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MS AntiSpyware Free for Personal Use

By Ed Oswald and Nate Mook, BetaNews

February 15, 2005, 2:05 PM

UPDATED Speaking at the RSA Conference Tuesday, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said the company's recently released anti-spyware product will remain free for personal use.

"Just as spyware is something that we have to nip down today, we have decided that all licensed Windows users should have that protection at no charge," Gates said.

A version of the software for enterprise customers, however, will not be free. Microsoft has yet to announce any details or pricing for that release. There had been much speculation that Microsoft would move to a fee-based service once the anti-spyware program moved out of beta.

Microsoft AntiSpyware, which is based on software developed by GIANT, is part of a continuing effort by Redmond to make its operating system more secure. According to a recent survey, as many as 80 percent of Windows users may be infected by spyware.

"Customers are concerned about the risk malware poses to their personal information, and frustrated by its impact on the reliability and performance of their computers," Gates said. "We are responding by making security easier and more cost-effective for Windows customers, helping to protect millions of people who are vulnerable today."

Microsoft Watch's Mary Jo Foley contributed to this report.

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By chaouch

edited Jan 25, 2006 - 1:45 PM

have many problem to use PC for my work

Score: 0

By ijsix

edited Sep 19, 2005 - 12:29 PM

spyware writers who infect systems need jailing

Score: 0

By Wyojake

posted Feb 17, 2005 - 6:49 AM

installs well, works well, found problems, removed them.

Score: 0

By captainahab

posted Feb 16, 2005 - 2:10 PM

MS Antispyware has been proven the most powerful antispyware app available. It does dot just rely on signatures but has 59 different checkpoints protected.

Score: 0

By GeorgeSantayana

posted Feb 16, 2005 - 10:38 AM

I don't fault Microsoft for offering antispyware software with their OS, but how useful will it be? Will spyware coders not test their wares against what will become the most ubiquitous antispyware software out there? Of course they will, and many users will end up loaded to the gills with spyware never thinking to perhaps run a third-party software scanner because Microsoft takes care of it.

Score: 0

By eunichman

posted Feb 16, 2005 - 7:16 AM

Ok, I understand ms's whole shift towards doing things for their baby, XP but lets all take a look at history at what happens to corporations that orphan older versions and in effect, their customer base. IBM< did it with OS/2 warp... they alienated 1st the developers by offering incentives to develop for os/2 and then not delivering, then they alienated home users even though theyu openly sold to home users they withdrew ALL non-enterprise level support options, then they alienated the enterprise people by offring only windows unless the customer asked for os/2. heck, they didnt even mention os/2. Now os/2 is dead and gone even though it was a far superior OS to anything ms has YET to deliver.
all I am saying is billyboy isnt a one of a kind. there may be and probably be another bill gates somewhere along the way who makes OS whatever and they take the same steps billy did (billy gave us such an easily traceable past to imitate), flooding the market with their computers with os whatever on it and pirate their own software and soon - before you know it, microsoft is selling os whatever and hardly mentioning windows.

what has this to do with this thread? simple. XP only support in this anti-spyware pos ms is pawning off on users. my brother works for a towing company and has a contract with a software developer for VERY expensive tow software. this software will NOT run under XP so they have offices over the US all running win98 (over 10,000 computers on a wan) and all have net access as a convience to the dispatchers and such... too bad they all have to run 3rd party software to block spyware since ms doesnt think they are worth givinbg the time of day to

Score: 0

By BeaconSoftCo

edited Sep 2, 2005 - 9:31 AM

Tell your brother to check out Beacon Software's towing software. It's an ASP based solution that will run in all their offices across the country. It also runs on XP. Here is the link, http://www.beaconsoftco.com/

Score: 0

By trmfp

posted Feb 16, 2005 - 9:07 AM

Ummm, you're not making any sense there barbie!

I see you are really expecting MS to release this software to all platforms. Why?

What does the developer's lack of knowledge in writing a competent program have to do with Microsoft. My little brother can write a program that runs on XP, sounds like lazy developers.

