Windows 8 to have built-in anti-virus - there's good and bad news

My first reply only had to do with the Internet Explorer vs European Union fiasco. An antivirus is not a browser. The users of an operating system have all the right that the operating system developer provides built-in security - any built-in security.

That's all.

There won't be any nefast side effects, IMHO.

Read my last post. But, I'll just quote this part:

How is Windows 8 going to end this? I never heard of avast having deals with computer manufacturers to install avast in their computers. So, these 172 million users somehow got avast products, either by themselves or by relatives/friends installing it, because they like the product, and then they also decided to go for the paid versions.

 

lol I've seen so many people say that any free AV software is worse than any pay AV software. The industry will do fine because they'll continue to market their product and the users will continue to not know what they're doing.

 

it will be interesting to see all the conflict with the AV that will be in Win8 and when they install a AV.

 

The free vs paid argument will likely never go away, even though it's bs. On subject though, I was giving scenarios which could happen. The chances of the EU or security vendors raising a fuss is very real. We live in a litigation-happy world, and if they went to court over something so stupid as a browser, they'd go to court over an AV. As far as Windows Defender, that's a bit different of a situation, imho. Windows Defender didn't/won't cause harm because how many people ever think about a program like it? When the term "anti-virus" is used, to many, many people, it is the end all, be all of security.

What's the first thing countless "New to Windows" articles will say? "Get an antivirus, stat!". There is never mention of anti-malware apps, HIPS, behavior blockers. Firewall and AV, that's what people know as security. The only people that ever see anything more advanced out of the box, is if they have a Pro edition or higher..and that's if they even find it, let alone turn it on and use it.

You watch, if they put these security mechanisms into all versions of Windows, the chances of vendors crying foul will go up. That's not saying it will kill the industry though.

 

Obviously any 3rd party AV will detect the installation of default AV and promptly ask the user to uninstall it.

 

I dont know why compare a free AV with paid AV. It can be considered as the same technology but a price zero and maybe some feedback to vendor. Including an AV will be a perfect excuse for increasing prices, for the product at least.

One thing is for sure: the better security vendors will remain competing.

 

I did not say any thing different than this.

It will sure have a significant effect on tem. Let,s wait n see BTW.

 

This isn't much different to windows 7? if I remove my antivirus and run windows update is offers mse, so bar parental controls what's the difference?

 

There's an AV in Windows vista and 7 too, I don't see how this is such a big difference.

 

As ronjor says in another thread, Windows 8 isn't even in beta yet so I guess things can change between now and the final release.

 

Hopefully this won't.

 

They most certainly will.

The leaked versions have access to the new file system, which is apparently very good.

EDIT: Agree with Funky thuogh. I hope this stays the same.

 

It looks like Microsoft is making a move. I work for a company that employs 60,000 people worldwide and we use computers in a large way. For many years we have had a contract with McAfee as our "competitors" do as well. Tonight I received an e-mail on my work network saying the company was switching to a new anti-virus...Microsoft Forefront (I think that was it). They give you a small glimpse of it...looks exactly like MSE!!! Same colors and layout.

 

I think that if the "new" inbuilt AV isn't going to be as light, userfriendly, include as many features as the solution they use today may it be Avast, AVG etc.. then they will simply not like it. And will probably look into other free solutions as they used on their old OS.

 

There are some very real reasons to push one's own browser.

Just compare Google and Microsoft - among other things both push their own browsers, own search engines, own webmail services, and their own OS's. Is it because they are 'stupid', or is it because they get a boatload of power, information and money by doing this?

With control of the browser, they get to define what kind of web most people will see - and to monitor how people use it.

It wasn't 'stupid' to persue this kind of thing in court, Microsoft was acting illegally. Besides, think of all the anti-competitive ways MS leveraged their own browser, e.g. deliberately breaking standards with Frontpage so that so many webpages wouldn't view correctly on W3C compliant browsers.

 

Wait, wait, you're going to sit there and tell me that it's not okay for MS to push their own browser then? Because that's exactly what they are doing..in their own OS which they own. How exactly is that illegal? I mean, illegal by any other standard besides the EUs'. If it's supposedly illegal to include your own browser that you made, in your own OS that you made...somebody better be hauling Google to court over Chrome OS right now.

Hell, Google is making damned sure their websites look and work better on Chrome...so how does that make MS the lone evil one? Anti-competitive is walking into a store and seeing nothing but Windows machines..yet years after the lawsuit and judgement, I'm still seeing it. Anti-competitive is Google making certain they are the default search engine in browsers, nobody is stopping that, are they? Save me the anti-trust bs, because the things you're naming off, every vendor would do, with Google doing it right now.

Let's not even get into monitoring, since no other vendor can do that better than Google. So yes, it was stupid what happened with the browser choice screen. Opera started that mess, and guess what, it didn't do a thing for them. They're still barely used. Now, back to Windows 8 AV.

 

Surprised you didn't mention Apple and Safari.

 

They're included in that, even if I didn't mention it. They all do it, and why not really? After all, they do own their respective operating systems and browsers. It's not anti-competitive, it's marketing.

 

There's always good and bad news. If this AV performs well enough in protection, I may keep it.

 

Microsoft is the only one with access to Windows source code. In that sense they're the only ones who really know how to protect their OS. Defender could be the best AV if they put the work in.

 

Boy could that post be replied to for ages Should we even begin to question why, if MS really knew how to protect their OS, that it took them until Windows 7 to actually get somewhere in doing so?

 

This may force security industry to find competitive differences... lets see what will show up.

 

Actually it was Vista that introduced almost all of 7's security features.

 

I didn't see that this was always the case. It's just a fact that they have a significant advantage over competing companies because they can see the source.

 

Perhaps the reason why it took so long for Microsoft to actually care about security, was because Windows became under scrutiny along the years. I'm not saying it wasn't before, but perhaps the interest, by security researchers in Windows (in)security became stronger as the years passed by.

For sure something like that is bad publicity. I suppose Microsoft also never really had a CEO/whatever that cared about this stuff?

Just throwing it in the air... Not really sure why, though. Who knows...