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Gartner got some press by saying that Mac’s are potentially in danger of getting spyware in the future (the Gartner guy said a lot more than just that as well). This follows on the heels of Symantec’s warning of increasing dangers in the Mac platform .

Personally, I really don’t see any of this as much of a story, except to provide cruel pleasure to us PC users who have been taunted for years by Mac users about the superiority of their platform.

At Sunbelt, we’ve heard almost nothing about Mac spyware. There is the forum on MacScan that covers the area but there’s little actual information (lots of spam though).

And the only Mac antispyware product I know of is MacScan, and it doesn’t support OS/X.

I was curious about the whole Mac spyware thing this afternoon and went over to our lonely Mac in our testing department. I went to my favorite spyware download site, lyricsdomain, and was pleased to actually be able to navigate the site without it trying to download spyware to my machine.

Mac people, I used to be one of you back in the 80s. I left for the PC business and watched the Mac become the machine of choice for Gap-clothed literati and graphic artists, most of them smug about the Mac’s superiority against PCs — while ignoring the endless system crashes and the outrageously high prices of Mac systems.

But my oldest son has a Mac, and my three other kids have iPods, and I admit after trying to get my kid’s iPods to connect up with the various aging systems in my house, I am actually tempted to go Mac for my kids. The Macs are cheaper and apparently more stable now, even though the software is still pricey and there is no right mouse button (maddening, that).

Alex Eckelberry