If you have been around computers and the Internet for any length of time, you probably have accepted the popular notion that machines are inherently safer and more secure than their Windows counterparts. But is it true, or just a myth that everyone believes?

Well, Larry Dignan over on his blog at zdnet thought he would try and find out. So he set out to compare Windows XP and Vista flaws with Mac vulnerabilities for all of 2007. And what did he find?

For the whole year (so far, anyway) and XP had a combined total of 44 flaws, while Mac had more than five times as many, at 243. Even worse, fully 234 of the Mac’s bugs were extremely or highly critical, while 27 Windows flaws fell into those catagories. Microsoft was reporting an average of less than four flaws per month, but Apple had 20.

Windows Defender, which is supposed to protect you from malware, was ironically the very first critical vulnerability in Vista. Vista’s Sidebar added four more critical flaws.

On the whole, though, this study clearly shows that Windows machines are much safer than Macs, at least when the latter are powered by OS X. And the situation may get worse in 2008. The popularity of Macs is increasing, and this may well attract more attention from the hackers and criminals.

Syd Tash is a noted computer security consultant and author of How to Protect Your Computer Online. He has been keeping Internet surfers safe and secure since the last century. Find out how he does it; protect your own computer with five layers of protection right here: = > http://MyPCSecuritySite.com

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