Microsoft's OneCare firewall draws fire

How surprising. Considering Microsoft's excellent record of security proficiency, it's hard to come to terms with their failure to secure Windows in a competent manner once and for all, whether in the core product (Windows XP SP2) or with an external application (OneCare).

What is the world coming to?

 

give it a chance its still beta

 

Is that XP SP2 that's still in Beta?

 

Have they ever had something that wasn't? lol.

 

OUCH !!!!

 

Its a beta and such testing should be welcomed. The firewall in windows one care has the ability to promt user for all programmes that may need to access the internet if so desired. Its also sure that the competion ,who ever it may be, will look for any sort of holes to not allow their own products to dip in the market especially if one on the horizon is seen to be looking like superceding it .. Mc afee being no exception. There are few beta products that have not had endless hicups in their early days for the user. Noddy or Kav users will be aware of this as will any other user of a beta or early release versions of software. Its been said that the windows antivirus would not allow any such malware to run . If this be true then its kind of like saying " although my AV doesnt have any email scanner its fine as my AV will pick it when it tries to run. I know most of us were home grown with a healthy distrust of microsoft yet in saying that just how many of us are still surfing on a surfboard made by microsoft in shark infested waters. . If we cried foul ,every day that a piece of malware was discovered that could bite our systems we would never trust the ever growning anti malware companies again and blame them for not devising a secure peice of software . Instead we support them in their ever prospering careers. Personally I find the windows one care a nice simple security product in the making for my windows surfboard.

 

Simple ? Yes . It is all in one . Safe ? Nope . No where close to the many other alternatives out there . I suggest this should NOT be used as your security suite at this point . I consider that playing with fire . Use it long enough and get burned .
Good luck if you use this

 

M$ just confirms that its Firewall is made of straw.
Fire and straw don't like eachother. (XP = x patches)

 

Lol . And OUCH again .

 

Although I like the expression "fully patched" very much (it makes me laugh everytime),
the expression should be "partially patched", because it's a neverending story.

 

I am half-joking, so please take this in the lighthearted spirit it is intended, and as someone from the "loyal opposition": I am wondering if *I* would ROFL if I saw the O.S. that *You Guys* came up with!

 

STILL lol anyway . That was a good one !

 

Its not luck but developing very safe surfing practices and use of a pc that in my book is as valuable as the most expensive and lauded av out there. Even using the best av is no guarantee of surviving if you do not paractice such.
I have no concerns with playing around with windows one care. Actually Im a dedicated every 3 months reformate person lol

 

LOL too, because it's not realistic, it's not my job and I'm not qualified.
Such an OS isn't a one-man-show and is developped by alot of people, who are supposed to be good at their job.
Years of experience are also very important and that's what M$ has or is supposed to have.
M$ has money enough to hire the very best people in every field.
M$ has EVERYTHING to create a strong and safe OS and the very best applications.

What's the problem ? I don't know, I don't even understand.
How is it possible that companies/individuals with lesser resources, create better softwares, than one of the richest and oldest companies in the world ?

Meanwhile,
- I have to replace MSIE with Firefox.
- I have to replace MS Outlook Express AND MS Outlook 2000 with Thunderbird
and most probably I will replace other MS Applications in the future with better third party applications, like many other members do or did.
If I was younger I would probably use another OS, than Windows.

Facts are facts, results are results and the rest are words and M$ is very good in words.
That's why I like to joke about M$ sometimes

 

just for anyone who may be interested the windows one care blog is worth a read from the developemnt team concerning the above concern
http://spaces.msn.com/windowsonecare/

 

Wait a minute Erik, you choose to replace MS apps and that is your choice. Not everyone feels compelled to change to those alternatives that you mention. But the richness of the Windows environment does allow you to run whatever software from whatever vendor you want, any software that will run in 32-bit Windows environment.

And good luck to you if you did so choose, in finding software for that other O.S., not to mention good software drivers which can run your hardware & peripherals. Plug'n'Play has worked just fine for me in Windows.

