big business.
And for humans, you just find the gullible who want to support a poor guy/girl stuck somewhere who needs some attention and then a little money to help family (pictures included), then some for a plane ticket and then whatever more. That’s more profitable than creating generic malware.
Or you find a high profile target and create something specific for that target. You are then likely paid by your government (supported) agency or a criminal organisation who has the necessary intel.

Humans are the vulnerable part when it comes to old age virus propagation, whether they use Linux or something else. As long as the vulnerability exists it will happen.