MS To Build Antivirus Into Win8: Boon Or Monopoly?

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MS To Build Antivirus Into Win8: Boon Or Monopoly?

Posted by Soulskill on Monday November 21, 2011 @06:36AM from the efficacy-to-be-determined dept.

jfruhlinger writes "Microsoft has quietly announced that it's planning on baking anti-virus protection right into the Windows 8 OS. Users have been criticizing Windows' insecurity for years — but of course this move is raising howls of protest from anti-virus vendors, who have built a nice business out of Windows' security holes. Is this a good move by Microsoft, or a leveraging of their monopoly as bad as bundling Internet Explorer?"

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Anti-Trust by 0123456 · 2011-11-21 06:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

I would love to see governments attacking Microsoft for making its software too secure. That would keep me laughing for years.
1. Re:Anti-Trust by cptdondo · 2011-11-21 06:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I look at anti-virus as a compression bandage. It staunches the bleeding, but does nothing to prevent the injury....
  Maybe a more secure OS from the get-go might help? Although Win 7 seems to be a step in the right direction....
2. Re:Anti-Trust by Z00L00K · 2011-11-21 06:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And also - what kind of anti-virus will be first on the list of the malware producers to circumvent?
  Today there are many different AV solutions and it's almost impossible to evade them all, but now there will be one main target.
  
  --
  If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
3. Re:Anti-Trust by 0123456 · 2011-11-21 06:46 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Because there are no virus scanners, rootkit detectors, etc. for Linux, right? Oh wait there are...
  Linux virus-scanners are primarily used to detect Windows viruses on servers so the Windows machines accessing those servers don't pass their infections around.
  When was the last active Linux virus released?
4. Re:Anti-Trust by Karlt1 · 2011-11-21 06:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  So how do you "secure" an OS and still allow users to run whatever they want to?
  And before you say "don't run as administrator", any app that can run with the users privileges has access to all of the users data -- which is harder to replicate than system files.
5. Re:Anti-Trust by roc97007 · 2011-11-21 06:49 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I think that's the first time I've ever seen "Microsoft" and "too secure" in the same sentence.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
6. Re:Anti-Trust by wisnoskij · 2011-11-21 06:52 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This whole Microsoft witch hunt is ridiculous.
  MS does lots of things that should get people and governments mad but including necessary software is not one of them.
  First off you need a browser on OS install, and you really really should have a antivirus so that you don't get infected while searching the internet for one.
  Whats next, MS is evil for including paint and notepad?
  Or it is unfair for the game industry that solitaire is installed along with the OS?
  
  --
  Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
7. Re:Anti-Trust by blair1q · 2011-11-21 06:54 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  You're typing into it.
8. Re:Anti-Trust by mini+me · 2011-11-21 06:55 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Why do applications need access to all of the user's data?
9. Re:Anti-Trust by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-11-21 06:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You can't have an OS that is secure against viruses, so long as 1) it allows the user to install software, and 2) it does not provide a strict sandbox for said software.
  Linux, for example, permits viruses to be written. So does OS X. The reason why viruses do not proliferate on those systems is because they're not a particularly interesting attack target, and because (specifically in case of Linux) they are typically run by competent users who don't run random binaries off the Net.
  iOS, on the other hand, does not have viruses, because 1) all software comes from a trusted location with no way to circumvent this, and 2) software is sandboxed such that it cannot modify other binaries on the system or create new ones, even in directories otherwise writable by the user who runs the software.
  TL;DR version: the kind of security that you want is called a "walled garden". Furthermore, you're going to get just that in Win8. When there'll be the next Slashdot story on the horrors of iOS lockdown, keep that in mind.
10. Re:Anti-Trust by blair1q · 2011-11-21 06:56 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  There's no "one main target" among them. Just holes in their database. Small holes in very large databases.
  Avast yesterday told me it had something like 5 million different signatures it could check. Which is both impressive and scary. That's a lot of miscreants being miscreative at a breakneck pace.
11. Re:Anti-Trust by blair1q · 2011-11-21 06:59 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  No, it's their dime. You're in possession of it until you aren't, then it's someone else's. Most dimes they have were never yours in the first place. You negotiated your pay in full knowledge that a portion of that number would be sent straight to the government.
  Now, you have a vote, and a voice, so you have a say in who will be making laws regarding the apportionment of that dime, and you can tell them how you feel about their decisions.
  But, no, it is absolutely not your dime, and it probably never was.
12. Re:Anti-Trust by Karlt1 · 2011-11-21 07:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Why do applications need access to all of the user's data?
  An application doesn't "need" access to all of the user's data. But how do you prevent code that runs at the users' access level from being able to access all of the data that the user has access to? If the app developer can get users to grant access to their data (not hard to do) how can the OS prevent them without having a locked down environment?
13. Re:Anti-Trust by jgagnon · 2011-11-21 07:02 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  How else would you do it? What if you have a file you want to open up in more than one application? In entirely plausible to have multiple processes operate on a file in series. For instance, you use a photo editor to manipulate an image. Then you insert that image into a document. Then you compress that document. Then you send that document via email. That document has been around the block through several applications. What are you supposed to do, give each application individual permissions to access the document? Is this the height of productivity?
  
