Microsoft trying to squeeze others out?

From Custom PC...

Microsoft betas its OneCare Live antivirus software 5:58PM
Microsoft has unleashed a public beta of its first consumer security suite in the US - and it's not compatible with the two biggest antivirus products.

Any suggestion that Microsoft's plans for consumer security software were to play happy families with the rest of the antivirus industry has been exploded as, on unveiling a beta of its first rival product, it says it is not compatible with either Symantec or McAfee. It also says Trend Micro products are incompatible.

Windows OneCare Live includes antivirus software, developed through technologies acquired when it bought Romanian security firm GeCAD. As with other av products it uses both signature and heuristic or behavioural approaches for identifying and swatting nasty code.

It also includes the OneCare firewall, offering bi-directional monitoring and blocking, keeping tabs both on attempts to get into the system as well as unusual attempts to access the Internet by files already installed.

The Performance Plus component essentially schedules a monthly service for the system, performing a full virus scan, defragmenting and cleaning up the hard disk, and checking for updates and any files that need to be backed up. Most of this is already available in Windows.

Finally Backup and Restore tracks changes in files and backs them up either to an external hard disk or a CD or DVD.

Microsoft has said it will charge for OneCare Live as part of its Live online strategy, but this goes against its past performance. The Microsoft version of its Sybari acquisition is to include the antivirus engine free - and although customers often plug in multiple engines into the product, having one for free means it will likely be chosen over a second. The Windows firewall is also supplied free of charge.

So it seems that the game may be up for consumer security software. While Microsoft may stay the right side of anticompetitive practices by charging a fee, its aim of securing the 70 per cent or so antivirus-free computers means that the fee will have to be pretty low.

Symantec has already announced it is pulling its Sygate personal firewall products, although Zone Labs says it remains committed to providing consumer firewall products.

 

And here we go with exactly what i predicted. And OneCare Live isn't the best example either...
God i hote those ass***** that constantly complain about MS tring to get rid of competition. There ARE and WILL ALWAYS BE good, worse or much better alterantives. But no lets ditch out Windows Media Player just to satisfy their ego. Morons Why no one complains over Symantec/McAfee/Trend Micro because of massive AV preloading on all PCs? No, no one complains about that no...

 

Of course, i do

 

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you, but you must be one of the few who don't seem to care about anti-competitive business practices.
The fact that Microsoft have had multiple court cases against them at home and abroad for precisely this sort of thing suggests you may be in the minority.
They have been proven in the past to have abused their monopoly, they are currently in court in various places around the globe for the same practices so it isn't a big leap of the imagination to think that this may be more of the same.

What do they say about leopards and spots??

 

I thought it was standard practice for consumer oriented anti-virus programs to not allow you to install if there are other programs already installed.
I know Trend Micro didn't let me install at all, as well as Kaspersky 2006, when I had another AV installed first.
I've also seen non-tech people "ignore" the warnings, and pick "Install anyway" when they had no idea what they were doing. Would save companies a lot of support costs. Most normal consumers also do not intentionally want multiple AVs.
Frankly, I don't see why you would subscribe to OneCare, if you aren't using the AV. All its other services are things you can buy at a one-time price elsewhere.

 

I hope this isn't surprising. While Microsoft isn't known for playing well as others, how can you expect for multiple virus scanners to work together if they have real time monitoring? Sometimes, it may work, but bad things will usually happen.

Have you ever seen both McAfee VirusScan and Symantec Norton AntiVirus running at the same time on a computer? Trust me, it doesn't work at all... usually, the computer will run real slow and one or both programs will crash or not start at all.

Personally, I'll continue to use third party software. I don't trust Microsoft for security. If they aren't patching 6 month old flaws in IE, how can one trust them for antivirus software? I know different teams work on the products, but the powers that be at Microsoft could force their divisions to do a better job on stuff like this.

Many people who understand security like the idea of firewalls that monitor both directions, but most home users do not know what to let in and what to let out. This results in disallowing things that are important and allowing things that shouldn't go out, putting the user in the same place as before. This could make technical support interesting to say the least.

That is a good idea.

Backup software has been built into Windows for a while. Previous versions weren't the most user-friendly. Unlike security software, the market for backup software for home users is quite small right now in relation to other software. Hopefully, this will make more people backup their files on personal computers.

