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Two Reviews of Microsoft AntiSpyware
jasondubya writes "PC Magazine released their review of Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Beta 1. While they agree with most that it has great potential, it has yet to take over their top spot. In an informal test, it removed about two-thirds of the spyware detected and blocked about fifty percent of the threats they attempted to install. After removal, they ran Webroot's Spy Sweeper 3.0. It was able to detect '900 traces of 48 distinct threats still present, including two keyloggers and three Trojans.' With that, it looks like Microsoft still has work to do before they are on top of the market." Several other readers sent in link to Mossberg's review in the WSJ.
If the reviews were more favorable, I bet they wouldn't see the light of day at Slashdot.
I've used it and ...
I liked it! It scanned like 500 spywares in my computer, all of them due to Internet Explorer Bugs(hey, i've used it only for 2 days since I formated my computer). The software is fast, gives information about the spywares and asks you what you wanna do. If I had to rate it I would give 9/10.
need to make a correction there at the end ...
With that, it looks like Microsoft still has a few more companies to buy before they are the market."
vodka, straight up, thank you!
MS AntiSpyware is /extremely/ fast - faster than anything else I've tried - but didn't catch any advertisement cookies in Mozilla Firefox and only caught a very small number of them from IE. It also complains loudly about a number of things I use on a regular basis - FTP server, VNC, even a copy of SoftICE (which, yes, I use legitimately to debug device drivers).
Could be good with some work, though.
This flies in the face of science.
Anything good about this program is attributed to Giant and anything bad is attributed to Microsoft.
I've tried it and it found some stuff that ad aware didn't even pick up. It also correctly identified tight vnc as a possible spyware app, but labeled it as low priority. I was more then happy with it.
No spyware is really finished until can uninstall windows, 0 out your drive, then kick you in the ass for being such an idiot before it melts down all the chips on your board.
Even though it says you need to "validate" Windows, it prompts you after you click the download link, and then you can click "no." Good news for me^H^Hthe pirates out there with illegitimate XP copies.
... they'll just by Webroot!
I think that Microsoft has traditionally done quite well with buying great software and making it fit in a system (Excel being the best example, Foxpro and Visio close second). It makes me wonder if this might be the next-generation computer business model. Let the little guys innovate and purchase the projects that make sense; kind of like venture capital after-the-fact. Certainly the original makers aren't often remembered -- the guys that first invented optical media or the stereo are less important and became less rich than the greats that currently manufacture them. And few seem aware that chopsticks originated in American mining communities in the 1800s by Chinese immigrants seeking to differentiate their restaurants from more common fare, and currently accounts for 3% of American lumber exports.
Ultimately, integration is far more important than innovation -- there are all sorts of people who come up with new things, but recognizing what is practical and developing it to its fullest extent as part of a system is what makes Microsoft work. And I'm really glad they've picked up an anti-spyware package instead of developing one in-house because they can capitalize on someone else's focus on the spyware problem, to our benefit.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
1. Does it work well? (not as well as many others)
2. Does it uninstall cleanly? (HA!)
3. How much does it cost for support (Better put, IS support even reasonably AVAILABLE for it?)
No thanks, I'll stick with what I've got.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
While these articles are mostly true, they seemed still to be biased against microsoft. Although i value /. and go along with its beliefs against a certain company, there are more balanced views out there...
n =s how&id=84
http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?actio
In the articles here, they only say that some stuff was not removed by antispyware. But they never said if microfsoft antispyware picked up stuff others missed. Article above does this test.
-SystemERRor
Let me get this straight, Microsoft buys another company, does a badge job on the product to slap their logos all over it, and suddenly it's something new and exciting? We might as well be reading the last review of Giant's software.
I guess it's news because it's Microsoft, just like a divorce is news if your name is Brad and Jennifer or whatever...
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Their anti-spyware software doesn't work on older versions of Windows. Poor ol' me with WinME will continue to use measures that work on older versions of Windows.
I liked the thought of this reviewer the best:
http://www.robert.to/reviews/msspy.html
Go Toby!
Built-in XP firewall - Pretty much everyone disabled it and installed another.
Internet Explorer - Lets all the spyware in in the first place. Firefox is ten times better.
MS Office - Don't even need to say how bad it is.
Windows itself - Ditto.
MS AntiSpyware - Only gets rid of two-thirds of spyware. Mostly just more bloatware.
