But for Walsh, being better than the competition isn’t good enough. Walsh notes that Apple shares personal data with fewer third-party companies, which allows Tim Cook to make some bold claims about its user privacy stances. This tight control is exasperating because Apple could do more with it to keep your data truly private. A closed system means the public doesn’t always have a great idea of what Apple is actually doing to prove its promises.

“Apple has more control over its platform than any other manufacturer, and it could set much tighter restrictions on app developers.” “This means that Mac users are ultimately at the whim of the tech giant, and it is hard to state with any confidence exactly what kind of telemetry Apple might (or might not) be acquiring via its operating system.” However, Walsh does sound a word of caution: “Despite a popular perception that Apple is a security and privacy-conscious developer, the reality is that MacOS is a closed source platform,” he said. “This does make MacOS more secure, which improves data privacy by decreasing the chances of hardware-based vulnerabilities that lead to hacking or surveillance.” “Apple can be credited with an advantage due to its tighter control over the hardware that runs MacOS,” Walsh told Digital Trends. The organization conducts research and reviews from purely a privacy standpoint. To find out how much truth is in that assumption, we spoke to Ray Walsh of the advocacy group ProPrivacy. The assumption is that Apple’s closed system has a positive impact on security and privacy. Windows 10, on the other hand, runs on hardware from dozens of manufacturers, all offering different systems and configurations.

MacOS and Windows are both desktop operating systems, but they have different philosophies when it comes to security and privacy.

We also went to Microsoft and Apple themselves to find out what their desktop operating systems do to keep your data safe. We decided to ask the experts, from tech analysts and privacy advocates to antivirus specialists.

Privacy remains an opt-in choice for Windows 10īut when it comes to the Mac and its comparisons against Windows, are the assumptions true? Is MacOS actually better at protecting your privacy? After all, a recent survey found that more Americans trust Microsoft than Apple with their private data, at a rate of 75% to 69%.

Mac or pc which is better