The Security Mentor

Mac OS X inherits security-mindedness from Unix. OS X will confine nasty software to damaging only your home directory. The recent flap has been that nasty software could run on your machine simply because you visited a web page. That nasty software could erase all of your personal documents even though OS X would protect system files against it.

Apple's 5-24 security upgrade is good but fixes only part of the problem. An independent developer wrote a free program called "Paranoid Android" which watches where your web browser is going and warns you about suspicious content. The developer has a good reputation in the Mac community and his program should be safe to download.

Here's my workaround. Create a new user account and log in to it whenever you have a reason to browse untrustworthy web sites. If there's any damage it will be confined to that user account and won't hurt your own files.

From System Preferences, click on Accounts and click the New User... button. A wizard pops up. Answer its questions, and when you're given the chance to give the new account Administrator privileges, create it without them.

You can even copy your bookmarks over to the new account if you want.