Microsoft To Give Away Anti Virus Software

[Nigel Greaves]

According to the BBC Microsoft are planning on giving away basic anti virus software with the beta release due out soon.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft to give away anti-virus

Nigel

[Tony Dean]

That's ironic!

It's Microsoft and it's lousy bloatware that lets the nasty bugs in in the first place!

[mywebwork]

Actually this makes sense - Microsoft has been doing stuff like this for years.

Back in the MS DOS 3.2 days there were several good third-party utilities for PC's that did things like defragmenting drives and optimizing the "interleave" on your hard disk. Many companies made their fortunes developing and selling these sorts of products. Eventually Microsoft bought the products (or the entire companies) and incorporated the changes into MS DOS 4.0 and 5.0.

Over the years they have continued this trend with Windows, buying software like unZIP utilities, CD burners and firewalls. Even Internet Explorer was purchased, it was originally Spyglass Mosaic.

So adding virus and spyware protection seems like a logical step for them. If it's bundled with Windows 7 it could get them back on track - I've been using the release candidate for a few weeks and have to say it's a great improvement over Vista (but I still find myself doing most of my work on my Ubuntu LINUX machine anyway!).

Bill

[awesometbn]

It's not just antivirus, Microsoft is well-known for giving away lots of other freebies. For example, DreamSpark is now open to grades 9 to 12.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/p...GLFDay2PR.mspx

[Intrepreneur]

Stay Away Stay Away, if they can't get Vista right, and are far too arrogant to keep XP updates running forever then what does that say for their free anti-virus.

Not much, not much at all.. Stay Away.

[kentaiwan98]

I can confirm they had an AV product a few years ago (before Live Whatever). I remember installing it then removing it after a short while. I wasn't overly impressed. It is true: our definition of an OS is increasingly wide in terms of what we expect. Each iteration seems to require even more.

Kenneth

[Intrepreneur]

Originally Posted by JC Martin

Poor Vista never seems to get much love. Sure, it was practically a crap product when it was first released, but people seem to forgot that even beloved Windows XP was crap before all the patches and service packs came around. Vista is actually quite stable now, and is more secure than XP is.

Don't get me wrong — I don't like Microsoft, never have. But that doesn't mean I can't acknowledge the fact that Microsoft does make good products (on occasion).

Of course, but XP is still the best they have ever created and I don't think Vista or Windows 7 will ever live up to it.

[JayXtreme]

Of course Microsoft are giving it away.. after the ten years of fluffed out crap, vaporware they have pushed with windows... nobody with even half a brain would actually purchase anti-virus with the Microsoft name on it...

I bet they'll even struggle giving it away.. I'd rather pay for a power AV any day of the week, than risk relying on MS toolage..

Peace

Jay

[Jay Greathouse]

As a straight up economic model, Bill Gates has become the rich person he is by selling the cheapest most poorly made product he can convince the market to purchase. In any other industry he would have been driven out of business if not prosecuted for criminal negligence and fraud.

If M$ seems to be offering something for 'free' it is not too far from a drug dealer offering free samples of heroin or crack. It is not 'free' and you will regret it, IMHO.

Being a user of M$ OS since Y2K, keeping an XP Pro laptop around and teaching M$ products both in credit university classes and in community colleges for 8 years, I have some experience with them.

There is no corporate quality focus, unlike the open source community and Apple, only public relations damage control with a drive to maximize profits. Buyer beware. That is their history and I cannot recommend getting further involved with the company.

[deskmonkey]

Say what you will about Microsoft, but they have a very talented marketing team. Ol' Bill himself, back when he was actively involved in the company, was one of the best marketers around. You said it yourself, Jay: he took little known products and concepts and marketed them in such a way that he became a multi-millionaire in short order. Microsoft is not a marvel in technology (Apple beats them) or innovation (Google, hands down), but in marketing.

