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Spy Sweeper, the Next Netscape?
GenieGenieGenie writes "AP is running a story about Webroot's Spy Sweeper, specifically about the competition it's facing from Vista's bundled anti-spyware. Webroot's CEO David Moll maintains that 'The taking of a second-best product in this space [i.e. Vista's Defender, f.k.a. AntiSpyware] is akin to locking half the doors in your house,' but others seem to think that if Moll doesn't want his company to become a second Netscape, it would 'ultimately [...] need to offer more than just an anti-spyware package.' The interesting issue here is whether this need for broadening the offer would be the case also for other leading companies subject to similar 'bundled-with' competition."
Yes, it's often forgotten that Netscape was founded to be an enterprise server software company, and got into selling shrinkwrap browser software by accident.
As for Netscape's server products, the webserver was undercut by Apache, and the other stuff (groupware, application server) didn't sell well compared to IBM or Microsoft. Had they been successful with servers, Netscape would probably still be around today.
As for this anti-spyware company, it reminds me about Quarterdeck's bitching when Microsoft took the outragous step of adding a memory manager to their OS.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
And then there's the programmers who sell out and bundle [spy|ad]ware with their programs. Sure, you can opt out, but most people only care to click Next, next, finish.
Let's not forget programs like Kazaa, if it's even still around, which actually REQUIRE you to not only install, but keep the crapware on your system in order to run it.
Defects in the operating system indeed.
Of course, a lot of the nasty crap that gets on your computer without you DOING anything is generally on rathe questionable sites (e.g. Warez sites). This is thanks to lacking security in Internet Explorer, not the OS.
It's a good thing to quote that "bundled-with" because the term is misleading. No one cares if M$ or anyone else gives away a text editor. What matters is if they make it so no other text editor will work. The Netscape complaint was that M$ strong armed vendors to gain a desktop software monopoly and then abused that monopoly in all sorts of ways to make it a huge pain in the neck to run Netscape on the desktop so that they could steal Netscapes' server market. The tactics included constantly changing the user's defaults back to IE and a combined smear and code breakage like they did with DRDOS.
It's all very nasty and they keep doing it, over and over. They have done it with Office Software to Lotus and Word Perfect, they have done it with backup software, browsers and just about anything you can think of. The people who want to own the worlds computers want to own every piece of it. The developers ran off a long time ago except for a few large companies and even they are looking for a way out. The current fights are over media and, yes, antivirus.
The most obvious result of all of these fights is a decidedly second rate user experience. So many second rate programs have been kludged together, they hardly work. All the hooks and barbs M$ made for others, they have to deal with themselves. Add a bit of DRM and remove the last of the companies trying to patch up your system and you get Vista, the five year development flop. It's kind of like watching an oil filled megatanker fall into the moon.
Information about the DRDOS example can be found here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050313031916/www.ki ckassgear.com/Articles/Microsoft.htm
Windoze performance information can be found anywhere Windoze is run. Just wait for them to curse.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.