Nope. I'm not very surprised.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
Problems with these reviews:
1. It really isn't fair to issue a review of a product in its beta form. Yes it can be argued that Microsoft throwing out this software in the public domain pretty much gives people the write to issue opinions on it, but it seems to me that in a respected news source like the WSJ should take there ability to influence people to heart and wait for a final version before issuing reviews.
2. The reviewer faulted this tool for not finding cookies. Big whoop. Seriously, cookies are highly overrated. Ad-Aware is a pretty good tool, but its insistance in clearing out all my cookies causes me to have to redo passwords and such for websites that I would have rather left alone. This utility ignoring the cookies is a good thing.
3. Resets hijacked home pages to MSN. Buyer beware? Oh thats right this software is free. The problem with hijacked home pages is that there is a script that keeps resetting them to the hijacked page, you can't get rid of it. I haven't tested this, but I imagine that the Microsoft tool simply resets your home page to MSN. You are free to change it back to whatever you want. I imagine it would be a simple enough thing for Microsoft to reset it back to what it was originally, but that requires that your home page wasn't hijacked when the tool was installed. All in all if Microsoft want's to make MSN the default home page with this tool, and the tool is free, I say we got what we paid for. Let them have it.
4. Doesn't support Firefox. Let me get this straight. Microsoft offers a product for free that a good many of us would be willing to pay for and they don't offer support for there competing web browser? Say it aint so!
Let me be the first to say that if you wan't Firefox support then maybe you should look at an open source solution or possibly a pay client that supports Firefox. As long as Microsoft is giving this thing away faulting them for this is bias pure and simple.
Microsoft just gave it a new gui right click properties of the icon on the tool. yes it has the very fast scanning. but do you really trust it?
Non-Microsoft companies are better than Microsoft in detecting malicious changes to Microsoft's own software (IE and Windows). Well, I suppose it could be because it's not Microsoft's fault http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/15/015239 &tid=109&tid=1 :-P
Just a note: I have a copy of Back Orifice 2K on my laptop for running some chores on several machines on my home network (the boPeep plugin is very handy) which is detected by NAV2004, and Spybot as a trojan (it can be) but it is not detected by MS Anti-Spyware. Interesting.
I would HATE to have BO2K on my machine without knowing it.
...dry the mud instead of killing mosquitos. For regular users, clicking on 'Yes' for every popup appears would be something understandable, but even for tech savy guys if spyware is something to be protected, Microsoft should really think about it. For those knowing what she's doing, even anti virus tools are not necessary. But I really wonder how come theese things are realy easy to spread, and harm people. I also can't believe developers at Microsoft can't solve that problem, but volunteer guys all around the world had solved the problem already. Microsoft can be the biggest cat but it must be the most shameless company as well by releasing its own spyware tool.
MS have the money, instead of wasting it trying to do what Spybot S&D and Adaware haven't managed to do in years, why don't they just buy up and close down some spyware companies - that's what they usually do to threats.....
Personally I hope this product doesn't work, as Spyware/viruses are currently the main reason people I know are moving from Windows to Linux.
#include <sig.h>
Running spy sweeper afterwards and detecting traces of spyware still on the machine does not mean that you should assume that spy sweeper can detect all the stuff that MS anti-spyware has already detected and removed.
Youd be better off running the two products on identically infected machines and see which detects and removes the most etc. If you were to run spy sweeper first and then MS anti-spyware, youd probably see similar results. (ie, MS anti-spyware detecting stuff that spy sweeper missed).
I.O.U One Sig.
The GIANT spyware tool was the best rated anti-spyware program, how did Microsoft screw it up in like 2 weeks? It appeared they only modified some graphics, but it looks like they did more....
I had such problems wih Windows that I recently switched my main machine, but I still have a Windows box. I can believe that this is a good product, but I have difficulty with Microsoft branching out into this area. Surely it should not be a separate product. If there is a fault in Windows do they fix Windows or do they supply a fix through their subscription anti-spyware product? Is there not a conflict of interest here? They ought to be able to make the best spyware cleaner on the market, after all it is their OS - but shouldn't they be able to eliminate this within the OS. I use Suse and Mac OS X as well and I can't imagine this situation arising with either of these.
