BAD news: MS bought Giant, AND gives Free AV

First , it took me some days to get over the fact that Giant antispyware
which i thought was the most promising A.S. for the future... was
assimilated by the Borg ... sorry was bought by Microsoft.

Now they are giving AV for free, and later on the above AS.

See more here: (be careful there are pictures there not suitable for minors).

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=6&u=/ap/20050106/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_antivirus

And so the monopoly continues.

In a few years, when all the Antivirus companies are all gone or bankrupted,
you can buy a MS AV license for $$$$$$$ (near my personal opinion).

 

You are complaining that Microsoft bought Giant AS and now give it away for free

I suppose you also hate the fact that Google purchased Picasa and give that away free too.

 

The commercial MicroSoft AV, based upon RAV, which may be released as early as this Spring, should also be worth a look!

 

RAV was excellent so Microsoft AV should be great as well.

 

I don't get it , a bad new ?

 

I believe it is only free until July 31, 2005 if I read the article correctly.

 

They'll still have a hard time being truely competitive. As far as the AV goes, I doubt that they'll ever have the heuristics of NOD32 or the signature database of KAV. They may run a few of the smaller companies out of town, but my guess is that those companies will come up with some stronger protection options not offered by MS. If MS does become competitive in that fashion, there will undoubtedly be lawsuits..

My first impression of the anti-spyware was that the generic protection options include a lot of what's in other security apps (and then some!) and may take those over, but they aren't running low level.. if they don't change that, the protection offered will undoubtedly become targeted by a lot of malware. Not to mention the fact that it will just become targeted by the trojan/worm writers ANYWAY.

I commend MS for taking a step in this direction, but I really wish they would focus on making more ways to actually harden the system as-is.

 

If you can't keep the employees of that company you have bought, you have actually bought an empty house. You can buy the current situation, but to be sure what's the future, it's totally different task. The best brains don't care so much of money, the honour is that counts. Why to be a rich slave, when you can be a king? You can buy almost every title with money except the membership of the original Finnish house of knights, the successor of Swedish house of knights after 1819 here in Finland, for instance, why, you have to be born in it.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

The Microsoft AV and AS will be free for Home users...

I think that they can't put all these new security features build-in Windows, so...

 

For security reasons, there will always be Kaspersky and DrWeb left, why, they are Russian companies and DrWeb is that one which has the favour of the Kreml.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

For the oldtimers here it is old news,
MS buys companies to have their technology.
First it is given away for free ,
but later on you have to pay a lot for a license.
And then there is no compatition left,
because who wants to buy a virusscanner if you can get one for free
for say the first 3 years?
The quality of the product goes very fast down-hill.
Or worse is stopped after a while.

Another thing is, that not only it is a bad thing regarding the price
that the compatition is killed in a illegal way.
(Microsoft has payed billions, for that)..
But antother thing is the quality.
If there was no real monopoly, but a normal open market system
with let's say Operating systems, that the development, would go faster,
and would be better, if your product is out-dated the customer will go to
another company.
Now you have an OS (Windows) that has the same security problems,
as it had with the first versions! and everyone (has to) buy it.
And... you need to buy extra software like firewalls,spywarescanners,trojanscanners,
Processguards to stop the holes in that product.

If you saw how fast the OS-es were developing before MS had this monopoly
and after, you knew what i mean.

But bad luck, you have to buy it, because everybody does,
and all the others are gone.

So for the guys that are smiling now, they will not smile for a long time...

I am working in the ICT business for 20 years now,
work with several OS-es, and i am using Microsoft products since 1975!
so i really know what you can expect ...

 

"MS buys companies to have their technology.
First it is given away for free ,
but later on you have to pay a lot for a license."

Please give us some specific examples.

Windows gives away a free web browser - Netscape complains, but still exists.
Windows now has zip functions built in - Winzip is still around, no one went out of business.
Windows has Media Player - Winamp is still available as well as many other players.
Windows has Outlook Express - there are plenty of mail clients available.
Windows has basic firewall protection - the firewall companies are doing fine.
Windows has paint - I don't think Adobe is going out of business soon.
Widows has basic CD burning - Nero is doing okay.

 

And there is only one way from the top, and it's not upwards.

Best regards,
Firefighter!

 

Yes, true,
Windows gives away a free web browser - Netscape complains, but still exists.

Yes, MS has payed lots for this in court, and Netscape is gone from
80% marketshare to 0.005 ?

Tell me that it is a very nice and friendly company, that has no monopoly
and has not payed more then any other company in the world in court

Some of the companies you have mentioned, are payed by MS
(or better MS bought their shares) to prevent them from going of scene.

But are now not real compatition anymore.

See IE there is not an browser in the world that is more unsafe,
but 90% is using it. This is not a healty situation.

Same thing happened in the 70-ies with IBM, there was almost not a
company in the world that used another mainframe brand.
But happily this situation has changed.
It will take a long time, but the same thing will hapen with MS too.

Windows gives away a free web browser - Netscape complains, but still exists.
Do they ? the only compatition left is open-source and-or Opera

Windows now has zip functions built in - Winzip is still around, no one went out of business.

Windows has Media Player - Winamp is still available as well as many other players.

Winamp will stay alive because it has no built in spyware llike MSMP
and has no serious scripting security problems in it.

Windows has Outlook Express - there are plenty of mail clients available.
Yes, there are, and they will stay as long as MS in not capable
of solving the security bug that has it since version 1 ,
that makes it possible for a virus to send mail from it to the contacts
in it's addressbook.

MS has over the years only provided patched per virus,
but has not solved the bug.

Windows has basic firewall protection - the firewall companies are doing fine.
Since MS weakest point is security it will take a some time before
people are convinced that is a good product.

Why do you think they buy a firewall, if they already have one for free?

Windows has paint - I don't think Adobe is going out of business soon.

Yes, my son is 2 and can paint, but he is no Rembrant,
too compair those 2 is very funny.
Like a flintstone car and a ferrari :>)
Widows has basic CD burning - Nero is doing okay.
Yes, because it doesn't work correct.

- Microsoft used 'stacker' to compress data in DOS 6.0 Beta
bought the company, but before 6.0 was out 'doublespace' was introduced
a product of MS itself product is gone

- Microsoft bought Intrigue a very nice product, before the first
release at MS came out the stopped the product.
Company and product gone.

And there are lots more ..

I know there are a few people happy that one company
provides all software and hardware there is regarding PC's in the world.
Just like it was in the 60-ies in the Russia.
Why buy a product anywhere else if the state (or MS) can provide it,
according to propaganda we see everyday on our television
it is the best.
I don't like the idea that children have to sing the MS song every
day before school starts and raise the MS flag ...

I personally prefer an open market system with an anti-kartel system
like they do in Europe.

 

"MS buys companies to have their technology.
First it is given away for free ,
but later on you have to pay a lot for a license."

Please give us some specific examples.

No examples given. That is because competition is alive and well. Microsoft is attacked by goverments is because Microsoft has lots of money - and the goverments want it. They are attacked by hackers because Windows is the most used OS. Microsoft is trying to help by offering a free firewall, free antispyware, 1 year free AV, SP2 updates until a complete recoding of Windows which will take a long time and cost a lot of money.

Microsoft is not a monopoly... just ask Apple or Linux fans if there is an alternative. WindowsXP would get a good run from OSX for Windows, but guess what? Jobs wants to keep everything with Apple proprietary - a true monopoly.

As long as someone is willing to make a better program (ie. Nero, WinRAR) Microsoft will never have a monoploy.