*Your* "facts", my friend. Don't confuse *opinion* with fact; no offense ..

And for the record, I have heard all this criticism of MS before, and will only say that the marketplace decides winners and losers for software, and so far the marketplace is still deciding in favor of MS operating systems and software, I happen to disagree with you, my *opinion* is that MS makes good software; I will agree with one statement you made, that, surely MS has the resources to hire the very best software talent in the world, and I suspect they have done just that.

I also suspect that Windows in its present form {millions of lines of code} is one of the most complex pieces of software ever developed .. Point being that it is easy for us to *speculate* about this or that, without having to do the job ourselves, or be faced with the tradeoffs and complexities involved in developing such software ..

Take Care,
Warmly, Ran

 

I think it all depends on the person. A good firewall, antivirus, and maybe one or two other programs, combined with common sense surfing is enough. Nothing is 100% safe.

If a person chooses to hang out in warez, porn, gaming sites, and do other potentially unsafe things online, then no matter what firewall, antivirus, antispyware, or security programs they have on board, they're taking a risk and ought to understand that risk. If they get infected as a result of their surfing practices, as I see it they brought it on themselves. If they choose to blame this software or that company, they're trying to shirk responsibility for their actions online.

I used to prowl warez years ago, and finally got infected. That cured me. Since those days several years ago, I haven't had a virus, trojan, worm, or any other problem. No matter what kind of security you have on your computer, the computer between your ears is still one of the best, if you use it. Like in many cities around the world, there are places a person shouldn't go online.

 

I think we are missing the real issue here. M$ has shown us time and again they don't want the customer deciding what goes in and out of the computer. Should we expect them to provide a security solution that suits our interests over theirs?

 

We must be very happy with Microsoft and their quality work regarding security.

And if they made there system as secure as all the others, then lots of people
would lose there jobs

And wilders security forums would be gone ...

Btw i think it is good that Microsoft is getting into Security products now,
after all those years ..
they made the security holes themself so the must be experts in this field.

 

That's right. Security gives people jobs.
Maybe we should say to the bad guys : "Thank you very much. Without you, I wouldn't have a job."

1. Computer is clean
2. Computer gets infected (offers jobs in the malware business)
3. Computer is scanned (offers jobs in the anti-malware business)
4. Computer is clean again
Point #1 = point #4, in other words the final result = NOTHING.
That's what you get, when jobs are based on "Create & Destroy".
Nevertheless jobs = food on the table.

I have several ideas to create other jobs, based on "Create & Destroy".
I'm also confused now. Are the bad guys in fact the good guys ? Or does it depends on which side you are ?
Isn't it a crazy world

 

I don't think that the AV guys would be without work.
You would hardly find so well expierenced developers - even if it's for some data conversion program. If you work in the AV business (well of course depends what you do there) you basically have a very solid overall knownledge, because you have to deal with a lot of things - Exploits for instance. If you know how every exploit works you know how you can avoid such things if you have to program by yourself. That's only one example.

 

I can agree on that HB

Good specialist in this field, are really hard to find,
Even the largest company in the world, (i don't mention a name)
with the best payed people, of the world doesn't seem to be able to find some.

(joke)

 

regarding the issue of windows one care firewall . When this package is first loaded up the settings by default are on "auto" this automatically allows programs to access the internet if allowed by the current windows one care policy. This for 99.99999% of users is adequate and one is not faced with untold pop ups, the decision is made for the user based on the policies. For those who wish to tighten up their system and make these choices for themselves they can do so easily in one click by shifting the security level up to "prompt" which will give an alert pop up each time a program first attempts to access the internet. Im not aware of too many firewalls that when first run by their default settings that would do much more. Try look n stop which by default set up fails most port scans very well. Set it to "advanced ruleset "and its an excellent firewall . Ever tried loading up Tiny straight out of the box. If my memory serves me even kerio free has some vulnerablities if applied straight out of the box. Its proberbly fair to say that few firewalls "out of the box "would give any more protection than windows one care beta in its default setup.