You don't have to be cheap to be the leader. Look at MS Office for example: It is way overpriced and much more popular to alternatives such as WordPerfect Office, OpenOffice.org, and StarOffice. Many regular people trust the Microsoft name because they have heard of it and don't know about anything else.

My personal opinion is that Symantec bought Sygate just to shut it down and reduce competition. Their decision to end Sygate had nothing to do with Microsoft, especially since they knew what Microsoft was up to before even deciding to buy Sygate.

 

I do, I groan and moan every time I have to uninstall that on brand new PCs...because that's one of the first things to get uninstalled before I set up the PC for a client.

 

Me too - although I admit I am not real vocal about it here most of the time. Honestly, I think it's because I participate less in discussion since the board has gotten so busy and I have gotten busier as well; leaving me less time on the board which is taken up by reading and moderating.

Anyway I hate pre-loaded Avs etc but I also suppose that lots of PCs would go without any AV without that... Even on my IBMs I spent a while cleaning off pre-loaded stuff and those had nothing compared to the HP I had before.

I also wouldn't bet against MS making this stuff "mandatory" for running XP and up in the future, the way they're doing with this auto-update and verification stuff now.

 

McAfee, Symantec, Kaspersky and sometimes TrendMicro are not compatible with most other AV. So for me it is not a surprise that also MS is not compatible with them. I do not know peoples that have e.g. installed 2 of those mentioned on the same machine. But I guess that MS is compatible with most other AVs.

 

Yes, it is. Most AV programs install resident scanners that, while they might theoretically be made compatible, would nevertheless almost certainly create unnecessary inefficiencies and instabilities. So, of course this rush to pronounce Microsoft once again guilty of anti-competitive practices smacks of intellectual dishonesty to me. I find it to be sort of like saying that you want to have two video drivers running simultaneously or two thread schedulers running simultaneously. Even if it were somehow possible, why? Maybe the solution is that all AV vendors should be required to ship their products in a default, on-demand only mode so that there wouldn't be resident code incompatibilities. But then you would have to add detection for when people tried to activate resident scanners for more than one AV product. I just get tired of the trumped-up Microsoft bashing. It's actually counterproductive if you ask me, since comments such as these about AV incompatibilies take away from the more serious and valid complaints about Microsoft.

 

I just recently purchased an HP and WOW there was a lot of garbage to remove. I spent over an hour getting rid of the many trial/useless programs.

Custom PC should have mentioned that it is unadvisable to install ANY two resident AV's on the same PC. I believe that they were being intentionally misleading.

If Microsoft has a monopoly, what do you call MacOSX and Linux... chopped liver?

Can we be completely honest here? The courts are after Microsoft for their MONEY, PERIOD. The EU fined Microsoft for over 1/2 BILLION dollars. Why? Because Microsoft had the audacity to include a Media Player with it's OS. That is a farce. Who was harmed? Who lost money? Realplayer? Boo Hoo.

 

For the Av companies it will come down to customer service or lack of same. If they want to give automated answers to our questions or ignore our questions or farm out tech support to the lowest bidder or insult the customer, then they will be squeezed out. Like I said once before the 800 pound gorilla is about to enter the room and may be the best thing that ever happened in the AV industry if it means they radically improve tech support and initial product quality.

 

It doesn't have any compatibility issues with either Ewido or Nod32 that I've found, so MS certainly isn't going out of their way to create incompatibility.

 

Am I the only one who finds it *odd* that the company that builds & sells an OS with security weaknesses also builds & sells a security suite to deal with those weaknesses?

 

Microsoft is being fined for denying consumers a choice - while you can certainly argue that fining is insufficient for MS (after all, they have not changed their behaviour), the harm they have done is certainly visible.

In the case of MS Media Player, the EU correctly identified this as an attempt to gain an advantage in the digital music download market. Since most users are given the ability to playback DRM-ed WMV files, this not only gives MS an advantage in licensing this format to online music stores but it also makes it far harder for other formats to compete. This in turn puts off other companies from offering similar licensing which strengthens MS's hand further. When Joe Consumer tries to buy music online, the vast majority of the stores will only offer WMV format which means he is limited to players that can handle it (allowing MS in turn to make more money from licensing WMV to portable player manufacturers).

