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Microsoft Releases AntiSpyware Program
Nathan Weinberg writes "Microsoft released this morning Microsoft AntiSpyware, the product of last month's acquisition of GIANT. As I write in my report on my site, the program is very powerful, and certainly measures up to and may even beat Spybot and Ad-Aware. However, it's also pretty buggy, and Microsoft might have already sneaked in a pay subscription service."
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And lastly, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Microsoft is making it a subscription service. I was able to download, install, and run the program all without signing up for a subscription of any sort. Maybe that's because the program is still in beta or maybe it's just anti-MS FUD on the subscriber's part... who knows.
Reading the review would reveal why the submitter said that. The review says it might have a subscription based on the fact that it had 206 days until it expired. My personal opinion is that the expiration is there because it's Beta, but it may very well lead to a subscription service.
As far as the summary not saying it's a beta... Well, seemed pretty obvious to me. They just bought the company afterall.
- AMW
Our initial impression is that it works as well as Giant software does.... with similiar false positives.
:)
It's a beast when it runs and will easily suck up all available CPU cycles.
It asks if you want to report your spyware information back to the mothership as a way to make that the global big-brother database is kept up to date. It asks at least.
You have to have admin rights to run... but you gotta imagine Microsoft pushing this thing in a few months... much like the SP2 roll-out.
What the hell are you talking about? Microsoft releases patches for thier browser all the time.
Microsoft has often done this. They don't want customers to run beta software forever. They want the customer to realize that he or she must get the latest version.
As to the resutls, it turfed up three bits of possible Spyware which Ad-Aware and Spybot were missing/ignoring. The first was what it thought was Kazaa, but was infact Kazaa Lite (I've never had the original Kazaa installed). Second was some legacy registry keys left behind by WeatherBug which had piggybacked its way onto my PC with some shareware some time ago - fixed and reported to Spybot/Ad-Aware. Finally, it detected something called SearchSquire, but this turned out to be part of the Immunization feature of Spybot.
So, aside from the conflicts with Spybot's Immunization feature and the false positive on Kazaa Lite's registry keys, both of which can be fixed by setting the detection to "Always Ignore" it's not a bad little tool at all. Expect of course, for the fact that Microsoft is clearly planning of getting people to pay for this tool according to the webpage and EULA. Hmm. Getting people to pay for cleaning up the mess that you helped create in the first place... Unless this product is *vastly* better than Spybot and Ad-Aware on a thoroughly owned PC, I don't think so, and even then I think not...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Funny.... Friends and Family are heavily infested everytime I visit. Install Firefox and Mike's Ad Blocking Host File and guess what, no more spyware. The best solution is prevention.
Stealthily installed RealVNC clients are used as trojans, so it's a fair call, probably.
Of course, Remote Desktop offers the same level of exposure, but I haven't heard of any exploits that use it (though I'm happy to be informed on this point).
Here is their explanation of RealVNC.
It also found a Windows 2000 resource kit utility as something called Cyanure.
I noticed that as well this morning. It's surprising (or maybe not) since the Giant product that this is based on supports 98 and ME.
>> How would this extend their monopoly?
Well for one it detected RealVNC as a potential spyware threat, even though it's a low risk one and recommended action is ignore... I remember a while ago when XP came out there was a hassle regarding XP licensing and other non-MS remote software to access the machine...
That is most likely due to beta - alphas and betas of most MS software (and I'm speaking as an MSDN subscriber who can get hold of them) have expiry dates built in - I think the Longhorn tech release I have expires in August or something, and a beta of Windows 2000 expired before W2K was actually released. Can't speak for Office betas, but I feel it would be likely that they too expire.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
But it does run fine under Wine, and produces a validation code. The code isn't recognized as valid by the MS web page, though. Strange.
The thing detected RealVNC as Spyware, go figure.
It also seems like a way for MS to try and get rid of some worthwhile non-MS software.
I ran the scan and it told me that WinPcap was spyware. Is MS trying to kill Ethereal?
Microsoft also bought Internet Explorer, that's given away for free. They really don't need to make the money back with all the cash they have. The positive PR from giving it away for free could easily make up for the cost of the company.
-matt
"Possible Browser Hijack. Start page set to about:blank"
"Commercial Remote Control Software. RealVNC"
who do these people think they are?
I figured I'd test MS AntiSpyware against Lavasofts Ad-watch. I installed 'MSN Toolbar Suite'. That isn't malware but lavasofts program gives me the chance to block the registry modification whereas the MS product pops up a window from the sys tray saying the product doing the registry entry isn't known spyware and didn't let me say yay or nay, instead just disappearing faster than I could read the entire message.
I like the behavior of Ad-watch much better; leaving me in control and not making assumptions for me. I realize the MSN product was install by choice but could other programs slip through MS assumptions?
No, I do not see it as a problem, unless they charge for it. There has been no indication that they will charge for it except for the Slashdot FUD.
Is it a potential problem that open source software business plans are based on services and support - meaning they have a vested interest in keeping their applications difficult to use and fix? I'm not saying it is, but would you?
The software detected RealVNC when it was still under the GIANT name. It's not something MS just added.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Shocking - they don't seem to support DOS based Windows (9x and ME) even though there are arguably millions of infected consumper PC's. WinME boxes aren't THAT old.
If you are going to try and tear down MS, please at least use accurate information.
1. Windows 9x and ME are NOT DOS Based. The latest version of Windows that ran on top of DOS was Windows 3.x
2. Windows ME does not even support DOS applications, which was one of it's bigger gripes.
I download the program and tried to install it. I use Firefox as default browser. The software said it wouldn't install unless IE 6.0 was installed on the computer.