Up until yesterday, Apple’s Web site contained a support page with a recommendation for users to purchase antivirus solutions for their Macs. The page disappeared on Tuesday, as the company decided that the information was not useful.

"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," Apple spokesman Bill Evans, explained for Macworld. "The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box,” he added.

Even though the company’s ad campaign strongly suggests that the Macs are safe from any sort of virus issues, with PC users being the only ones having to deal with such problems, Mr. Evans explained that the page was only offering some sort of additional support for the company’s users, as every precaution that can be brought on to a system should be considered by all users. “Since no system can be 100% immune from every threat, running anti-virus software may offer additional protection," he said.

Security experts received Apple’s suggestions with mixed reactions: on one hand an antivirus software could indeed protect the system, but at the same time it is believed that running multiple antivirus products could lead to several system problems, which is why very few agree on such an action.

The page noted that "Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus-writing process more difficult." Apple suggested three possible options for its users: Intego VirusBarrier X5, McAfee VirusScan for Mac, and Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh.

Still, if the company considered the post old and inaccurate, it should have replaced it with a new updated one, providing its customers with the needed details in order to reach a good decision, as the situation might have left some users rather uncertain on what to do next.

At this point, there are no known viruses that exploit a vulnerability in the Mac OS, with Windows continuing to deal with the world’s malware writers who target its programs. The main reason for this off-balance is the fact that nine out of ten computers run Windows, and this is why malware authors focused their efforts on PCs, and have little attention to finding flaws in Apple’s operating system. Unfortunately, malware today isn't just about taking advantage of the operating system’s weaknesses, as the majority of such threats now comes from the developed code targeting weaknesses in browsers and other such applications which aren't platform specific. The two companies are looking for holes in higher-level applications such as Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, Microsoft Windows Media Player, and various Web browsers.

Another aspect that might have triggered these concerns is Apple’s rising market shares, which even though are extremely low compared to Microsoft’s, have a constant growth trend. The rising popularity might make malware writers divide their effort between the two systems, which is why these security updates should not be ignored and even more than that, carefully considered.