Score: 0

By eunichman

posted Feb 17, 2005 - 2:56 AM

your little brother writes programs for xp, ok fine good to him. However - is that program a complex program that accesses the net, has lan and wan funtuionality, has the built in ability to interface directly with auto club computer transmissions over a 2nd wan, have the ability to interface with each state's dmv and process lein sales directly with the dmv's? no? well how about complete inventory control with driver control, tow truck control and tracking, accounting, and much more? The software is older and is not developped by some multi-billion dollar bloatware peddler, it is coded by a smaller core group with emphasis on speed, security, versatility, as well as running in as small a fingerprint on the system as possible. AFAIK, there is only ONE software for the tow industry that propperly interfaces with XP and it doesnt offer 1/4 of the features this company's software does. this company's software installs in a directory only 5 meg big (not including the auto-archiving nightly backups of the databases). It runs in msdos, poc dos, win95, 98,me, and nt, and as an experiment I was given an evaluation copy to try on linux and os/2. it runs fine yusing wine in linux and the porogram easily converted to os/2 native with a 3rd party application that converts windows programs to os/2 native, and ran fine with full functionality.

the developer doesnt need to worry about writing for XP as none of his clients run xp. they want simplicity and not bloatware. and competent programmer? microsoft has yet to show competency in their windows os coding :)

To the other comment you made "release to all platforms". if you sell something you support it. period. since ms still requires payment for win98 then they need to show some support for it (which they do through windows update). microsoft still makes applications for that older version of windows, why should this application be any different?

Finally, "Barbie"? are you some kind of flake or something?

Score: 0

By Mountain_Man

posted Feb 17, 2005 - 2:15 PM

Microsoft microsoft...
This saddens me.

I have nothing but respect for the software developer, they made a lot of money. However, I do not like their product, it is simply to vulnerable. I tend to avoid Windows, but it is easier for me to do so, as I do not rely on any windows-specific software.

That is where changes need to be made.

Software developers need to move away from windows.

Score: 0

By jpasula

posted Feb 17, 2005 - 11:20 AM

Maybe the company that uses the towing software should look at upgrading to a secure OS, and finding a new developer for their towing software.

Score: 0

By Neoprimal

edited Feb 15, 2005 - 3:31 PM

I've never heard MS say they'll be making it a subscription or assessing any fees. I've always seen them mention it being 'free' for legal windows users. That to me means if you don't have legal windows, you're screwed, somehow.
As for this whole junk about 80% etc. etc. That's kinda crap. You can have a solid system and still manage to catch spyware as long as you hit the wrong site. And this has been demonstrated to me by one of my friends who, just as you said...had Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spysweeper, Firefox and no active X. Firefox is really just as 'bad' as IE, you'll understand this when it's more of a target.
He surfed to a site, mcafee scanned and detected a trojan and the detection aparently activated something in the file which opened it up. It deposited about 10 different programs into his system (which was a clean test system). The file started several other programs which began to download more files; that....is how many people get spyware.
So REAL advice would be to stay away from any shady sites as well as known ad/spyware bundled programs.

Edit: And for those bit%hing about Windows having holes, I'm assuming compared to any other OS - it's the same thing when it comes to Firefox being compared to IE....naturally when you're the market leader in OSes you'll be a target; The biggest target. Had it been the other way around, I'm betting my car (and I have a very nice car) that Linux would be what XP is today....just as flawed.
For the record, I'm not a MS fanboy - I just like to tell it like it is and give credit (or defense) where it is due.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 4:34 PM

Sure you might be as likely to get viruses/spyware in mac and linux if they were the big guys instead of MS. I have been spending some time on linux lately - I dont know much about mac, but having the

MS approach: everything is integrated, IE is part of the functionality of windows, same with WMP - built into the OS instead of a separate application. If something effects that part, your OS is effected, not just the application.

Linux approach: have one account "root" that is the "administrator" account, and then a separate account for every user. By following the proper use, typically only users would get viruses/spyware, not the root account. The infected files will only have permissions that the users have. if something goes wrong, you can always remove that user and create them again, much easier than re-installing the OS.

Even if you are a MS head, I'd reccommend taking a few Linux/Unix classes (more than 1). I now use both Windows and Linux - let me tell you, the power i have with both combined is awesome! I no longer surf the typical infected sites - such as gaming sites - with windows, and no problems!

Score: 0

By netwiz562

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 7:04 PM

I'm on the internet over 10 hrs a day. Often I visit sites which are not so friendly and try to infect your computer with spyware. I use Firefox, IE and Opera at the same time. I don't have a Spyware scanner installed and I have no spyware. As long as you keep your system up to date, you choose the right settings, and your not easily deceived by websites, you really have nothing to worry about.

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

posted Feb 16, 2005 - 3:08 PM

"I don't have a Spyware scanner installed and I have no spyware."