  --
  Remember to maintain your supply of /facepalm oil to prevent chafing.
14. Re:Anti-Trust by vlm · 2011-11-21 07:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Linux, for example, permits viruses to be written. So does OS X. The reason why viruses do not proliferate on those systems is because they're not a particularly interesting attack target
  LOL you must be new to this "internet" thing or channeling 1995.
  
  because (specifically in case of Linux) they are typically run by competent users who don't run random binaries off the Net.... iOS, on the other hand, does not have viruses, because 1) all software comes from a trusted location with no way to circumvent this,
  The linux and ios situation are closer than you seem to think.
  I would guess than 99.999% of Debian installs have nothing but debian.org packages and perhaps a handful of nvidia drivers, multimedia repo files, and maybe some weird firmware files. All my "server" type boxes are 100% nothing but Debian packages, only my desktops and mythtv frontends have anything else.
  Make it impossible to circumvent, people get annoyed at the restriction, simply because it is a restriction, regardless if they intend to actually go beyond it. Make it really inclusive, easy to add, as open as possible, and inconvenient to avoid, and people are OK with it. Golden handcuffs, sorta.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
15. Re:Anti-Trust by gnasher719 · 2011-11-21 07:13 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Sandboxing on MacOS X 10.7 solves this quite reasonably. A sandboxed application can request access to all files _that the user opens_.
16. Re:Anti-Trust by gmuslera · 2011-11-21 07:13 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  In Linux you have a "default walled garden" that is your distribution and related repositories. You can jump out the garden, but is not so trivial for the casual user and gives time to think what they are really doing.
  Still, nothing forbids you to install a .rpm/.deb that as root do evil things in your own system, if you really try and accepts all warnings, root passwords questions and install the needed certificates. There is nothing foolproof if the fool is smart enough.
17. Re:Anti-Trust by afabbro · 2011-11-21 07:15 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Linux, for example, permits viruses to be written. So does OS X. The reason why viruses do not proliferate on those systems is because they're not a particularly interesting attack target
  LOL you must be new to this "internet" thing or channeling 1995.
  No, he's completely right. Windows is still 90%+ of the desktop usage and so is the most interesting target for that reason alone.
  The fact that it's also historically been an easier target is gravy.
  