Slackware Anti-Whatever(TM): The perfect solution to all your virus, spam, spyware, and other problems since 1993!! :-)
Seriously, though, I think it's kind of stupid that Microsoft's making an anti-spyware program - after all, weren't they responsible for the problem in the first place? And of course, it doesn't detect the biggest piece of spyware integrated into every Window$ system... (whatever that unnamed program at version 6SP1 is ;-)
I'd say that if Microsoft really cared they'd make a secure system. It isn't too hard, they already have the perfect starting ground...
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
I've been testing this thing against some of the worst laptops students can put in front of me and it does a great job so far.
It's beating Spybot pretty much every time I've put them head to haed. It's still got a way to go against Ad-Aware but generally speaking it's not bad and it does a much more through job then just about every other automatic scanner I've used. I'm finding much less residue with hijackthis with MSAS than anything else so far. With a little more work on their definitions this could easily be a top notch antispyware utility.
The on demand scanner is really through. If on demand virus scanners were written with a system similar to this it would be really impressive against viral attacks. It checks just about every startup point I can think of where spyware hides. MS definitly didn't waste money by buying this impressive scanner Giant Developed.
The only problems I see is that it's questionable if MS is going to keep this program free and MS is a huge Lawsuit target. I can see every Spyware company suing the holy crap out of them for removing their product Screaming "Monopoly" and "Antitrust" all the way to the Judge.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I'm not the world's biggest fan of Microsoft -- I've pretty well shorn myself of everything but XP and Word -- but I have to admit that it's not bad. Caught some minor stuff after I hadn't done a scan with Ad-Aware in a while and cleaned them up. Not the best, nowhere near the worst.
Interestingly, one service still says "GIANT Antispyware Data Service". I guess they didn't rebadge it all yet.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
My biggest gripe is it's complete lack of compatibility for users running as a Limited account (non-Administrator). It runs, scans, and detects fine, but never remembers any of your choices. I'm assuming it performs the cardinal sin of trying to write choices to HKLM or a system folder.
On this box with Windows 98, XP and Mandrake, Microsoft Antispyware told me the machine had a severe threat -- "Attacker has complete control over your computer or install new software on your machine." The offending file was "SCRRUN.DLL" in the Windows directory, which Antispyware labeled as "Specrem RAT." The file was there from a fresh reinstall of Windows 98 off the official Microsoft CD from the last millenium, from the "win98_64.cab" file. Aside from the bad grammar of the warning, I think it was wrong.
Otherwise, it did fine.
But what the hell gets rid of the crap from lop dot com? (I dont reccomend going there if you use IE...)
I have one system here at work that is infested - and Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad Aware, Giant (Microsoft) dont touch it.
I have tried the suggestions on sites via google, but none have worked (and most are spam anyways).
Who here has managed to remove the cancer that is Lop?
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I don't think these 2 words should be used in the same sentence.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
I've used it now on a few systems, and it does a reasonably effective job, especially given that it's still in development. At this point, I have yet to see any anti-spyware tool that covers all the bases and finds every single case of infestation.
What I have found works pretty well is this:
- Use Spybot initially to clean as much as possible. For best results, run it in safe mode.
- Then let the MS program take a run at whatever's left afterwards.
- Finally, run HijackThis to go through all the startup options and make sure nothing's left behind.
Once it's all cleaned up, the MS program does a pretty good job of blocking new infestations along with Spybot's resident IE blocker. I always set Spybot to auto-update and auto-immunize anything new on launch - since most people I've dealt with have trouble remembering to do all that manually. And most of them also switch at the very least to Firefox.
Or I just get them to switch to Macs... problem solved!
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
MSAS is not ready for prime time though it has potential. The UI is visually pleasing (though navigation has bumps), the scanner is fast.
:-(. In addition, it complained about a registry entry made by SpyBot immunization. Finally, I noticed the machine was running slowly so I shut MSAS down (basically turned off the real time protection). It still wakes up at night and scans the machine though.
I installed MSAS on a Win2K machine. It found a piece of spyware but recommended leaving it there
On an infested WinXP machine, after MSAS was done, Spybot caught some spyware related stuff and then AdAware caught some more.
--Bruce
HaHa: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I tried it on my WinXP box and was not impressed. I have a fully patched SP2 install, use IE for few websites (the ones that don't work with Mozilla), and Mozilla for the majority of my surfing. I have a Mcafee firewall and antivirus, and sweep every week or so with Ad-Aware and Spybot. The ONLY thing MS found was part of Spybot (or Ad-Aware, I forget which), I disabled the auto-run stuff and MS still set it to autorun, and when I unistalled it, it left its garbage behind for me to manually clean up.