How would you know if you can't check? Also, how do you define spyware? Because unless you have specific means of blocking tracking cookies, if you visit betanews.com you have spyware (doubleclick.net, atdmt.com, casalemedia.com, to name a few)

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Feb 16, 2005 - 12:13 AM

I just fixed a user's PC that had 400 pieces of spyware/cookies installed. The PC was not running slowly, and IE would only crash about every 5th use. She thought this was normal and had AV installed and updated, and all IE patches installed. After installing Ad aware and SS&D and cleaned it up the problems went away and two toolbars disappeared... she thought they were updates by Microsoft and had no idea. She had never used them. I think I've seen it all. This was such a unique case in that the spyware was actually not intrusive enough for the user to really notice. yikes

Score: 0

By daze

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 11:56 PM

if you don't have a spyware scanner, then how are you sure you don't have spyware? thats like saying "i know absolutely nothing about auto repair, but i know that my car is in perfect condition." try running a scanner to be sure. it really couldn't hurt.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

edited Feb 16, 2005 - 5:40 AM

I was going to say that too, about "how would you know without checking." I am computer savy,

AND I DO: "keep your system up to date, you choose the right settings, and your not easily deceived by websites"

so far, using linux for websurfing means i have nothing to worry about, though i have seen potential on ONE site. That is here, the betanews site. There is an ad every now-and-then that says "your linux may need updating..." then I click on it and it says it could speed up my computer and what not. I explore a bit more out of curiosity, and hey, what do ya know, this POS "update" isn't available for linux - HA HA!

Score: 0

By gefitz

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 2:42 PM

That would be hilarious if Microsoft created such a hole-ridden operating system, suckered people into actually spending money on it...

All this and then holding anti-spyware software infront of their faces, asking for more money! It would put their entire operating development history into perspective!

Score: 0

By lazyf00l

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 2:41 PM

or you could not use p2p garbage at all, spiffyjeff said it best if your a windows user, ad aware spybot disable active x and firefox and your fine. that 80% of "infected systems" are owned by irresponsible computer users who either a) dont bother to keep their system in working order or b) dont bother to have anyone keep it up to date. and we wonder why there is so much pollution floating around the internet

Score: 0

By esprado

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 2:44 PM

Does this one removes Alexa ???
Just wondering.....

Score: 0

By lazyf00l

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 2:49 PM

yeah, it removes all Alexa entries from the registry.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 2:18 PM

the other 20% (of windows users) have spybot search and destry, ad-aware, and spyware blaster, have disabled active x, and have installed and strictly use FireFox.

Score: 0

By Metshrine

edited Feb 15, 2005 - 2:22 PM

and those same 20% of users install kazaa and get their spyware needs from other sources ;-)

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 2:27 PM

one day they might learn of SoulSeek and Azureus.
that or other operating systems lol.

Score: 0

By alexweber15

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 3:32 PM

lol the catch is here:
"all LICENSED Windows users should have that protection at no charge"

Score: 0

By roj

posted Feb 17, 2005 - 2:59 PM

...and you have a problem with this WHY exactly?

Score: 0

By eunichman

posted Feb 17, 2005 - 2:58 AM

too bad they mis0-advertised that.. it should have read, "all Licensed windows XP users"

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 7:23 PM

And what catch would that be? All users who paid for their OS should get protection for free, and as for those who steal their OS, they'll probably steal their protection too... go figure.

Score: 0

By Eric20

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 5:22 PM

I wonder what all the other anti-spyware companies responce to this will be.. This could definatly hurt them alot, and probably will, since the average user will take the Microsoft product since its made by Microsoft, and its free.

Score: 0

By roj

posted Feb 17, 2005 - 3:00 PM

Who cares.

I hope they include AV in there under the same umbrella as well.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Feb 15, 2005 - 7:22 PM

Yeah, all the other spyware vendors like Ad-Aware and Spybot are fre too, so I don't see how they can reasonably or logically complain.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Feb 16, 2005 - 5:45 AM

true, It's just those that make a business (or make money) off their products that will have a true loss.

Really, I don't hate MS, I just choose what's free, and MS anti-spyware, isn't free.

MS's things that I use most are notepad (for web design) and image viewer, gotta give them credit for the image viewer. oh, and MS Access too, which I won't be worrying about soon, as OpenOffice will have a free version of that on the 2.0 release.

Score: 0

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