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Microsoft Security Products Flag Google Chrome As a Virus
New submitter maeltor writes "Reports poured in this morning that Microsoft's security products, namely Microsoft Security Essentials and Forefront Client Security, were flagging Google Chrome as a virus (PWS:Win32/Zbot) and removing the browser if users chose to clean and reboot their machines. Users reported that the only way to mitigate the problem was to set MSE and Forefront to 'always allow' Zbot, which is generally considered to be a bad idea."
A Google employee in the above support thread notes that Microsoft has now pushed another update to resolve the issue. "On September 30th, 2011, an incorrect detection for PWS:Win32/Zbot was identified. On September 30th, 2011, Microsoft released an update that addresses the issue. Signature versions 1.113.672.0 and higher include this update."
"Oh, Woops! How did that happen?! So sorry about that Google. Totally a mistake. Totally. Our bad, really."
Meanwhile some clueless user just switched back to IE.
Chrome is a virus. You see, it has caused the marketing people at Mozilla to go crazy with the numbering scheme of FF and as a result, borked up my once good to use user interface into a complete mess of new design, misplaced buttons, screwy single menus and a whole host of unusable extensions. Chrome is a virus... that has killed Firefox.
...known as Adobe Flash.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Right. Let's face it, Microsoft would have done this on purpose if they had thought of it and thought they could get away with it, but chances are, this was an honest mistake. Test by: the regular (but hopefully infrequent) false positives you get from any antivirus product. Also test by: the speed at which M$ corrected it. Probably nothing to see here.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Actually, it works quite a bit better. And since it isn't an income source, it doesn't nag you constantly.
Not the first time MSFT has flagged competing products as viruses.
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
And one more reason not to trust Microsoft's "security."
I'm betting you meant to suggest that the state of security software is pretty wretched these days rather than heap praise on MSSE. Am I right?
It's not as bad as McAfee's "Oh hey, that important system file, you're not using it right? *delete*"
One of my friends was at work for nearly 2 weeks straight after that fiasco.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
The difference is: Microsoft has a reputation as a strongly anti-competitive company.
Never had a single false positive with it. Odds are your's aren't. Beat it trollboy.
I realise you were going for humour, but Google does a lot of very shady things involving auto-updates and integrating with unnecessary parts of a system. Why does my Firefox installation need a Google Update plug-in I never asked for, and why does it keep getting reactivated even though I've explicitly turned it off?
The reaction might not have been deliberate on this occasion, but I am utterly lacking in sympathy if Google's shady code starts getting treated like malware. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's still a duck, even though sometimes it can taste good.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They've got V8 generating code at runtime, Nacl sandbox using segment registers, installer doing address relocation after decompressing (probably using custom x86-specific compression algo like Snappy), an always-running update checker, etc. It's no wonder they'd get randomly marked as a virus.
The righteous indignation is strong with this one. The way I figure it, upon confronting humor, you have three options: (a) laughing because you think it's funny; (b) not laughing because it's not funny to you; and, (42) taking it seriously, getting offended, lecturing the jokester and proving yourself humorless.
I applaud your choice, good sir! 42 is always the right answer.