  --
  Advice: on VPS providers
18. Re:Anti-Trust by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-11-21 07:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I would guess than 99.999% of Debian installs have nothing but debian.org packages and perhaps a handful of nvidia drivers, multimedia repo files, and maybe some weird firmware files. All my "server" type boxes are 100% nothing but Debian packages, only my desktops and mythtv frontends have anything else.
  That's because you're not in the "casual user" category. Any sane Linux user would use his distro's package repository first and foremost, and yes, this does reduce the risk of infection down to practically zero. But, so long as you can manually install a downloaded package - and in most Linux distros you can do so by e.g. downloading an .rpm/.deb file and clicking on it (and elevating) - you have to convince non-tech-savvy users that, no, "BARELY_LEGAL_THREESOME.rpm" or "Angry_Birds_2.deb" dropping into their mailbox is really not from some mysterious but benevolent stranger, and they shouldn't try to install it.
  In short, you need to make installing software not from repositories so hard that a casual user wouldn't know how to do so, and any instruction for him would be too complicated to be follow on a whim.
19. Re:Anti-Trust by Enderandrew · 2011-11-21 07:19 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  A large chunk of the enterprise sector uses Linux, as do a large chunk of web servers.
  There is a large and interesting attack target. Usually when they do find exploits for a LAMP stack, it is within PHP or Apache, and not the Linux kernel. So both parties are correct in that Linux does have vulnerabilities as well, but even when people are targeting Linux, it proves to be more secure on the whole than Windows.
  A big part of the problem is that Unix and Unix variants have been designed for security from the beginning. They've been designed to sandbox apps, and not run everything with full rights.
  Windows was designed for users to have admin rights from day 1. Even when Windows started to introduce UAC, they did so in a manner that just annoys most people into turning it off. And so many Windows applications need full rights (because of the Windows mindset that they always could before) that it is difficult to properly sandbox everything.
  Windows has made great strides in security over the past 10 years, but that doesn't make it a secure OS.
  
  --
  http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
20. Re:Anti-Trust by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-11-21 07:20 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Really? So servers running Linux aren't likely to contain information such as credit card details, usernames, passwords, emails...?
  A virus would be completely useless on a server, since, by very definition, it requires an infected executable to be run on the machine to infect that machine. And people don't run random software on the servers, Linux or not.
  (virus != exploit)
  
  I thought the proliferation of viruses on Windows is simply because most Windows user accounts are administrators. Imagine what would happen if all Linux users ran as root all the time.
  It is part of the problem on XP, yes.
  Users aren't administrators in Vista/7 - they're more like sudoers in Ubuntu, in that they default to normal user permissions, but can elevate by providing their own credentials. Still, the default is that the ability to write to any random binary on the system is not there. The problem is that casual users will happily elevate explicitly if it's easy and they're convinced that they're doing the right thing.
  Also, you don't need to elevate to create binaries in user-writable directories (i.e. %home%), or to infect binaries that are already there - e.g. Chrome installs itself there, and can be infected that way.
21. Re:Anti-Trust by Mathieu+Lu · 2011-11-21 07:24 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  When was the last active Linux virus released?
  To be fair.. under Linux you do have userspace exploits that allow you to gain root, and from there install a rootkit. They tend to be really obscur and get patched quickly, but they still exist.
  So an attacker usually needs to combine, for example, a Firefox/Libreoffice/PDF/Mail/PHP exploit, userspace exploit, then rootkit. And there are tons and tons of servers out there with old versions of PHP and Linux kernel. Most of the time people discover it only because they are exploited by spammers.
22. Re:Anti-Trust by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-11-21 07:27 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  A large chunk of the enterprise sector uses Linux, as do a large chunk of web servers.
  We were talking about viruses. Viruses are useless against servers, since virus, by definition, requires that the infected program is run on the attacked box. People don't usually run random programs on servers. Windows servers don't have a virus problem, either.
  
  A big part of the problem is that Unix and Unix variants have been designed for security from the beginning. They've been designed to sandbox apps, and not run everything with full rights.
  Most Linux distros don't sandbox apps - they still run with full user permissions, so any app has access to all user data of any other app. Proper sandboxing would be creating a separate set of permissions for every app that only lets it access and write data that it actually needs - as seen in Android or SELinux.
  Of course (as also seen in rooted Android), if your sandboxing has a "full privileges" option, and it only takes an explicit user approval to enable it, casual users will do so when an infected app asks for it. You basically can't trust the user on making that decision if you want security on a platform that's being used by non-tech-savvy users. That's precisely why there's all that heavy sandboxing with no opt-out on iOS.
  