Nope, nothing to see here!
I guess taking some of those billions and building a good, secure operating system isn't part of Microsoft's business plane. Funny how all those Linux and BSD hippies did it without billions of dollars to play with.
we will end no whine before its time
It's a BETA. Why is everyone saying they failed because it's not #1. It's STILL A BETA!
There's a tendancy for people to equate "found more stuff" with "better". Don't forget that false positives are an issue.
"few seem aware that chopsticks originated in American mining communities in the 1800s by Chinese immigrants"
No shit Sherlock!
So when did they originate in China?
Largely, this beta is little more than a rebranded GIANT Antispyware, which was already pretty good to being with. (Yeah, it doesn't support 95/98/ME any longer, but GIANT's software was a little flaky there.)
(It would be interesting if one could go back in time, send the same software to the reviewer with the GIANT brand and see if the name, "Microsoft," somehow changed the review, but I digress.)
I am less concerned with Microsoft's changing the underlying structure of the product than I am with their ability to keep up with the threat. Malware demands that an anti product get updated very, very often, sometimes daily. Microsoft, to date, has never demonstrated that they can keep up with the threat. How are they going to go from releasing one to two security updates every couple of weeks to keeping up with a threat that can change hourly.
Sure, it'll piss us all off if Microsoft -- who presumably has more knowledge of and access to Windows' under-pinnings -- doesn't live up to this challenge, but the worst that will happen to it is this nice product they bought will quickly become irrelevant. And the community (or communisits, I'm not sure which) will, again, rise up to fill the vacuum.
m
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
We all know microsoft can make good bugs and can't repair them. How are they supposed to make software that repairs bugs. Obviously, the program will make more bugs. Its the Microsoft way (*cough* SP2 *cough) ^_^
and Microsoft is still trying not to step on anyone's toes too much (just yet, anyway). Yeah, I know, the lines get hazy sometime, but there you go....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm using a special hostfile I got online, that helps me avoid a lot of ad servers, etc. The anti-spyware beta really dislikes this, however, and every time I run it picks ONE server it tells me is maliciously redirected. I can't easily tell it to just ignore that one component of the search, and when I ask it to ignore an individual server entry, it gives me warnings like I'm going to be really sorry I didn't let MS do what it wants.
...can be found at:.
Bout time somebody spoke some sense.
Howdy.
You know,
everytime I install Windows or Servicepack it I receive an extra program. It's the Alexis Spyware (keylogger) bundled with Internet Explorer...For us to greatly enjoy our computer with added features.
I wonder, would MS antispyware detect there own added c.r.a.p. or to put it differently, how big is the pricetag NOT to be detected by it.
I'll stick to good 'Ol spybot for now.
Message from god, Please logoff, rebooting the Universe
The downloading part is a bit slow but the software is good. It has its own flaws but then again its in its beta stage so we can expect that. OMG, is MS getting better, what will happen to the world?!
I have to say, I'm basically at a loss to explain why there's been a lot of positive press about Webroot's Spy Sweeper 3.0 recently. This PC Mag. review is just the latest in "shoot-outs" and reviews I've read that gave Spy Sweeper top (or near top) honors.
My personal experience, doing on-site PC service calls for a living, is completely different. I've cleaned literally hundreds of spyware infested PCs for customers in the last year or so, and I *often* find they have Spy Sweeper already installed and running, despite all their problems.
People occasionally ask me if Spy Sweeper is "any good" since companies like Gateway like to try selling it to them over the phone when they call with problems. I've been advising to save the money and skip it.
It may have a nice interface and claimed "feature set" - but from what I've observed, it doesn't really seem to be that effective at keeping spyware out, or detecting it after the fact.
In the past, I've been an advocate of the SpyBot and Ad-Aware SE combo, but the new Giant/MS Anti-Spyware solution has done an impressive job for me so far. Just last night, I had a PC that both SpyBot 1.4 beta (w/latest update sigs) and Ad-Aware SE with latest update sigs. reported completely clean of spyware problems. Despite that, ads were randomly popping open in IE windows every 15 seconds or so. MS Anti-Spyware completely cleaned it up.
Why are all these tools evaluated based on left overs other tools find and counting them? If just pure counts are used then the makers have an incentive to label as many things as possible as spyware, and try to count the same thing several times over. For example they could count HotBar once, or they could counr each file of it, each registry key, each hook into IE etc as one item. And of course the makers now have a strong financial incentive for spyware to exist that others don't find. Guess how they will do that.
