Well, theoretically they DO get viruses --but practically they don't.
All those past false alarms, touted to high heavens, were trojans. And they aren't even that many, at that. The one genuine virus like thing --which still wasn't a virus as it needed you to visit specific webpages-- infected like 100,000 Macs.
So, assuming ~ 20M Macs, 99.5% of the Macs out there haven't got any virus, ever. And with better OS X support for security (from better address space randomization to sandboxes to gatekeeper, etc), even fewer will get any in the future.
Geeks are quick to point the possibility of virus on Macs (or Linux, for that matter), but in practical terms it's like pointing the possibility of being hit by a thunder. It can happen, it even happened at some people, but normal people shouldn't be that worried about it.
If you disagree, please answer: should Ubuntu users also invest in an Linux antivirus? Because theoretically a virus can also happen there...
It's not the "lack of market share", either. OS 8/9 used to have tons of viruses with a 5 times less marketshare than OS X. Heck, even Amiga/Atari used to have plenty of viruses back in the day, with an insignificant amount of users, and NO actual monetary incentive (no web back then, no credit card details, no bots even).
Of course, are "viruses" the problem on PCs anyway? Or are trojans the problem everywhere? Viruses are hard to write, since you need several exploits, to get them to both install and spread. Trojans just need one.
All those past false alarms, touted to high heavens, were trojans. And they aren't even that many, at that. The one genuine virus like thing --which still wasn't a virus as it needed you to visit specific webpages-- infected like 100,000 Macs.
So, assuming ~ 20M Macs, 99.5% of the Macs out there haven't got any virus, ever. And with better OS X support for security (from better address space randomization to sandboxes to gatekeeper, etc), even fewer will get any in the future.
Geeks are quick to point the possibility of virus on Macs (or Linux, for that matter), but in practical terms it's like pointing the possibility of being hit by a thunder. It can happen, it even happened at some people, but normal people shouldn't be that worried about it.
If you disagree, please answer: should Ubuntu users also invest in an Linux antivirus? Because theoretically a virus can also happen there...
It's not the "lack of market share", either. OS 8/9 used to have tons of viruses with a 5 times less marketshare than OS X. Heck, even Amiga/Atari used to have plenty of viruses back in the day, with an insignificant amount of users, and NO actual monetary incentive (no web back then, no credit card details, no bots even).