Apple's refusal to put into writing its operating system support policy leaves Snow Leopard users wondering whether their copy of OS X has been retired, security experts said today.
The question "Is Snow Leopard retired?" went legitimate as soon as Apple launched OS X Mountain Lion last week.
For fans of the Terminal, Mountain Lion brought some new command-line utilities. Perhaps the most notable is fdesetup, which Apple explains briefly: "fdesetup allows third-party management tools to enable FileVault, determine encryption status, capture and manage recovery keys, and add users to a FileVault-encrypted system as well as synchronize directory-based user authentication credentials with the local credentials for FileVault access."
Apple's latest operating system, OS X Mountain Lion, has set a new sales record.
The company announced today that Mountain Lion was downloaded over 3 million times in its first four days of availability, "making it the most successful OS X release in Apple's history."
At the Black Hat hacker conference, Australian security expert Loukas K (aka Snare) has demonstratedPDF a rootkit which is able to insert itself into a Macbook Air's EFI firmware and bypass the FileVault hard drive encryption system. Although the idea of an EFI rootkit is nothing new, this is the first time it has been demonstrated live and the hacker has used a previously unknown method based on a modified Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter.
Even long-time Mac users could be forgiven for not knowing anything about OS X Server, the business-oriented version of the operating system that has been developed alongside the better-known consumer version for as long as OS X has existed. For a long while, the software shipped only with the Xserve, Apple's enterprise-class server hardware. Standalone licenses for the unlimited client version of the software cost $1,000 all the way up until Snow Leopard, when the price dropped to a still-imposing $500.
"The first thing I do when I buy a new Mac is '$ killall Dock' to stop the resource sucking widgets," Enso Cloud tweeted at me last week. "Does anyone actually use Dashboard widgets?" Chris MacDonald said.
"No to widgets. I disable them on all Macs I work on. They're quite stagnant and useless with an iOS device nearby," Ken Fager added. Do you still use the OS X Dashboard? It turns out that a good number of Mac users don't—or at least those who follow Ars (and me) on Twitter.
Getting Mountain Lion's new system-wide notifications to work best for your own needs may take a little adjusting. Notification Center gives developers an (official) standardized way to send notifications to the user, but also a way to consolidate and control those notifications. We show you how to make the most of what this first desktop incarnation of Notification Center offers.
L33tdawg: On a hackintosh and looking to upgrade? We've got a guide for you.
Apple released OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" ($19.99, Mac App Store) today and we Mac users tend to be quicker than most to update our software. This blog post is a cautionary tale that you should heed if you use your Mac to earn a living or if your rely on it to be productive.
Alongside the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion earlier today, Apple has published version 6.0 of its Safari web browser for OS X 10.7 Lion, adding a number of new features and closing numerous security holes. According to the company, the major update addresses more than 120 vulnerabilities found in the previous 5.x branch. Among the holes closed are problems in the handling of feed:// URLs could have led to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks or users' files being sent to a remote server.
A new script-based malware threat for OS X has been uncovered by security company Intego. The malware, called OSX/Crisis, has so far not been found "in the wild," but it has the potential to do harm.
