VoodooShield/Cyberlock

All VS does it change one registry key during the install to turn UAC off, it is temporary, and no different than the user turning it on and off again. FYI, VS also only creates one other registry key for startup, and simply copies the files to the program files directory, so it is a very clean install.

The next version will include a prompt to notify the user that in order for VS to run properly, it must disable UAC. VoodooShield works better without UAC, and it is infinitely more effective at stopping viruses than UAC, which was not designed to stop viruses. Any modern virus will just smile at UAC and keep going.

Here is a quote from this article:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.09.securitywatch.aspx

"The primary purpose (of UAC) was to start us on a path where more users run as standard user, which in turn would force developers to write more programs that work as a standard user, reducing the number of situations where users need to elevate. As developers write more UAC-compliant apps, the number of prompts the user gets goes down and the user experience gets better. In the process, ideally we end up in a situation where most people do not run as administrators and, hopefully, they start questioning some of the elevation prompts they do get. The fewer the prompts, the more likely users are to consider them carefully before allowing them."

UAC has failed miserably. It is one of the top 3 "features" that users immediately disable when getting a new computer or reinstalling windows.

This is the very reason we created VS, because UAC does not work. We have to get users away from automatically clicking "Yes" to every prompt they see. Developers have had 6 years to write code that was UAC friendly, and nothing has changed.

However, we want to make everyone happy, and we appreciate everyone's input, so the next version of VS will prompt the user during the installation to notifying them that we are disabling UAC. Thank you!

 

I agree, it doesn't matter either way.

 

That would be cool!

 

UAC will operate the same way whether VS is installed or not, they are completely independent of each other. The ONLY thing we do with UAC is during the installation of VS... We change one registry key to turn UAC off. Sometimes with UAC you have to reboot for the changes to be applied.

 

We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it asap. Thank you!

 

VS is compatible with Windows 8. There is one glitch with Metro, but that doesn't mean that users should not run VS on Windows 8. For a temporary fix, you can always turn on UAC if you would like.

Software in general has issues, but anyone running VS long enough knows that it is extremely stable and contains very, very few issues.

We will resolve this issue asap. Thank you!

 

Actually, yes, we have been working on an OSX version for the last few months. It should be available within the next couple of months, hopefully sooner!

 

Available as beta? If so, are you guys expecting a 6 month beta run? Are any of your coders that are coding and designing that program long term Mac users? Will this be a non App Store program or an App Store program? ( kernel hook?)

 

Yes, there are different developers working on the OSX version, and they are long time mac users. We are not sure what we are going to do about the OSX beta test yet. We hope Apple approves the app so we can offer it in the app store. They may not approve the app since they released Gate Keeper a few months back. Although, hopefully they will see that Gate Keeper and VS would be really cool if they were integrated together. If they do not approve the app, we will offer it outside the app store. Thank you!

 

That's all fine by me. But, I think I haven't discussed that.

That's great! The user should be aware of that.

While I don't use VS, I'll agree that it will help keep users safer than UAC does. If you search for my nickname and UAC on this same forum, you may find a few threads where I have discussed that UAC was never meant to fight malware (I think most disagreed with me, even when Microsoft itself mentioned its purpose a few times.)... If nothing else, figthing malware was a side effect, and one that never worked that well, at all.

-edit-

But, you actually haven't mentioned a word about what I mentioned, and regarding UAC's purpose. While it is true that it was meant to force developers to code with "limited rights mind", it is also true that UAC will redirect data written by 32-bit processes, that try to write to important system areas such as Program Files and HKLM, so that the applications work fine under limited rights (applications developed with the "administrator at all times mind"). Once UAC is disabled, the user will lose UAC's virtualization, and therefore will end up losing applications configuration data, etc., should they be running one of such applications.

For instance, my ISP software was developed with the "administrator at all times" approach, and therefore UAC virtualizes its changes to Program Files or HKLM to the correspondent %LocalAppData%\Local\VirtualStore" and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\ or HKEY_USERS\UserSID_Classes\VirtualStore.

-http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb756960.aspx

Unfortunately, some software developers still insist in coding as if everybody were running as administrators. Which, by the way, you mentioned UAC is one of the first things users disable, which means everybody is running as administrator? I ask because it's a living nightmare to use a limited account without UAC.

Anyway, wouldn't the best approach be to make it work under UAC?

 

m00nbl00d, you said "But, you actually haven't mentioned a word about what I mentioned, and regarding UAC's purpose." I fully addressed this in my last post.

My point is, how is VS turning off UAC different from the user turning off UAC? It isn't, and you have not addressed this point. Besides, if you look back several months in this thread, we discussed UAC at length.

Yes, over 90% of PC desktops run as administrator, google it. VS was designed to protect the 90% of users who run as administrator, and to replace UAC. We do not recommend running VS as a standard user or with UAC ON.

Novice users do not know what UAC is, they just know that it is annoying, and they just want to be protected. Advanced users know that VS is a UAC replacement, and it is completely redundant to run both.

If you tried VS with UAC ON and OFF, you would see why the best approach is to disable UAC. UAC adversely affects all software, especially security software, not just VS.

 

You have not, actually. I talked apples, you talked oranges. But, that's OK. I don't wish to persist in that discussion.