For the items that they miss, I am only interested in the severity of the items.
So remind me again, wich services are free.. . (?)
Even M$ beta is - for now.. .
Here's my lousy cents on the deal.
Where's the Open Source/Free Software initiative to deal with spyware issues?
Pardon my ignorance but if you know - please do share your insights.
It was able to detect '900 traces of 48 distinct threats still present, including two keyloggers and three Trojans.' With that, it looks like Microsoft still has work to do before they are on top of the market."
I'm not so sure, this seems to be about on par if not a better track record then most of their software.
bleh bleh quick jab and microsoft bleh bleh
format c:
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
It might not be the best anti-spyware program, but its other features are nice. I run Spybot, Ad-aware and SpywareBlaster and decided to install the MS program as well. It didn't find anything, I didn't think it would with the combined efforts of the other 3 programs, but I was impressed by the consolidation of information it presents. In one place I can see the current running processes, startup applications, LSPs and installed activeX apps. It will make troubleshooting family members computer problems easier once they install this. I can just direct them to one app to answer most all my questions, instead of having them dig through the registry, downloading other obscure programs and goggling every unknown process they currently have running. I will still install the other 3 apps on the computers I am called upon to troubleshot and will definitely add this program as well for ease of information.
ive got sp2 (which had been running just fine) and recently got anti-spyware, and ive been noticing some major slowdowns. im going to try uninstalling, but has anyone else experienced these kinds of problems with the software?
Since a few days, I use HitmanPro. It's a program that has a bunch of anti-spyware apps rolled in one. Spyware blaster, AdAware, Spybot are a few that are being used. It auto-updates all packages and runs all of them sequentially without interference (you can put it on hold or exit the program though). Easy to use and works great. You'll have to be running windows 2000 or higher, but that's about the only catch I could find.
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopsticks#History
You have chopsticks confused with Chop-suey (or was it fried rice?) that was invented in America in the 1800's. CHOPSTICKS have been around for thousands of years.
Using my squid logs, I found out that I had opened a webpage in mozilla on what looks likely to have been www.azlyrics.com, and that had started a JAVA application, which popped up a dialog asking yes/no for something. Stupidly, I didn't think much of it at the time because I thought it would just be some background music or something someone had done with java
Somehow, the sun j2re machine thought the java application had permission to open iexplore.exe by name, and had pointed it at a number of webpages designed to exploit bugs/features in IE that allowed a heap of spyware to install itself without any further popups or questions.
My computer is running w2k, fully service packed and updated just last week with the latest from windows update. I use internet explorer solely for accessing windows update and never open it otherwise.
One of the first things I did was disable java in mozilla, and then uninstalled the JRE completely. It took multiple reboots, many manual file and regkey deletions, and multiple spyware scanners to get rid of everything that had clawed its way in.
Adaware found most things, but removed very little.. even though it said it was quarantining everything, none of the .exe files in system32 actually got deleted and I had to delete them manually. There was also a service called ZESOFT that sat in the background and reinstalled stuff as I deleted it.
In the end, I downloaded Microsoft's (giant's) antispyware tool and it found a number of files, other than the .exe, that were created by the spyware apps, and was able to delete all but one of them. I had to delete the last one manually, and it wasn't file locked or anything, so I don't know why it couldn't delete it itself.
I just had a look at spy sweeper, and ran the free scan, and it STILL finds remnamts of the same 5 pieces of sh*t that adaware and MS antispyware both found, although because it's the free scan, it won't tell me what files or regkeys it actually located. The crap in question is:
Bargain Buddy
InternetOptimizer
IstBar
MoneyTree
NaviSearch
All in all, a very scary experience.. it is certainly very worrying that the Sun JRE apparently allowed this to happen.
It is even more worrying that even with microsoft's new attitude (firewall on by default, and so on) that IE is *STILL* wide open and allows spyware to be installed without any action from the user.
So beware.. even using firefox or mozilla, you can still get infested.
Secondly, look outside your slashdot bubble and you'll see people who share computers. Not everyone has three or four boxes laying about. One person (or the admin) may put a VNC server on there and then another person may remove it because they trust the MS app and don't know any better. A spyware catcher is an administrative tool. It should only be run by administrators, not by any user accessing the computer without knowing how it is setup. This is what unpriviledged accounts are for.