  Windows was designed for users to have admin rights from day 1. Even when Windows started to introduce UAC, they did so in a manner that just annoys most people into turning it off. And so many Windows applications need full rights (because of the Windows mindset that they always could before) that it is difficult to properly sandbox everything.
  I've been using Vista since 2008, and Win7 since it came out. I have a lot of applications on my system, but none of them require full admin rights. This really is mostly in the past - it has been 5 years now that applications couldn't reasonably assume to have full admin lest they break the user, so anything that still does so is either old software that hasn't been updated in a long time, or some POS line-of-business app that's written to run on corporate PCs that all still have XP.
23. Re:Anti-Trust by jbolden · 2011-11-21 07:27 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Capability computing. You don't grant applications the rights of a user. Rather an application is granted the right to do X to thing Y. So getting access to a user's file doesn't mean access to all of them. Some other problem controls granting capabilities.
  As an aside the NT kernel 3.51 had an excellent capabilities and Windows still has it. Microsoft just never made their own software, including the shell / GUI work with it.
24. Re:Anti-Trust by Dahamma · 2011-11-21 07:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  He's right about the "typically run by competent users" (or in the case of embedded devices, typically built by competent engineers) but "interesting attack target"?
  Hackers and botnet owners would love to have access to the millions of always-on Linux servers (often in colos with huge bandwidth available) or the hundreds of millions of TVs, BD players, and (again, always-on) DVRs that run Linux.
25. Re:Anti-Trust by pixelpusher220 · 2011-11-21 07:33 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You're serious?
  
  Including a default browser is one thing. Compiling *your* browser into the innards of *your* OS tends to put the competition at a disadvantage. Not to mention opens your OS up to even more security hacks.
  
  If one could remove IE from Windows it would one thing, but you simply can't. It's baked in. Even if you remove the interface for it, the innards and all it's security issues still remain.
  
  --
  People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
26. Re:Anti-Trust by PGGreens · 2011-11-21 07:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  They already have one: Security Essentials, and it's actually pretty good. Well, for one, I doubt it's significantly worse than a commercial AV package, and two, it doesn't constantly pester me with upgrade or renewal offers/warning/persistent, annoying popups.
27. Re:Anti-Trust by Runaway1956 · 2011-11-21 07:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Personally, I don't care much about the user. I care about the system. I have no control over the user. He can delete every single file in his workspace, for all I care. He can download and run viruses intentionally, for all I care. My concern is, he doesn't compromise the system, the network, or his fellow workers. The user is responsible for his own stuff. Kinda like, the guys I work with are all responsible for their own tools, their own desks, their own housekeeping. I'm not vacuuming cookie crumbs out of their desks, but I'll make sure that the workspaces are locked after hours.
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
28. Re:Anti-Trust by devent · 2011-11-21 07:50 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The only reason why Linux don't have viruses "in the wild" is because it is extremely difficult to write viruses for Linux that can be run or installed without user interaction.
  Sure, I can get a virus for Linux if I go to virus.com, download and run the virus. But for Windows you can get a virus with different means. Like via Email attachment, autorun from a USB-stick, via remote access (in Windows XP I get virus only because I was online).
  In Linux you have explicitly tell the system to run the file. But on Windows everything with a .exe is run. Also, many programs are run automatically for the "convenience" of the user, like autorun USB or CDs. Windows still hides the file extension from the user, so if you have a file like porn.jpg.exe Windows will show you porn.jpg.
  Also it's very easy to get rid of a virus in Linux. Just delete the infected file and replace it with the original from the package manage. In Windows you can't even delete the file because it's still in use.
  Plus the whole-system update management of the Linux distributions. I can run my updates weekly and in the background and it will update the system and all of the applications.
  