Let's see:

VoodooShield disables UAC without the user knowing... and users disabling it themselves... Yes, indeed... where does the difference lie?...

Anyway special keywords I should google for? Maybe 90% of users disable UAC?

I did find a search result saying that 88% of Windows Vista users had it enabled. It's from 2008. I haven't found any results saying 90% have it disabled now (Vista, 7 and Windows .

But, since you got the data, maybe you could share? Thanks in advance.

Actually, most people I know of don't even notice it's presence, and simply because 99% of the tasks they perform do not require them to elevate anything, unless one or another application that requires them to elevate in order to upgrade. Hardly something that would upset then, IMHO.

Interesting. Your security software it's the first one I encounter that seems not to enjoy UAC that much. By the way, I did not try VS... nor would I be able to assess whether or not it's all about lazy coding, but many other security software seems not to have any issues with UAC. Maybe you should get in touch with them and learn what they did/do to make their apps work just fine with UAC enabled. It wouldn't hurt.

These security applications actually also manage to upgrade just fine, using their service, without upsetting the user about any upgrades. Happy users.

Most users simply use a web browser, e-mail client, messenger/skype/similar and a simple security solution. Not sure how this would make them go crazy with limited user accounts or UAC. But...

 

The key is this as far as to UAC in Win 8. You must have it running in order for the Metro apps to function properly. You can still set it to "never notify" and it acts as if it is turned off. It sounds like what VS is doing is disabling UAC totally when what needs to be done is leave it running and set it to "never notify". This way Metro style apps will work properly.

 

m00nbl00d, I am not here to argue, I am here to help people with VS, this is my last response to you.

We discussed at length several months ago on this thread whether we should prompt the user to disable UAC, I am not going to keep discussing old issues. We have decided to prompt the user in future versions, and basically ask them to choose between VS and a standard account with UAC.

As far as the system goes, there is no difference between the user turning UAC off, and VS turning it off. It would be a completely different story if UAC was developed to kill viruses.

I googled "what percentage of computers run administrator account" here is what I found. Although I have seen that stat in 2 or 3 other places.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.09.securitywatch.aspx

You're welcome .

Besides 100% of all OEM computers and new windows installs run as an administrator BY DEFAULT .

So are you running Vista? If not, we really should not talk about Vista, or anything related to the first version of UAC.

We already know how other security software manages the UAC issues. They run as a SERVICE. We wanted VS to be a very small, efficient, powerful utility that did make any serious changes to the users computer and slow it down to a crawl. If you think turning off the useless UAC is a serious change that requires us to notify the user, then shouldn't other security companies notify the user of all of the MASSIVE changes that they make to the computer?

Now you are seriously cracking me up, you need to try VS if you think that we are less user friendly than other security products, especially if you think that most users only use a web browser, email client and skype. VS works even BETTER on systems that run 3 apps, training VS would only take 3 seconds.

I cannot count the number of times I have walked into a clients office with a huge virus on the screen, and other security software was still running, completely blind to it. 30% of my consulting business was removing viruses. I have lost all of that business because in the last 1.75 years, I have not had one client get a virus who was running VS. But I am happy to lose that business, I was tired of removing viruses anyway. I still get new clients who have viruses, but then they start using VS and they are fine.

The reality is, developing in Windows is not as easy as it sounds. There are many security issues that developers must work around to make their software do what it is supposed to do, and to make everyone happy. Compare VS with any security product for reliability, performance, ease of use, etc., and you will see why most people who have used VS for awhile almost always use the phrase "I Love VoodooShield" when describing our product.

 

Yeah, I agree. We seriously did not think anyone would use any of the metro apps, but obviously they are. We did not discover until recently that the metro apps did not work with UAC off. It was extremely difficult to figure out, but I think I finally got it to work last night. I am testing this version now, and I am going to add a couple of new features like an auto update, and the prompt to disable UAC. I am also trying to make VS start faster on startup. I will hopefully be able to release this version within a day or so.

The only other issue is we would like to get VS ON TOP of metro, which I am not sure is possible or not. Although, there have been about 50 things that we did not think was possible, that later on we found a solution.

One solution might be to have an checkbox option in Settings that automatically puts VS in training when metro is active. That way, any of the app store apps are automatically allowed. Although, I would like to find a way to get VS ON TOP of metro.

Windows 7 presented a lot of challenges during development, but it is nothing compared to Windows 8.

 

VS 1.06 is ready! It should be fully compatible with Wiindows 8 and Metro.

http://voodooshield.com/download/versions/Install%20VoodooShield.1.06.exe

 

What are some of the changes? Change log?

 

Updated over existing version. No problems so far.

 

VoodooShield 1.06 Change Log
- Added user notification for disabling UAC
- Created Auto Update
- Created a balloon click feature that allows VS to learn a new program
- Solved startup issues with Windows 8
- Solved compatibility issues with Windows 8 Metro
- Fixed a bug that caused VS to become unstable if it tried to kill a process that was already killed
- Several minor but fixes

 

Cool, thank you! Do you like the new balloon click feature? I didn't think I would like it, but I really do.

 

Haven't seen the balloon yet.

 

Try to execute a file in your Downloads folder.

TH

 

Okay, now I know what it is.

 

Any plans for a life time license option?

 

Just a suggestion....Instead of having to manually put files in can you add an option to either browse for files?