Yes, Apple are doing the same with iTunes - and more successfully in many ways - but they have had to sell iPods at almost break-even prices in order to overcome MS's market advantage. As for any other company hoping to break into the market with a new format - forget it (RealNetworks don't count since they have been around since 1993 - and even with that head start they have been blocked from making real headway by both Microsoft and Apple). This is where consumers suffer because it removes competition and cripples innovation.

As for MS anti-virus, it would be trivial for MS to change the terms of the Windows OEM licence to require that it be bundled with all new PCs which would then greatly harm other companies. Uninstalling Norton may be a chore - but uninstalling MS's own product could become far harder (think about how hard they've made it to remove Internet Explorer). This may also harm security if future Windows vulnerabilities are dealt with via a signature update rather than developing and testing a security update to fix the cause of the problem.

 

"Am I the only one who finds it *odd* that the company that builds & sells an OS with security weaknesses also builds & sells a security suite to deal with those weaknesses?"

Car manufacturers also sell parts. Same thing.

"Microsoft is being fined for denying consumers a choice - while you can certainly argue that fining is insufficient for MS (after all, they have not changed their behaviour)"

They made a version especially to please the Gestapo, but nobody wants it.

"the harm they have done is certainly visible."
What harm? To who?

"In the case of MS Media Player, the EU correctly identified this as an attempt to gain an advantage in the digital music download market."

Windows included a media player before there ever was an Ipod or any kind of digital download player. Years before.

"As for MS anti-virus, it would be trivial for MS to change the terms of the Windows OEM licence to require that it be bundled with all new PCs..."

Microsoft PC's are pre-bundled with Norton, Trend, McAfee but you would not allow them to use their own AV? What is allowed? Notepad? Calculator? A browser? Again, follow the money.

 

Sorry but the entire Windows Media Player fiasco is a total bullshit (i had to put entire word here). They don't give us choice? Hm, should i use the most dumb player called RealPlayer? Or some fat buggy QuickTime? Media Player Classic and BS Player are irelevant since they're free. Still no choice of selection? I don't think so. I'm using WMP10 with FFdShow filters to decode anything from DivX to MPEG-2 (DVD's) and even QuickTime and RealVideo/Audio (using seperate filters). No why on earth would i ever need or want other two eh? What about Apple forcing you to install QuickTime along iTunes? Hm no one is loud now eh?
So i'm using WMP10 for pretty much any kind of video source. For audio it's another story. I use musikCube and WinAMP. Ok, stop here. i actually use to players that aren't related to MS at all? Wow a real magic i must say.
When you associate other players with their supported filetypes they just push away the WMP10. WMP10 never ever bothered me when i clicked any audio format. Even Windows Media Audio (WMA) format is perfectly playable in both audio players of my choice. WMV is MS's exclusive codec so i don't wonder but it can be still decoded using FFdShow up to WMV8...
Ok so we got to point that users HAVE the choice of selection. I found WMP10 to be very nice player and i keep on using it although i know there is many other video players. I also found it's not the best for music handling so i got myself alternative programs. Big deal in today's internet era. Just few clicks away...

It's the same with Internet Explorer bullshit (yeah again).
I was using it in the beginning too. It was ok for my first browsing needs when i just got to know the internet. But later i found that it's limiting me, windows in taskbar cluttered my taskbar fast and i missed this and that.
I found Opera. It was cool but had ads. Not long after i found Mozilla Suite and day later Firefox. I found it to be very flexible and had everything i needed. Now Opera has removed ads anyway... Linux users also have Conqueror although entire selection isn't that big compared to media players or AV scene...

Now lets return so this post won't be entirely offtopic...
There are well known and well established AV companies in the world.
MS comeback after almost 2 decades. Most of users don't even know MS already entered AV segment years ago but trashed it later. No one was loud back then. Now it comes back when all users have their own favorite AV. Wait most of users use Symantec. What about aggressive preloading on new PC's?
Now this is the topic where we could REALLY discuss freedom of choice...
Sure there are few of us that are loud about this but hey it's like shouting at the wall. Now lets return back to Media Players... So much noise and i could easily install any other media player and assign it to be the main to play this and that. No problems, MS's WMP stayed there and didn't bugged me at all. I don't even know it's there. Now try to do the same with Norton AV.
Not that i'm bashing Symantec but sometimes i ask myself if they code it that bad to prevent complete removal from preloaded PC's and to create conflicts if you remove it and install other AV. Sure we the power users/experts have no problem completely removing it. But how on earth could some random average user do that? It's forced to use Norton almost in any way.
And also since there is many AV rip-offs and scams users might burn themself even faster when searching for alternatives...

