Way to go OneCare!!!

Oh yes but by the time they are on ver. 6 or 7 they may come out with one for those operating systems. This would indeed make them a global software maker in such a way that they would prove that they are willing to except and even sell to competing OS. A good smart PR move for "Micro$oft".

 

At the moment, I can think of only two failures: getting a sizeable chunk of the online advertising business and entering the area of clustering/HPC computing (totally dominated by Linux).
And they have time to reverse those failures.

 

Yes if my memory serves me OneCare is all put together mostly by bought up companies.

 

Yes but MS is no longer a young nimble company and to Bellgamin's point they are slower to get their act together. I truely believe MS inovative days are more behind them then ahead and slowly but surely the OS computing community will see changes in leadership. Nothing quick or sudden but it will happen. There is to much dissatisfaction with the way MS operates. Me personally I go with the flow. I got no choice at least for now.

 

Microsoft never was innovative. Microsoft is always behind the innovation curve.

I can only hope. The triumph of Open Source is a logical consecuence, but we live in a world where logic often doesn't work.

 

I understand and as a purchaser of StarOffice and user and supporter of OpenOffice...you know where I stand.

 

personally, i would never use my hard earned cash to purchase a onecare licence.

only if it was on a super offer that i couldnt refuse,

fact is, its still microsoft and i just dont feel safe putting my money into that.

there are just other options that im willing to pay for, and have a little more faith in at the moment.

 

Not recommended. Of course you need to consider the source, but...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2228771,00.asp

 

I think Rubenking got the details right but somewhat muddled things by putting such a negative spin on basically every single paragraph in the review. He was writing from the point of view that OneCare 2.0 is a competitor (i.e. aimed at the same end user) as Norton Internet Security 2008. In fact, it is directly comparable to Norton 360 which it pretty much one-ups by taking the "don't worry, leave the details to us" approach a step or two further.

I ran the trial OneCare 2.0 for a couple days and thought it was great...for what it is. It cleaned up the registry a bit and got rid of a few startup programs on my desktop. I think it probably shaved half a minute off bootup time. The security suite part of it is fairly nag-free (almost matching NIS 2008 which is exemplary in that regard) and the user interface does a good job of the Security For Dummies type of approach.

A couple of recent tests have shown remarkable improvement in the basic anti-virus/anti-malware features of the latest OneCare version. NJK's own tests as presented in this review make it seem quite solid in prevention and middle-of-the-pack in cleanup and removal. That hardly comports with the "OneCare is awful" drumbeat that flows through the article. I think a know-nothing end user who lets OneCare 2.0 run unimpeded on his computer is going to have a system safer than 95% of the personal computers out there. The fact that some additional (slight) increment in malware protection may be available with Norton or Panda does not mean that OneCare subscribers are being left to twist in the wind.

He quite rightly derides the stereotypically Microsoft-ian details concerning backups, wireless security and the number of computers in one "Circle". I guess it would just be too much to hope that the lumbering behemoth's development process would produce a Version 2.0 free from plainly idiotic arbitrarily stupid limitation like that WEP-only encryption. I believe "WTF?" is the correct term of art for such nonsense. Still, for 40 bucks (half the price of a Norton 360 subscription) it's a pretty darned good soup-to-nuts system integrity and performance tool that will keep a totally naiive PC owner's machine humming along in a pretty solid better-than-mainstream configuration month after month.

 

Nice post Brent

I also thought Rubenking was a bit harsh with OneCare (he uses NIS personally). Like you said OC is good for what it is. When I trialed it it was noticeably lighter than NIS even when opening web pages. It does not have a way to shutdown protection but when playing FPS games I didn't notice any slowdowns at all. I was surprised by the firewall though. It was not using Vista's firewall but it's own firewall unlike the 1.X versions. SecCenter reports two firewalls, OneCare (on) and Vista (off). The defrag is faster than Vista's. Only thing that put me off was the Backup which doesn't backup to a 2nd internal drive (like 360) but it can be turned off. I don't recall having the problem Bunkhouse and Graystoke described.

Today is the last day Beta testers can get it for 19.95USD...

 

Midway, one way around the 2nd hard drive issue is to create a share on that drive and use that for backups. I have OneCare on two of the PCs in my house (kid's PCs), and I have them backup to one another as there are backup shares on each.

Now, OneCare isn't smart enough to let me turn off drives for backup, so it backups the backup files However, the machines have plenty of extra disk space, so its not a real problem, just annoying.

Personally, for now I'll stay with what I have on my personal machine, but if their tests continue to improve I may have to consider it. I like how I can monitor and manage the security for all PCs in the circle.

And I'll second the comments about the performance - It really is lightweight.

 

I tried OneCare to give M$ a second chance, but it didn't work, probably due to my arrear of 85 patches of WinXPproSP2.

 

As a beta tester, I got a deal for $19.95, but the software was poor enough that I requested a refund and got it. The program is flawed, and did not boot up properly 60% of the time on several of my machines in tests. Avoid unless you want less than optimal protection and like buggy software.