So admins, whitehats and FOSS people everywhere will be helping MSFT by reporting spyware/supporting MSFT anti-spyware stuff, and MSFT will be benefiting from this sense of community, from a community that they are actually opposed to. It's either funny or sad, I'm not sure which. Hopefully both sides might learn a thing or two
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
I tried it on my work PC which came from the factory with XP installed and has a license key on the bottom (is a laptop). I couldn't validate with either the key the factory put on the lappy or the key from the MS sticker underneath it. Could be they're corporate keys that won't go through the validator but no idea.
Although its not a problem as you say that doesn't stop you using it. It's not just pirates that will struggle with validation though.
Saying Spy Sweeper removed x 'traces' is meaningless for two reasons:
First - they don't identify if these were critical to the spyware application. Did the MS app leave behind entire undetected infections, or empty folders, text files, inactive objects, etc. I think an application's success can be measured by how much spyware it disables, not how many items it finds. If the MS app only 'found' 2/3 as much as the spy sweeper app but still eliminated any 'active' spyware I'd still be content. However...
Second - Spy Sweeper (and Giant/Microsoft actually) inflate their numbers artificially anyway so I'd be very suspicious of whatever numbers Spy Sweeper presents. They do this through several means, but Spy Sweeper's favourite is to take an accepted spyware infection and break it into several 'sub' infections that all use the same components, which means they get counted several times.
Other scanners detect one infection with x components, Spy Sweeper detects say 5 infections that all use the same components and then ends up with 5x total 'traces' found, since it counts those components once for each infection. Obviously Spy Sweeper is better because they found more! Microsoft does similar things with carriers and registry values but it's not as egregious.
Historically, Microsoft has produced products that have bugs, are unstable, and just down right annoying, BUT it seems ever since the release of XP Service pack 2 that Microsoft is heading in a new direction, and I like their efforts. Look at Service Pack 2, they finally woke up and are trying to add in more core functionality and stability to the operating system. True, there are several bugs, but when you are programming for something that runs a vast array of software and hardware, most of which is very old in the average computer user sector of the public, there are going to be bugs, no way around it. Then you have this spyware tool. Sure it isn't perfect, but they label it as Beta 1 and they aren't putting it out there as a finished product. Its pretty good for a free tool. I, for one, appreciate the fact that at least Microsoft appears to be trying to move forward instead of standing still. I mean like it or not, they control 95% of the consumer market. They could very well just sit back and say screw it, we aren't going to be innovative or add new functionality at all. I mean what would happen? People stop using Windows and switch over to linux or mac? Not likely. While their are other alternatives, their are people still out there that believe internet explorer IS the internet. The general populus is not as informed as the slashdot crowd. I guess my overall point is that I'm starting to like Microsoft more these days. Of course, I'll probably be modded down and flamed for this whole post, but go ahead do your worst.
Given the fact that a pyramid scheme is guaranteed to leave the vast majority of the people who get sucked into it with absolutely nothing, do you actually expect you have a good chance to get your free stuff? What makes you luckier than the next guy?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
...to compare a beta release of 1.0 software to a 3.0 product?
Good info, SpywareInfo.com has some pretty good tips on security setting changes for IE that might help.
I personally blame it all on the altitude!
Well, it is still a first beta - so I don't doubt that can happen. Hasn't been a problem for me *yet* though, but good to know it's something to look out for.
s oc kxpfix.html
I can give you a great tip for fixing a damaged/ripped up TCP/IP stack quickly though. I found a little utility called "WinsockXPfix" that you just double-click, and it rebuilds the whole stack and prompts you to reboot when it's done. Despite its name, it works with pretty much any version of Windows. (It'll auto-detect your version when you first run it, and display what it found in its window.)
http://www.spychecker.com/download/download_win
This review points out that the program has too many false positives:
http://www.shaftek.org/blog/archives/000213.html
I'm glad someone appreciates it... I see someone else thoughfully modded me down for my efforts.
Microsoft released a product created by a company merely three weeks after they bought them out. Big deal, it would be stupid to assert that they haven't had their Windows team even look at it yet. Of course they haven't. That doesn't mean the Giant team, who were probably onto something, aren't still working on it. Make a mental note and be sure to check back in a few weeks to see how it progresses. Till then, stay clean and keep tabs on your system.
Kt