And last but not least, this security suite (OneCare Live) will be a paying service. Sure we can expect ad or two here and there (it's natural that they want to make profit out of it) but in the end USER will select it and pay $$$. No one else.
And if OneCare Live will be good, then why the heck not?
People are becoming such an assholes that i sometimes really wonder where this world is going (and here i get few snippets in my mind from "too" hot coffee case in McDonalds lawsuite)...
Most of people treat MS like the biggest evil on earth just because they want to sound cool and to get some attention (word "attention whores" is just the right one for such idiots). Now i recommend such users to sit down and rethink the whole situation. Everything is not just black and white...

PS: I apologize for any bad words in above text, but sometimes they are the only way to describe certain "class" of people

 

Well said RejZoR. It's all about choice. The day Microsoft installs a program that I cannot replace, then I'll be ticked. I can use any media player, browser, email client, antispyware, or any other program with no problems.

 

Care to point out any PC vendors offering this version? Unless it is made widely available, and with a discount to reflect the product removal (no, you can't say Media Player is free when it's bundled in a US$250 copy of Windows) it is not possible to judge likely consumer demand.

You really haven't noticed the dearth of companies offering competing products? OS/2, Desqview, Desqview/X, GEM, DR-DOS, BeOS all failed due to Microsoft's hold on PC suppliers preventing them from being bundled like Windows was. In many cases they were superior to Windows (Desqview offered multitasking before Windows 3.x, OS/2 virtualized DOS applications better, GEM had better resource utilisation, DR-DOS included more utilities, BeOS was even offered for free if PC makers would install it to run on startup). Consumers suffered due to lack of choice and an inferior alternative (Windows), companies suffered due to lack of sales.

Ditto with office suites (only Lotus was able to make any headway with preloaded software), browsers (think Netscape - and the problems with IE should make it quick obvious who suffered in the end) and handheld computers (MS's WindowsCE had a truly mediocre start but they kept throwing money at it until the competition slipped up - as a result you have a lineup of lookalike PocketPCs, all with the same hugely limited design - compared to the choice that was available with Palm/Handspring/Clie and Psion/Geofox/Ericsson).

It didn't offer DRM'ed WMV until recently and wasn't made a compulsory part of Windows until ME/2000 (in Win98 you had a *choice* of whether to install it or not).

As the previous posts above should make clear, only one AV can be running with realtime scanning at a time. If MS make the install of their AV a requirement, then none of the others can be installed which then means loss of consumers. Isn't that blindingly obvious?

Yes, because you've actually gone out and looked for alternatives. If you had had to download MS Media Player in the same way you had the others, then there would have a fair playing field - when a product is bundled however, there is not.

As for calling the free players irrelevant, shouldn't the fact that the only competition is free be ringing alarm bells? It is an indication that commercial software cannot compete - not a sign of a healthy marketplace.

Have a look at McFacts about the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit - it wasn't as frivolous as most people seem to think.

 

Not been keeping up with MS's EULA's then? Have a look at Windows Media Player DRM: The Plot Thickens. If you check the current EULA, you will find the sentence:

"Portions of this Software and third party applications such as media players use WM-DRM to play Secure Content ("WM-DRM Software"). If the WM-DRM Software's security has been compromised, owners of Secure Content ("Secure Content Owners") may request that Microsoft revoke the WM-DRM Software's right to copy, display and/or play Secure Content."

i.e. MS can disable any software using WM-DRM if it wishes to. Now this may not affect unprotected media, but if you purchase any WM-DRMed music, then your player, whichever one you use, is firmly under MS's thumb if you wish to play it.

As for your browser, well dearie me! Haven't you noticed how the "Set Program Access and Defaults" option in Add/Remove Programs will revert your default browser to IE and email client to Outlook Express? Haven't you noticed the lack of an option to uninstall IE/OE and how Windows' File Protection tries to stop you from removing them manually? Haven't you noticed that MS requires you to use IE to access Windows Update and will deliver broken pages to browsers like Opera when you try to access their knowledgebase pages? (the current versions of Opera have to mis-identify themselves to get around this). I could go on further but I think the point has been made...