  --
  http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
29. Re:Anti-Trust by Karlt1 · 2011-11-21 08:09 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yep. It goes pretty fast on systems that have it. The application requests access, and the user grants it.
  How did that work in Vista with UAC?
30. Re:Anti-Trust by tgd · 2011-11-21 08:12 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  So how do you "secure" an OS and still allow users to run whatever they want to?
  And before you say "don't run as administrator", any app that can run with the users privileges has access to all of the users data -- which is harder to replicate than system files.
  Take a look at the metro app APIs for one way.
  The system level APIs are so locked down in the metro app sandbox that a program like Acrobat, say, that says it reads PDF files literally can't even *see* that other files exist on the filesystem, much less open them.
  You can secure things by either locking down what users can do or locking down what the code itself can do. Win8 is taking strides in the latter direction, too.
31. Re:Anti-Trust by Dahamma · 2011-11-21 08:28 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Of course you can't prevent the user from intentionally or negligently infecting their own computer, just like you can't prevent them from smashing it with a sledgehammer.
  But with sandboxing you can leave it up to the runtime to tell the user what the app is trying to do, and what permissions it would like granted, so that at least there much less of a chance of being "tricked". If a runtime displays a clear dialog box that says "this application wants access to all files on your hard drive. This is a dangerous permission and should only be granted if it is highly trusted" and you allow it anyway without trusting the app, you get what you deserve...
32. Re:Anti-Trust by St.Creed · 2011-11-21 08:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Too true! Capability computing has for so long been neglected but it could solve many of the current security issues.
  For instance: I would love to grant any new app the following rights:
  - interact with my screen
  - interact with folder X and subfolders (read-only) in the program location
  - interact with folder X and subfolders (read-write) in the data location
  - interact with folder X in the registry (read-write)
  For games additional rights would be:
  - interact with my graphics card directly
  - interact with my soundcard directly
  Actually, there isn't a single reason why programs shouldn't be sandboxed like that as a default, and only getting additional rights when specifically requested and granted by the OS. Combine that with transparent redirects and most programs should run okay. Sandboxie (http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php) already does it so how hard would it be for the Windows engineer to incorporate something like that into the OS?
  
  --
  Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
33. Re:Anti-Trust by ILongForDarkness · 2011-11-21 09:08 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I think there is a fundamental flaw in the assumptions here though. You can't trust a package just because it happened to get added to Debian or Apples repositories. It does probably mean someone, probably a large number of someones and tools have been used to check the app which is a good thing. But you still shouldn't have to fully trust or fully not trust (by not downloading) an app. Just because I install Firefox doesn't mean I want it to be able to access everything I can on my computer. Apps should be installed in a sandbox and only allowed outside of the box when a user grants them access. That way for example the user can say "wait a minute why does Angry Birds want to access my email account?" Or "why is Google Desktop trying to send my data back to the mothership?" There is a lot of cool FOSS software out there I like to try, but it shouldn't mean that I'm giving bob@coolhacker.org "full trust" on my system because I want to see if his text editor is really as cool as it looks and more than I should be giving full trust to some random app that landed in a deb package on debian.org. The old rule: trust but verify holds.
34. Re:Anti-Trust by kesuki · 2011-11-21 09:30 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  some of those features have been there since windows nt, not the full sandbox treatment but it's not like windows doesn't have those sort of features.
  