[AverageGuy]

wow, so many "hate" microsoft. I do not like it, but I do not hate it, and I respect it.

yes, M$ did bad on some projects, failed the expectation. butI have to say that it did some great things too.

just think about it, what if there is no Windows now. will it have so many people on internet? will it have so much opportunity in IM? will it have so many people on WF? will it have so many WSO ?

just my own opinion, not want to convince anyone.



david

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by JC Martin

Poor Vista never seems to get much love. Sure, it was practically a crap product when it was first released, but people seem to forget that even beloved Windows XP was crap before all the patches and service packs came around. Vista is actually quite stable now, and is more secure than XP is.

Don't get me wrong — I don't like Microsoft, never have. But that doesn't mean I can't acknowledge the fact that Microsoft does make good products (on occasion).

I can't say I 'hate' Microsoft, but you'll have a hard time convincing me to take anything they offer on an initial release - free or not.

From the outside, it appears that part of their model is to use paying customers as beta testers, and the licensing deals they have in place allow them to do so.

While I respect and even admire Bill Gates the entrepreneur and philanthropist, I have grave doubts about Microsoft the publicly held corporation.

[John Cussons]

All I can say is NO THANKS, but I will watch for the geek reports and maybe after a year of fixes and testing etc, the word on the street might convince me MS has something good to offer

[Terry Crim]

They bought out a couple companies one that produced a pretty good firewall and another I believe was a separate company had a good A/V product. Bulldog or watchdog or something.. forget the name now.

I have vista on my laptop and Xp Pro on my desktop. I can do more with XP than I can with vista especially with software available, there is more available for XP specific than Vista and for the most part, not always, what runs on XP will run on Vista with no problem. If you turn off that UAC crap or whatever it is called in Vista.

I personally use Comodo A/V. They are getting more commercial now though and I would not be surprised if at some point in the future comodo just goes 100% paid and leave the free versions just for trial tests. They say they wont but I am watching them increasingly go commercial. Either way I prefer to get my software from those dedicated to that specific area and not a hodge podge of this or that from MS who doesn't put enough time or developement into their products.

Comodo for Firewall and A/V
MS for operating system only due to the fact everything I have is based off of windows software, more specifically XP. It would literally cost me tens of thousands of dollars to start over in a new environment whether it be *nix, Mac, new version of windows or whatever... XP is far from perfect, it has issues and does crash from time to time but overall I really love my XP computer(s) they do what I want when I want, except my laptop at times.. stupid laptop..

I am able to control XP desktop from my laptop in other room or transfer files back and forth easily incuding scan disks that hold my images and videos from my digital cameras.

MS is a monopoly for sure and they don't play well with others but for the most part I can do what I want when I want to and the variety of software out there is amazing for XP alone.

When MS totally cuts off XP there are places you can go online to get alternative versions of XP, legal not really, but the user base will support one another for quite sometime.

I am sure the next version of windows will be more solid than anything we have seen before from MS. I am also convinced it will leave all backwards compatability behind and start a new with that new OP Sys. I don't know, I have not seen it but even with thier compatability modes.. They really are not the samething. IE 8 has a compatability mode that you can look at pages as if it were IE 7. Does it work? Sort of but it is not close to how IE 7 the REAL IE 7 makes sites look and I am sure if this new OP Sys has some sort of compatibility mode it wont be anything but a gimick that sort of works.

My thoughts on it anyway.

Went on tangent but the A/V giveaway.. I have heard things about the previous version of their A/V software that it is more solid and works better than such and such 3rd party software etc.. I Don't know. I am not going to trust MS for security, they have proven themselves to not be capable of it, at least to me.


- Terry

[Tim Franklin]

Yep I am with you on that one, me thinks that MS is the pot calling the kettle black...

[eCovers4uGfx]

Any updates on this beta release guys?
Although I don't exactly dislike MS, I can see why they are attempting to bring something out themselves that may protect us pc users, in saying that though with their track record in the past I will make sure I have various other programs operating as backup when testing their new offerings

Regards,
Chad-eCovers4uGfx