Context: this is a legit screenshot I took on my workplace around 1.5 years ago. Hopefully it's been patched by now? Completely ridiculous behavior
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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My current and previous jobs provided macbooks for "security" and the one with my last job would not charge on the right USB ports. I assumed this was just expected, like only one side was actually hooked up to the battery while the other was just for data transfer.
Power delivery has different requirements, so it's normal that not all ports allow it. And it's also possible to have USB-C ports that are only on USB 2.0 hardware.
In this case, OP just had busted USB controllers. All USB-C ports are intended to be equivalent on MacBooks.
As an aside, the new imac has 4 usb-c ports: two are thunderbolt, two aren't.
Intended doesn't mean that they are. The left side is definitely better than the right, and they get really high CPU usage when charging/using their monitor with their right side USB ports instead of the left.
Yes, I know. I chose my words quite intentionally.
I think you can just lockdown the bios with a super strong password to get the similar security as macbook, no? Since I think the only one major security feature avaliable on mac, but not on PC, is a locked down bois, so attacker cannot install a malicious OS.
Assuming your bios is reasonably secure and you are using a reasonable OS with reasonable security feature enabled (like linux with LUKS and TPM auto-unlock, or windows with bitlocker), PC should be reasonably secure compare to a mac.
I would love to know what other security features mac provides that is not avaliable on a PC.
I guess MacBooks are easier to deploy
Could be, I imagine there would be less work if everyone has the same OS.
I dont work in IT, but I remember there are excellent tools by Microsoft to do mass IT management (but who want to use windows anyway /jk)
would be interesting to see a comparison of IT tools avaliable macOS, Windows, and Linux distros. And how much advantage does immutable OSes like silverblue, macOS, and chrome OS provides against mutable OSes.
I was talking specifically about MacOS X vs. everything else because, for example, you don't have to setup the bios. Just hand out a macbook for everyone and (mostly) deployment compñete, i guess
Unix based systems tend to be able to be hardened to a higher level than windows devices. Apple provides a lot of apis for preventing unsigned code from running, which can go a long way beyond a locked down bootloader.
It's less that they're intrinsically more secure, it's just that it's a bit easier for a determined admin to lock it way further down while also not irritating the user.
I seem to recall Chromebooks are even better, but you sacrifice a lot more.
Ugh, luckily I've been able to choose my hardware and OS for the past... 16 years at work. I would hate to use somebody else's choice of desktop for programming. Actually once said no to a work offer when they said they'll give only MacBooks for the people.