  --
  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
35. Re:Anti-Trust by hairyfeet · 2011-11-21 09:52 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  But you seem to be missing the fundamental problem mcgrew, which is this: How do you protect the user from themselves without forcing them into an Apple style walled garden where nothing that isn't corporate approved is allowed to run? Because if given the choice i'll take dealing with AV over a walled garden, thanks ever so.
  As a guy that builds and fixes Windows every damned day I can tell you EXACTLY where the bugs are coming from, and the vast majority? INSTALLED BY THE USER. Do you think Linux would be safe from a user that would happily run anything they got from an email, complete with putting in their password and chmodding whatever the attacker told them to? of course not. here is the list of the most popular bugs i've seen this month along with the way they got in. you tell me where MSFT could have stopped any of them.
  1.-Security tool and AV 20xx variants. These get in with a classic social engineering "ZOMG U Got Teh Viruz! Run "Is_Not_Viruz_iz_Cleanerz.exe" to kill the viruz ZOMG!" 2.- Porn codec malware. Infection source? Horny users. Uses this trick "U want teh hot lezbo teenz? We GOT teh hot lezbo teen right now! Just run "Iz_not_viruz_Iz_codec.exe' to see teh hot lezbo teenz right now!" 3.- social site malware. Infection source? again social engineering "Hey its me! I found this great new site! Just click here to load "Iz_Not_Malware_Site_Iz_cool.html" right now!"
  Now in NOT A SINGLE CASE were they exploiting anything but the USER and any of these attacks could just as easily work on Mac (DNSChanger and MacDefender) or Linux (KDELook malware and infected Q3 game) by simply getting the user to go where the attacker wanted or run what the attacker wanted run. Now does this mean MSFT hasn't done dumbshit? Oh Lord No! Whomever thought XP should run as admin by default should have been publicly flogged! and IE 6 was an abomination that has made me hate IE so much to this day I refuse to allow it on a single machine I touch! I toss the links and give them both Firefox and Comodo Dragon with ABP and tell them to stay the fuck away from IE!
  But XP is two and soon to be 3 versions out of date so no point in even bringing it up, hell if it weren't for contracts with corps and government they would have already taken it out back and put it down. And since Vista MSFT has been pretty damned good about using best practices, running the users without being admins, DEP and ASLR, having low rights mode (Which neither Linux nor Mac have yet) so that drivebys are that much harder to accomplish...but in the end it all comes down to freedom. If you allow the user control over their own machine that means they have the power to fuck it up, full stop. the ONLY way I've seen that could possibly remove that vector is walled gardens and personally i don't think the loss of freedom is worth the security that an app store brings, do you?
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
36. Re:Anti-Trust by Anthony+Mouse · 2011-11-21 13:21 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  So how do you make a file compression program that uses a Sandbox?
  Imagine gzip without the ability to read or write to the filesystem. It's still just as useful: you just type 'gzip -c file.gz' and your file gets compressed, and if gzip is broken it can't do anything other than compress the file wrong. And there is no reason why a GUI application can't be designed to work in an analogous way.
  It does mean that the world of Windows software development would look a lot different. A zip program doesn't need its own UI. All it needs is to provide an algorithm to the OS and a hook that tells the US it can put it in the 'things you can do to a file' menu. Then the zip program never gets access to the file system, the OS just feeds it data to compress on stdin and takes the compressed data from stdout.
Argh. by CannonballHead · 2011-11-21 06:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

So making an OS more secure (I know, they could get rid of security holes... but...) is also monopolistic?
To me, this is kinda like saying IrfanView should sue because MS includes Paint or Picture Viewer or whatever they include.
IE was a bit trickier, because they did their own thing with HTML and stuff and you HAD to use IE in order to view some stuff, so it was a bit nastier. But a virus detector? What are they going to do, write viruses that only their software can find... but then they wouldn't work on other OSes... so it wouldn't be much of a lock-in.
1. Re:Argh. by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-21 06:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  To me, this is kinda like saying IrfanView should sue because MS includes Paint or Picture Viewer or whatever they include.
  I would see a main difference is that you normally can't run 2 different AV software packages at the same time. It brings the machine to a screeching halt as they fight each other (and they run always in the background). Having Paint or Picture Viewer doesn't hinder IrfanView from working right. Now if MS made it easy enough to turn off their AV so you could use another package, I don't have issues with it.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Perspectives by 4pins · 2011-11-21 06:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

The capitalist in me screams, "Anti-competitive!"
The IT guy in me exclaims, "It is about time."
The consumer in worries, "How will this impact performance?"

--
I will not mourn that which I never had to lose. - Unknown
1. Re:Perspectives by redmid17 · 2011-11-21 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The capitalist in me screams, "Anti-competitive!"
  The IT guy in me exclaims, "It is about time."
  The consumer in worries, "How will this impact performance?"
  Did you have the same worries when MS put a firewall in XP with Service Pack 2 in 2004?
2. Re:Perspectives by jd2112 · 2011-11-21 07:01 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The capitalist in me screams, "Anti-competitive!"
  The IT guy in me exclaims, "It is about time."
  The consumer in worries, "How will this impact performance?"
  Microsoft AV is among the lest resource intensive AV programs I have seen.
  
  --
  Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
3. Re:Perspectives by DigiShaman · 2011-11-21 07:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The capitalist in you screams? Well in that case, the automotive industry should make V8 engines standard and bring the MPG back down to 12. To do otherwise would be anti-competitive to the Big Oil. Face it. the AV industry has been thriving in a market that should (in theory) never have existed in the first place. Vertical markets are often short lived and come with extreme risk. Tough titties, not my problem.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
4. Re:Perspectives by RobinEggs · 2011-11-21 07:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The capitalist in me screams, "Anti-competitive!"
  
