I love Linux, but this is really a cheap shot. Out of the box, desktop security is much better on the Mac. Slim boot ROM in place of UEFI (which can be backdoored), no always-running Intel ME/AMD PSP, fully verified boot chain, sealed system volumes, heavy use of a secure enclave to protect secrets, mandatory sandboxing for App Store apps, malware checks through XProtect, limited access of apps to key folders (Desktop, Documents, iCloud Drive), limited access to privacy-sensitive devices (camera, mic), etc.
Linux will get there, but currently macOS is much more secure as a desktop.
You can turn pretty much all of it off, disable SIP, boot Linux, whatever you like.
Good security is layered. For example, even with a sandbox escape, and app could not read your full Documents directory, modify the OS, or install a firmware-level rootkit.
While in general you are right, you should not forget that almost one year ago it has been revealed that the "Apple Silicon" CPUs had a hardware backdoor that had been exploited for years by malicious entities (i.e. some unprotected test registers that allowed the attacker to bypass the memory protection and gain complete control remotely, through the sending of an invisible message, without any chance of being detected by the owner; the complete exploit had used a chain of bugs in the Apple system libraries, together with the hardware backdoor).
Such a hardware backdoor is rather more severe than most of what has ever been discovered on non-Apple devices.
As long as the main protection of the Apple devices consists mostly in their lack of detailed technical documentation, one can never know whether other such hardware backdoors exist.
The advantage of everyone running the same software and hardware platform is that you can concentrate on hardening that one system. The disadvantage is that vulnerability is universal.
The advantage of everyone running a disparate environment of many of different libraries and binaries is that vulnerability is likely unique. The disadvantage is there are many more opportunities for the researcher to find vulnerability in the mess.
Choose your poison, the only secure system is powered down.
Vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel would have a similar impact to a macOS kernel bug. It’s a myth that “more eyes means more secure” for OSS ;-) - it can be true, but often that’s not the reason
can you tell me about the battery life? I seriously need a new laptop to run linux and I need decent battery life. Don't want to buy a Mac just to have more than 3 hours of battery life
Been using Pro products for almost 15 years and I just switched to a Lenovo Thinkpad and Ubuntu. This is so much more fun and innovative. Apple reached a plato, you can like it or not.
Just migrated from GitHub to Gitlab, also finally made the move away from macOS towards Ubuntu as my primary machine. Ive been using Macs since almost 15 years, enjoyed it all the way but FOSS comms snd tech is the future.
Not only — when I visit friends in the UK, I've had single rail tickets cost more than the increased next years' cost of a monthly nationwide ticket here in Germany.
