Mountain Lion to Look for Security Updates at Startup
Intego, company that offers security solutions for Mac, was quite glad to announce that the upcoming Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the 9th major release of Apple’s operating system, will make life harder for malware authors who love to exploit holes in 3rd party software.
Here’s the Mountain Lion feature that Intego was so excited about: the operating system automatically searches for security updates on a daily basis, when you restart your machine. While you’re going on about your business, the operating system downloads and then installs these security updates in the background.
Right now it’s not yet clear if Mountaion Lion searches only for OS security updates, or if it searches for updates for the 3rd party applications installed on the user’s machine. If it does that, if it looks for updates for the user’s software applications, this means the operating system delivers a hard blow to the malware authors who exploit security holes in 3rd party software to infect the OS.
Apple announced that Mountain Lion will be released to the Mac App Store this July. The operating system will bring with it the following new features:
Upgrading from Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or Mac OS X 10.7 Lion to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will cost you $19.99. Customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system on or after June 11, 2012 will get Mountaion Lion for free.
Here’s the Mountain Lion feature that Intego was so excited about: the operating system automatically searches for security updates on a daily basis, when you restart your machine. While you’re going on about your business, the operating system downloads and then installs these security updates in the background.
Right now it’s not yet clear if Mountaion Lion searches only for OS security updates, or if it searches for updates for the 3rd party applications installed on the user’s machine. If it does that, if it looks for updates for the user’s software applications, this means the operating system delivers a hard blow to the malware authors who exploit security holes in 3rd party software to infect the OS.
Apple announced that Mountain Lion will be released to the Mac App Store this July. The operating system will bring with it the following new features:
- iCloud integration – by using your iCloud account the operating system makes it easy to set up Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, and Notes.
- Messages – a brand new app that replaces iChat. With this app you can send messages, photos and videos from one Mac to another. Messages provides support for AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google. A beta version of Messages is available for download on apple.com right now; the final version will be incorporated into Mountain Lion.
- Reminders and Notes – these are tools you can use to create and track to-dos across multiple devices.
- Game Center – assuming you’re not familiar with Game Center, it helps you find new games, challenge friends, and play live multiplayer games.
- Notification Center – displays notifications from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps.
- System-wide Sharing – easily share links, photos, videos, and other files.
- Twitter and Facebook integration – the popular micro-blogging site and the social networking site are integrated throughout Mountain Lion.
- AirPlay Mirroring - wirelessly send a secure 720p video stream from your Mac to an HDTV via Apple TV.
- Gatekeeper – a new security feature that helps you control which apps can be downloaded and installed on your machine.
- Dictation - dictation is built into the operation system.
- A faster Safari browser.
Upgrading from Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or Mac OS X 10.7 Lion to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will cost you $19.99. Customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system on or after June 11, 2012 will get Mountaion Lion for free.