  You do realize that all businesses successful under capitalism engage in anti-competitive behavior, right? It's called competing, ironically enough. You compete by beating down other competitors, and if you actually care at all about profits and/or actually believe you have the best product you hope you beat them dead.
  
  I personally think the only capitalist system which won't be anti-competitive in practice and eventually miserable for the general public is one so heavily regulated it occasionally teeters on the brink of socialism. I'm also not averse to actual socialism, but I think pure capitalism was a cruel, inhumane fiction from the beginning (and now that I've said that this comment will be modded down into the depths of -1 troll/flamebait/'overrated').
  
  You can believe in the benefits of more than one of the fundamental economic systems at once. I promise you won't die. You can even mix them together; it's usually even better that way. It's like a tasty, tasty swirl cone with both chocolate AND vanilla!
5. Re:Perspectives by tokul · 2011-11-21 07:18 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Microsoft AV is among the lest resource intensive AV programs I have seen.
  only snake oil uses less resources.
6. Re:Perspectives by DesScorp · 2011-11-21 07:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Microsoft AV is among the lest resource intensive AV programs I have seen.
  Ditto. The only AV program I've seen that tends to be eat less memory and CPU is F-prot. Even AVG is more resource intensive than MSE now. And don't get me started on Norton or McAffee.
  
  --
  Life is hard, and the world is cruel
7. Re:Perspectives by Enderandrew · 2011-11-21 07:24 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The reason I started using it on Windows desktops is I saw a fairly comprehensive review of 19 different popular anti-virus products.
  Security Essentials had the second lowest footprint, and the second best detection engine. And given the price (free and doesn't harass you to upgrade to a paid product) and I think it is hands down the best solution for the average user.
  You can blast Microsoft for a lot of products, but Security Essentials is pretty solid.
  
  --
  http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
8. Re:Perspectives by JGuru42 · 2011-11-21 10:32 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I started using MSE because of a story here on Slashdot talking about a review of a large number of antivirus products and I was amazed to see people on Slashdot putting their trust in a Microsoft product.
  I've been a hater of Microsoft for a long time now thanks to all the anti-competitive and backstabbing stories I've heard but also because of using their various products. And yet now that I've been using MSE I've turned a corner and started to recommend it to friends and family.
  I casually help fix computers for people that know me, sometimes going so far as to do it all over the phone when someone lives too far to visit. At first I tended to browse through their machine looking for the troublemakers and then after finding everything I could I would install and run MSE only to watch it detect and clean 100% of the things I had found and even some I had not, like a trojan hiding in the MBR. I've watched it catch different varieties of the TDSS rootkits, clean up all manner of other nasties and only once have I seen it make a mistake, with Chrome being reported as a virus. Yet, even with that flaw Microsoft had detected the issue and it was on the "More Information" page and had been fixed later that night. Since then I've come to trust MSE to do it's job well and I've started to run it first then clean up afterwords and it hasn't let me down yet.
  If Microsoft wants to provide a built in antivirus with Win8 but allows it to be disabled to run other things, just like Windows Firewall, then I am all for it. I would do almost anything to keep people from installing the nightmares that are Norton & McAffee (and these days sadly Zone Alarm Antivirus). I've watched both those powerhouse antivirus programs completely miss fake antivirus programs that sneak through Facebook and in Nortons case it turned a simple "Safe Mode/Delete/Remove Registry Startup Command" into a three day slog that only worked when I finally got mad an uninstalled Norton from the machine.
  Microsoft might still make some majorly boneheaded decisions but providing a built in antivirus does not seem to be one of them.
Good for consistency; bad because of consistency by show+me+altoids · 2011-11-21 06:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

I think this would be a great idea as long as MS keeps it well updated and people don't rely just on it. It would immediately improve the security of the PCs of all the people who don't bother with antivirus, but it may lull others into a false sense of security and give them an incentive to not get any other antivirus which would put a target for virus writers squarely on MS's solution.

