Are Days of Stand-Alone Apps Numbered?

Hi, folks: In the past year or so, I have observed an relatively alarming trend been taking place. Excellent security apps have been either merged w/ others or purged out of existence. The trend is largely heading towards security suites or power pack. Lastest exemple among others is spysweeper tied a knot w/ sophos AV. I just wonder how would these apps; process guard, trojan hunter, A squared, or even outpost firewall , cope w/ it. To resist it or simply go along w/ it ? This would leave us as end-users fewer and fewer options in choosing our own favorites. Good or bad ?

 

The masses have always wanted a complete solution with as few components as possible. When something goes wrong, they don't want to have to try to figure out where the problem is coming from and contact support for several different companies. One install, one place to call on when they need help. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it is indeed where things are going, as they always have been. I do not see this as an increase from before, it's the same set of people wanting the same set of things, so those the products you mention will still likely have the same kind of group of users as they always have. New ones will crop up and some of the better/more elegant ones will be bought out, it's just the way the technology market works. Companies thrive when they produce something that the majority wants. The stand-alone apps have a transient market (meaning until people get tired of managing 5 different apps and decide to settle on a suite, to be followed by a new user that wants to layer) but the large companies putting out suites will always remain at the top.

 

I hope not......

But as long as the general PC user chooses to remain unlearned , their will be a market for them. This is not to say that if 1 company comes along with the be all\end all suite, top of the line AV\FW\Reg. protection\HIPS\etc, etc.....did I mention very lite on resources that I would not make the jump. Just sure have not seen it yet....or in the near future.

 

Hello,
While a large number of programs may go this way, a small sector will always remain for the savvy and hobbyists. I don't think Wilders guys will have a problem adapting.
Mrk

 

I don't really see it as being uneducated or dumb to want to consolidate. There was a time, not long ago, that when I started up my computer, started browser, email, IM, and media player, along with all the little utilities for drivers and background services for other stuff I had installed, I had *over 100 processes running*. That's just not reasonable, and people not saavy enough, or don't have time enough, to constantly troubleshoot aren't going to deal with that. It's easy for us to whitle things down when something goes wrong, but the non-technical user won't have time or patience to get into it, and they don't want a complicated setup. You may not think that 3-5 programs is complicated, but to the un-initiated it really can be, especially when something goes wrong.