iPhone, Safari and other software

Aug 1, 2007 17:19 GMT  ·  By

Present at the Financial Analyst Meeting 2007 on July 26, Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer touted not only the fact that Windows Vista was the safest Windows platform to date but also the small and anodyne detail that it had outpaced Mac OS X and Linux in terms of code quality. The Vista security praise came in Microsoft's general applause of the operating system's performance, the company claiming that over 60 million Vista licenses have been sold worldwide in the first six months of availability.

"Windows Vista is the most secure operating system we've ever released. In the first 180 days we've had far fewer high-severity vulnerabilities than XP. We've had 12 in Vista. We had 25 in XP. And think about the sophistication level of the people that create the vulnerabilities today versus what it was when XP released. It's a far different opportunity today than it was then. Over that same time period, I think you should also note that Windows Vista had far fewer than Apple, as well as any major desktop Linux distributor," Turner revealed at the time.

And while Vista's vulnerabilities managed to remain at 12, the security flaws impacting Mac OS X Tiger are continuing to grow. This is why the Cupertino-based company issued patches for a flood of vulnerabilities affecting its various versions of the operating system, the recently launched iPhone, the Safari browser and a multitude of other software products. Apple's antediluvian security updates have culminated with the release of yet another patch for the Safari browser for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista.

At this time, Apple is offering for download Safari 3.0.3 for Windows beta. While described as an epitome of security transitioned from Mac OS X to the Windows platform, Apple has been hammering away at the Safari browser since immediately after launch. Safari 3.03 can be downloaded from here.