--
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
Depends on if it can be turned off and if its good by Kenja · 2011-11-21 06:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

If I somehow end up with a Windows 8 machine, I will continue to use F-Prot or Command anti-virus no mater what is bundled. Microsoft including their own anti-virus software will not compete with such products, it may however be the end of McAfee and Norton. But I honestly think the world is better off without them.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Monopoly by im_thatoneguy · 2011-11-21 06:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

Why on earth would Microsoft want to put the AV competition out of business? It only costs them money.
It's neither boon nor monopoly, it's acknowledging a begrudging reality that no matter how secure your OS you need AV on top and you can't rely on your users to purchase it.
I'm sure Microsoft would be more than happy for everyone to run Norton and save the development expense but... that would be like requiring your customers to buy hamburger bun separately.
1. Re:Monopoly by Tridus · 2011-11-21 07:01 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That, and Norton slows down and generally screws up Windows so much that it makes Microsoft look bad. I've never found a problem that couldn't be fixed with "uninstall Norton", because the damn thing is worse then most of the viruses it supposidly stops.
  The user experience matters. Microsoft limited what sound drivers could do in kernel space years ago for the same reason - Creative's drivers were so bad that they made Windows as a whole look bad.
  
  --
  -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Bill was right by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-21 06:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

Bill Gates was right. Microsoft had every right to add whatever features and applications it wanted to its OSes. Look at Chrome OS, Android, Mac OS X, iOS. All have browsers and other applications "built-in". In fact, Chrome OS doesn't even allow you to use an alternate browser, while Windows always allowed this. Adding non-intrusive and automatic antivirus to Windows 8 is a step forward.
Re:what are the odds that their virus scanner work by ByOhTek · 2011-11-21 06:48 · Score: 3, Informative

Actually, from all I've heard, Microsoft's virus scanner for earlier versions of windows, works pretty darn well, comparable with the better commercial products.
So, given that they are probably going to bundle an update of this... I'd have to say from prior experience, the odds of your guess being accurate are as close to zero as I can imagine.

--
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
The Technologist Perspective by hellfire · 2011-11-21 06:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

The Technologist in me screams: "Spend more time making your OS secure and less time trying to band-aid it with virus protection!"

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"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Dam(n) by clinko · 2011-11-21 06:59 · Score: 3, Funny

"Dam company to provide leak protection in future dams. Dam contractors angry."
Re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic by itsdapead · 2011-11-21 07:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

Is this a good move by Microsoft, or a leveraging of their monopoly as bad as bundling Internet Explorer?"
If the authorities feel they should "do something" about the MS monopoly then they should force them to spin off MS Office and other business apps as a separate business, look deeply into how their Windows licensing deals with OEMs work, and require open standards for all Government contracts. Without that, arguing over whether they can bundle minor utility "x" is just inconsequential.
Modern operating systems are expected to include a pretty comprehensive suite of utilities, protocol stacks and basic applications. Monopoly or no, its getting a bit silly if OS X, iOS, Android, and the major Linux distros can bundle a web browser (or, more specifically have HTTP and HTML APIs in their OS) but Windows can't.

--
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Antiviruses are like unofficial patches by Hentes · 2011-11-21 07:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

Security should not be handled by a third-party program, and equipping Windows with a builtin AV is a step in the right direction. Banning it because of antitrust claims would be ridiculous, but only a minor annoyance, those who want could still get it.
Re:Which is more secure? by Tridus · 2011-11-21 07:32 · Score: 3, Informative

Consideirng how those third party AV vendors were complaining back in 2006 about how MS was putting in protection against patching the kernel into Vista, I don't really think I can take what they have to say seriously.
They're not in the security business, they're in the "sell people bloatware based on fear" business.

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-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Anti-competitive? by euxneks · 2011-11-21 07:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

How the hell is making your OS behave the way your customers expect anti-competitive?
What if MS made their OS inherently secure, such that it didn't need AV? Would that also make it anti-competitive? That would completely eliminate the AV software companies!
Ridiculous...

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in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
I have ragged on Microsoft here before... by bmo · 2011-11-21 07:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

But the sooner the anti-malware "ecosystem" disappears the better.
You should not have to purchase third party software to keep an operating system secure or from eating itself (all the snake-oil "registry cleaners" and "application uninstallers"). Such functions should be part of the OS at worst, or better yet, unnecessary.
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BMO