Microsoft Anti-Spyware?

Microsoft Anti-Spyware?
Kelly Martin, 2005-01-06

Microsoft has jumped into the anti-spyware market, but is this a new approach to thwarting bugs, or are they gearing up to profit from a dubious industry they helped create?

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-07
Todd Knarr

For whether you can prevent spyware problems with external applications, I think you can't. And I don't think the current anti-spyware tools will be effective, just as I don't think antivirus tools are effective. Look at the current state of viruses. For all the AV tools out there, we STILL get hamm...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-07
Anonymous

I'm inclined to agree with our columnists concluding remarks.

Its very much like treating the symptoms of a disease, without addressing the underlying cause of the infection....

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-07
Anonymous

There are a limited number of ways spyware can a) infect your machine (downloading an active x control - gator/any dialer program or having it bundeled with another application - like Kazaa or LimeWire) and/or b) how/where/when the application is run from. There are specific, well known spots in the...

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Why let MS have a chance in this derby? Re: Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-07
Anonymous (1 replies)

Why not just switch to Linux or get really inventive and go Macintosh. Both have security features that are unavailable to MS OSs out of the box, and the Mac is by far the most user-friendly OS around. Linux is the OS of choice in the web-server market, and if you look at the types of infections/sca...

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Why let MS have a chance in this derby? Re: Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-08
Anonymous (1 replies)

Linux and its applications, depending on your choice of flavour and how you dress it up, has its set of code problems too.. It just because the potential payoff from a Windows flaw is so much more, that Linux systems aren't destroyed out of the box.. A badly configured Linux box, is a spammer's drea...

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Why let MS have a chance in this derby? Re: Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-18
Anonymous

You can lock any system down with the proper knowledge of it.

Simpley break windows services you dont need and setup your HD security in a way that the everyone group is not allowed to access it. You should always specify who has access. Never go with what microsoft gives you as default. Syst...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-08
Don Parker

I for one agree with the columnist. It is time for Microsoft to get a grip on its leaky as a sieve application. This was mentioned by me before; that this program after all these years is still a security nightmare. Heh, I don't pretend to be a programmer, but I know that after all these years, and ...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-08
Anonymous (1 replies)

No support for Win98 which must still be a large portion of Microsoft's customer base, luckily there are other very good free anti-spyware programs that do run under older OSs....

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-15
Anonymous (1 replies)

Windows 98 is about 5% of the total desktop OS market right now (by comparison, Windows 95 still holds on to 0.1% and Linux is up to about 3.1%). It's really not worth Microsoft's effort to support a seven-year-old desktop OS....

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Re: Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-10-06
Anonymous

To the above anonymous M$ophile (a perversion which, in my experience, is prevalent only amongst M$ lackeys):

Somehow the producers of such anti-spyware programs as Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, and WinPatrol manage to get them to work on ALL Windows OSs - including Windows 95 - and yet they are all FREE...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-08
Anonymous

I agree fully with what Mr. Martin has to say, and I agree with the comment "Its very much like treating the symptoms of a disease, without addressing the underlying cause of the infection.", with one reservation.

Who, in their right mind would trust Microsoft to take care of Spyware, when it is ...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-08
Anonymous

It's a minor but good step by Microsoft, but it hardly addresses the true problem which is the sloppy coding of Internet Explorer.

Even with the latest IE fully patched on WinXP SP2, there are unadressed exploits that allow spoofing of the address bar, one of which also allows spoofing of a secur...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-09
Anonymous

I agree with the last post. Solutions are out there, but most people are too lazy or too stupid to do anything to fix this. Look how many people still use AOL and Internet Explorer
They will never get it....

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-10
TJ (1 replies)

Same old Microsoft bashing! Let's start placing some of the blame with users. You don't get spyware without user interaction! The toaster won't be a fire hazard unless someone plugs it in first! People need to be educated about how to use the Internet AND their computer properly. IMHO, that's about ...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-17
Anonymous

"The toaster won't be a fire hazard unless someone plugs it in first!"

Interesting statement. Does this mean that IE is fine if you dont actually use it on the net? Doesn't really sound fit for purpose IMO :P...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-10
Anonymous

The claim of microsoft bashing is absurd. What non-microsoft OSes have spyware issues 0.01% of that of Win/IE does?...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-10
Tommy Ward (1 replies)

I hope they don't expect anyone to pay for it. If so, that would be like Firestone selling tires with holes, and selling optional patch kits.

Some posters have stated that this is an end user issue...that if people knew what they were doing that they wouldn't get spyware. I disagree. My Wind...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-11
Anonymous (1 replies)

i hate to differ with you but in some ways i disagree. you said "I hope they don't expect anyone to pay for it. If so, that would be like Firestone selling tires with holes, and selling optional patch kits. "

you have a point, but whenever a program or something is invented, its going to have ...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-13
Anonymous

antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall, firefox and even linux cannot prevent malicious applications to do malicious things if you choose to install them. Basically anti-spyware determines if installed software should be trusted. Your users are educated? I have to disagree....

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-12
Anonymous

I have been using Microsoft since the Ages of DOS and Linux since 1995 (Slackware). Although I'm an advocate of Linux I have been using Windows 2000 for 4 years and, in combination with Mozilla/Firefox and ZoneAlarm, completely avoiding Outlook, I have countered no viruses/trojans on my computer. Li...

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Read the license agreement again 2005-01-12
Anonymous

Read the license agreement again - it says the USER (!) must make sure they're not VIOLATING THE SPYWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT (!) by doing the uninstall. All the license agreement is doing is shifting responsibility from MS to the user for violating spyware license agreements, which the user has agreed...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-12
Phil

It seems to me that Microsoft may not be intending to charge a subscription for their anti-spyware and anti-virus products. They may be intending to bundle them with Longhorn as limited functionality, 'better than nothing' options. In the same way that the Windows Internet Firewall that ships with X...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-12
Jamie Schmidt

There is a conflict of interest if they start charging for this product. If the antispyware starts pulling in mega-millions, what incentive is there to keep the holes out of new OSes, or to fix them quickly. It's just another reason for them to be slow in fixing their bugs....

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-13
Anonymous

great article Kelly. very clear and concise article and I'll look twice before buying a toaster!...

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Great Article 2005-01-16
Jon Read

This was a great article. You have put into words what I have been thinking since MS purchased Giant. MS loses out a lot to piracy, but even the pirates get spyware :) ...

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Microsoft Anti-Spyware? 2005-01-19
Comparing MS vs. SpyBot Vs. AdAware

Installed and ran Microsoft Anti-Spyware (MSA) tonight. It found a few things, so--without removing or quarantining anything--I ran AdAware (AA) and SpyBot (SB) to see how they compare.

MSA found old registry keys for WhenU.SaveNow, StartNow Hyper Bar, and Bear Share.

AA and SB found nothing...

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