Originally Posted by ScratchMonkey

Mac/Unix/Linux users as a rule run as a "mortal" (ie. not root/Administrator) because this is a "best practice" that's been well-understood in the *nix arena for a long time. This model is called "least user access", or LUA.

Windows grew out of the single-user DOS environment, where one "owns" the whole machine. Even when NT brought the security model of VMS, most users avoided the potential LUA capability provided and ran as Administrator, eliminating one of the most important security benefits of the new operating system. This was encouraged by the poor application architectures supplied both by MS and 3rd parties, who were still coding in "DOS mode".

Only with the advent of Vista's UAC system was LUA enforced, and even then most users disabled it because they hated the constant prompts to see if a program was trying to usurp security. (I have mine enabled. I want to know when something is mucking with critical system settings.)

Proper security doesn't come from a magic OS. It comes from user understanding that safety requires attention, and that it's not free. You have to put effort into it, including dismissing those nagging dialogs when you want to change your daily desktop bling. (That bling could be masking dangerous malware.)

Let's not be giving the Mac users any props for "being security minded". That is a group that, on the whole, is about as security minded as my 2 year old.

What the majority of them are is just ignorant and proud of it. They just accept with glee the defaults imposed on them by Daddy Steve. In this case it is mostly good.

But if a real virus every did get into the Mac population it would devastate them. Most wouldn't know what to do without Daddy Steve telling them.