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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."
for them to charge consumers for what they have allready charged consumers for.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
I just had NAV2005 installed on a friend's infected PC and it did Virus and Spywares at the same time. This and Ad-Aware seems a good solution which I'd trust more than any Microsoft "security" stuff.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
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.
I do understand not supporting NT4 tho..
...yup...
And without giving too much away, the GenuineCheck program that it offers for download (if you're not using IE) doesn't really do its job. I mean, I DO have a licensed Windows product key, I just didn't use it for this install. Still, it didn't seem to pick up on that.
Or maybe the goons are on their way as we speak. Who knows.
by Microsoft AntiSpyware that I have spyware called RealVNC on my computer! I notice it says NOTHING about spyware called Microsoft Remote Desktop. I know lots of people out here use VNC, for goodness sakes, its SPYWARE now?! wtf
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
You gotta love it - I just ran a scan to test this puppy out and found that Microsoft has decided to flag WinPCap as spyware. Anyone who runs tools like nmap, Ethereal, and other open-source network utilities that have been ported to Windows must be evil!
They give it a "low" threat rating, and automagically tell the software to "ignore" it (that is, don't remove it), but I'm still offended.
Then again, if WinPCap is on your system and you don't know what it is, I guess it's not a horrible idea to let the clueless know about it...
The probably saw this:
2. TIME-SENSITIVE SOFTWARE. The software will stop running on July 31, 2005. You may not receive any other notice. You will not receive any further updates when the software stops running.
and figured OMG SUBSCRIPTION!
Another interesting EULA box is the actual definition of the software's function:
4. POTENTIALLY UNWANTED SOFTWARE. The software will search your computer for "spyware," "adware" and other potentially unwanted software ("Potentially Unwanted Software"). If it finds Potentially Unwanted Software, the software will ask you if you want to ignore, disable (quarantine) or remove it. The software will only remove or disable Potentially Unwanted Software as you instruct it. Removing or disabling the Potentially Unwanted Software may cause other software on your computer to stop working, and it may cause you to breach a license to use other software on your computer, if the other software installed the Potentially Unwanted Software on your computer as a condition of your use of the other software. You should read the license agreements for other software before authorizing the removal of any Potentially Unwanted Software. By using this software, it is possible that you will also remove or disable software that is not Potentially Unwanted Software. You are solely responsible for selecting which Potentially Unwanted Software the software removes or disables.
When I worked at Dell, they wouldn't let us dick with spyware stuff because of potential legal problems -- that is, the law might side with the malware.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
I ran the software, and it was kind enough to suggest that I "Restore Hijacked Internet Explorer Browser Settings" because these values apparently differ from the recommended.
Good thing Microsoft is looking out for me and keeping those darn open source spyware programs away from me...
By reading this sig, you agree to be bound by all terms and conditions I choose.
It would be very nice if Microsoft does do something to combat the many problems IE has for users and system administrators. What would be ideal if Microsoft includes this program with all versions of Windows because (as you and everybody else knows) wants users to use IE.
Something like this would be nice too: "We apologize for all the problems Internet Explorer has caused you our loyal customers. We now have a free anti-spyware for you to use"
With more and more people migrating to alternate browsers, this might have been a wake up call for Microsoft to do something about it. How they will do it is up to question as well, ie. subscription to get rid of the spyware on an already spyware prone browser.
Another interesting thing to note is Microsoft buys a company that makes anti-spyware. In the tradition of Microsoft, they sure like buying other peoples' software and build on it (Good ol' DOS, heh).
Some call me Howie Feltersnatch
Must be beta... it started to uninstall my microsoft office windows media player and IE
Interesting question. Is a company that releases an inferior product, but that has a monopoly required to force their customers to pay subscription fees for multiple software packages by third parties needed to patch the vulnurability? And if they decide to release their own software to fix the problem, are they partaking in anti-competitive practices by wiping out companies that exist solely to patch the problem? If they charge a competitive fee for the software, is that better or worse than giving it out for free? On one hand they're screwing their customers who live with the bugs, on the other hand they're putting companies out of business.
That would be true for now, but who knows when will someone with malicious intent start to figure out how to use Firefox to load nasty adware. :-( I'll almost bet it happens before the end June 2006.
I just ran it on my work machine (which apparently was zombified and cleaned up before I started working here). Came up with a clean bill of health, so I guess whoever did the cleanup did a pretty good job (FYI, I also run Spybot and AdAware regularly on it). I noticed that the process/executable is still named GIANTAntiSpywareMain.exe. I'm assuming that's something MS plans to change in the future. Also, under the Advanced Tools > System Explorer > Shell Execute Hooks, it lists Microsoft.AntiSpyware.ShellExecuteHook1 as an unknown type. I would really hope they clean that up before final release....
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
What does design have to do with it when certain programs install the spyware at the same time? The problem is sneaky software vendors (and not necessarily MS in this case). How is the system supposed to know that the program you are installing is ok, except for these files for Claria that are included in the install. I know there are issues with some sites taking advantage of stupid users with IE and some vulnerabilities, but I really think the much bigger problem is people just installing anything they find without investigating it. This is not an issue with the OS - it is a user education issue.
So I downloaded and installed this on my machine to check it out. Keep in mind that my machine routinely has spyware scans of all kinds run on it, as I test out almost every spyware system imaginable for work.
- It reported WinPCap as "spyware" (or rather an "enabler", whatever that means), but it did have a default action of "Ignore" associated with it when the scan was done.
- It disovered c:\program files\support tools\remote.exe as the Cyanure Remote Administration Tool, classified as a Severe threat. This is Microsoft-made tool that comes with their Windows 2000 Support Tools.
- Some leftover directories of Hotbar that Adaware apparently did not fully clean up from a previous intentional infection.
This is the first time I've ever seen WinPCap flagged on any kind of spyware scan, kind of find that amusing. Microsoft must hate Ethereal or something. The Remote.exe thing is sort of funny too, but probably not unexpected, though it did not have a problem with the copy of Remote Administrator I have installed on my machine (in server mode no less). It'll be interesting to see how this performs on some intentionally-infected machines, compared to AdAware and Spybot.
Hmm, Hotbar who is a Microsoft Certified Partner is flagged as "Low Risk Adware" and default setting is to ignore. Co-incidence or shall I fetch my Tinfoil hat? Jonathan
Here's the thing, if MS don't charge a sub won't everyone accuse them of trying to put all the other AntiSpyware companies out of business?
From Blocker3
The BETA Version is free for the testing. After the 90 Day Trial, Microsoft will Charge a $99.00 Licensing fee, per year. Updates will be available for a subscription fee of $45.00 per year, and will include any new variants of spyware. This will only work on legitimate versions of the "Licensed" OS Software.Later in the discussion Blocker3 mentions this as a result of someone else mentioning contrary information concerning it's status:
I am Team Leader for the Microsoft software development team on this project.
Thought you all want to know.
Hopefully that can be protected against, too... I'm not sure how it's configured in the Registry, perhaps they already encrypt it, but if XP can decrypt it to verify, then someone can debug while it does so...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I remember hearing about that 'deal' a few years ago...likely on /. too.
I wonder how long SpyGlass (right company?) was to be paid a percentage of IE sales? If it was for perpetuity (not likely), then they may have a case that it's a product for 'sale' when the new version of Windows ships as IE is no longer freely downloadable...?
-Ben