 

My several machines run OneCare 2.x on various OSes (XP Pro, Vista Ultimate, and Windows Tablet) and they have experienced none of the problems you mention.

Looks like another hit and miss AV choice for the masses.

 

Never had similar problems with any installation of Avira or NOD32. Currently using Avira. I wanted to like the software...but...

 

Avira worked well on my PCs, too. NOD32 v2.7 also was very stable.

 

No problems when I' trial'd the latest version. Just have NIS2008 and will use it till it expires.

 

Thanks for the tip, Hangetsu, that had never occurred to me.

 

As long as Microsoft leaves COMODO alone I am happy

I personally do not see Microsoft selling security software for an un-secure OS they created in the first place as something people will see and think "Ohh wow I will buy this!".

 

If you're talking about the 1.x versions, you're right on target. However, they made great strides with the 2.x version (may have something to do with buying up good staff from other security companies ). Its earning decent scores on tests (not great, but decent).

 

I found it on their forums when I wanted to do this, so I can't claim full credit

Its still annoying that you can't elect what to backup (I have a batch script scheduled weekly I have to use for my Firefox and Thunderbird installs to backup the .db files, as OneCare thinks .db files are application-based ).

 

I couldn’t resist passing up the $19.95 offer so I purchased it. Heaven knows that I have lost a whole lot more on worse things so I am evaluating OneCare at the moment. The 1.x version didn’t cut it for me but the 2.0 version is more promising.

This is the first time I ever installed an AV that did not require activating by typing (or cutting and pasting) a long key code. Activation is done through your Windows Live account (formerly Passport) which did not require any key code input. It is through this account where you make changes to your information, cancel service (they use auto renewal), or add computers to your Circle. After installing I ran a scan which reported finding a Zlob embedded in a .php file I had mistakenly downloaded (and forgotten about). While NIS did block open Zlob attacks it did not see the one imbedded in this file. I can imagine though if I had remembered it and clicked on that file NIS would have blocked it however. Still a plus for OneCare though. OC also does have a little more config options than Norton 360 from what I remember.

As reported before OC’s defrag is faster than Vista’s though on the first “tune-up” it could not defrag my 2nd drive for some reason. However on the next run it was defragged. Though I am not that networking savvy, I followed Hangetsu’s advice and once I figured out how to set permissions in share, I was able to use backup with my 2nd hard drive. It took over an hour to back up my files but it mentions that on subsequent backups only new files or files that have been changed will be backed up so it shouldn't take as long next time. Still MS should include a “backup to another internal hard drive” option on its next updated version.

The firewall is much quieter than the 1.x version which loved to flood you with pop-up balloons from the systray. It is now much like NIS’s FW default setting where it is using a whitelist/blacklist on allowing/disallowing programs to access the net. It did not recognize my yENC decoder though so NIS seems to be more liberal with these “off the wall” programs. There are settings to “notify me when the firewall blocks a program” and “always ask me whether to allow or block programs” for those who want more control of such things. Plus if you dig a little deeper you will find other FW settings like in Vista’s MMC Advanced Firewall settings.

Though it uses more RAM than NIS, OC feels lighter. There was a slight delay in opening web pages that I blamed on my satellite's latency but since the installation of OC that is disappeared. I have identified six processes belonging to OC which at idle is using around 55MB. I am confused however at the presence of one of the processes, MsMpEng.exe (22MB) which belongs to WinDefender. According to Services and also Security Center, WD is disabled and reported off (SecCenter reports OneCare as the malware program). So I don’t know what to make of this unless OC uses an improved version of WD which could account for the increase in malware detection over 1.x. I am going to do a little more research into this.

While its detection rate is standard at the moment I believe that Vista users can use OC (and any other “standard AV” really) because of the increased security features in Vista. Most of the older stuff out there doesn’t affect Vista and new ones will affect only if UAC is disabled. In fact the only time I have read about an infection of a Vista machine was on a forum where someone was hit with the ANI exploit and this person had turned UAC off which let the malware perform its dirty deed. Had he had it on and recognized the trigger of UAC it could have been prevented. For XP users I would only recommend it for safe surfers until the detection numbers move on up. Also I wouldn’t recommend it for the “power users” because like all the other supersuites there aren’t that many options to tinker with.

When you are at the bottom the only way is up. According to recent tests OC seems to be climbing up that ladder. Who knows, it may once again regain its former incarnation's (RAV) glory in protection. I, for the meanwhile, will continue to use and observe OC in action (at least a month because I want to see what the monthly report looks like). So far, except for the backup which needs some more options, I haven’t found much fault in OC as in an all-in-one solution. If OC keeps up with its upward climb, who knows, a blue orbed “1” may be in my avatar’s future.

 

Better make that a "green" orbed "1" to show your One Care's status is "good."

 

Lol, it would be better than a red one.

Since the blue one is the official logo of OneCare it would be easier to find and made an avatar of. I could blow up the green one in my systray but I don't think the final result would look all that good

 

midway40,

Lord I'm dense. I hadn't realized until just now that your acccount's symbol is the Norton icon. I guess that's kind of like having a girlfriend's name tatooed on your forearm (except easier to change after you dump her).