 

@Paranoid2000

I don't think so. I'd certanly download WMP10 for video if that'd be the case.
I tried many video players and i always returned to WMP10. I especially like it's taskbar docking feature so i can watch videos while browsing or working other things. No other player offered me such innovative feature.

As for free players... no thats certanly not the case. Who would want adware crap from Real Networks a? Or not that great and sometimes very buggy and "fat" QuickTime player? They both have paybale versions. WinAMP is also payable although you can use free version too. It has nothing to do with price or being paid or free. It's about features and entire design.
musikCube is quiet similar to iTunes with many differences. It doesn't force me to install some crap video player that i don't want it, it's way faster it uses way less memory and it posseses similar interface. Not to mention i can add other audio types via plugins. Why would i want iTunes eh? Pay atention to the fact that MS player never really entered the "competiotion" of my favorite player. I was using WinAMP player ever since i started working with PC...
WMP10 has at least for me the most pefect design i've ever seen in any video player. Nice default skin, excellent controls placement, cool option to dock at taskbar, support for any DirectShow filters. I simply don't want anything else.
But if users can't type "free audio player" or "free video player" into google then it's purely their fault. But no they will probably go bashing MS of monopoly instead of typing 3 short words in Google... so basic searching is a real rocket science indeed

 

Bravo on a good speech RejZor.

I always wondered the same thing. I don't believe I've ever seen Microsoft holding a gun to anyones head forcing them to use their products. You have your choice. If MS wants to bundle their OS with functional products like media player and a browser...so be it. I don't HAVE to use it.

I also think it's a good thing that they offer the service of integrated antivirus and firewall. It appears to be...very..."handholding"...which is good for the majority of users out there who don't know any better, who would be the users that didn't know that the 90 day trial of Norton or McGrufee expired 9 months ago.

With the explosion of broadband happening across the internet, and still many ISPs shipping only broadband modems so the end users sits on a public IP address (instead of the better setup some of the better ISPs are doing lately....shipping modem/router devices)..it's good to have some easy handholding self maintaining offerings like this One Trust. KISS for the average Joe user out there.

Don't knock Microsoft...it's better than nothing! A healthier internet means less headaches for the rest of us. The more PCs that have at least 1/2way decent protection for the average Joe user out there...the better.

 

Exactly. You want another media player? Sure, anything from QuickTime, iTunes, WinAMP, musikCube, Foobar, BSPlayer to PowerDVD and WinDVD will work just fine as main player on system. WMP10 will be installed but not used. Browser? I'm using Firefox and Opera (yeah both installed on same system). I see IE6 only when i launch Windows Update. IE never bugs me while i browse with Firefox. Don't like Outlook Express? Hey, you can always use Thunderbird, The Bat! or any other 3rd party email client. Don't like MS Anti-Spyware? Hey you don't even install it in the first place. So users DO have a choice. Saying they don't have it, is a very big (huge actually) lie.

 

MS Windows comes with alot of applications, which is necessary to give a newbie a good start to use his new computer and M$ may add any kind of application of their choice without any limit, including security softwares.

Each application that comes with Windows MUST have its own UNINSTALLER and that's not true.
I don't see any of these MS applications in the "Add/Remove Programs Window".
If I like a MS Application, I will keep it.
If I don't like a MS Application, I want to uninstall it and replace it with a third-party application.
And this rule counts for EVERY MS Application and every third-party application, without any exception, because the user is entitled to replace any application.

For instance :
If I don't like MSIE, I want to uninstall it and replace it with Firefox, because I like it.
If I don't like MS Outlook Express, I want to uninstall it and replace it with Thunderbird, because I like it.
M$ doesn't allow me to uninstall MSIE and I can't find any uninstaller for MS Outlook Express and that's WRONG, because M$ forces me to keep them both and all the rest of the MS Applications.
I can't uninstall Windows Explorer, Notepad, Wordpad, etc. etc. etc., but I can uninstall any third-part software.
Why am I not able to uninstall MS applications in the same userfriendly way, like I do with any third-party application in order to make SPACE on my harddisk for other applications ?
Why don't I get that freedom from M$ to decide which software is on my harddisk ?

This is not about Windows only, any other OS must have the same rules.
It's quite SIMPLE, why make it so complicated.
Each time, I see something odd or unlogical (even at work), it's always for the same reason : MONEY.