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Kaspersky Lab Files Complaint Against Microsoft for Giving Unfair Advantage To Windows Defender (myce.com)
Russian antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab has asked antitrust regulators in various countries (including the European Union and Russia) to make Microsoft stop giving an unfair advantage to Windows Defender, Eugene Kasperky wrote in a blog post. From a report on Myce: Microsoft is making it hard for independent anti-virus vendors to compete with Windows Defender, Microsoft's own antivirus application built-in to Windows 8 and Windows 10, according to founder of Kaspersky Lab, Eugene Kaspersky. For example, when users upgraded to Windows 10, their own antivirus product was disabled and Windows Defender was enabled by default. Another showcase of Microsoft's way of making it harder to compete is that antivirus companies only received a week to make their antivirus software compatible with Windows 10. And even when the antivirus software was compatible, Windows Defender would be enabled nevertheless.You can read Eugene's blog post here.
Microsoft is making it hard for independent virus vendors
If Microsoft made an OS that was functionally immune to viruses would it still be unfair?
"antivirus companies only received a week to make their antivirus software compatible with Windows 10."
This sounds like a gross over-simplification. The article itself says that Defender was included with Windows 8, which internally isn't all that different from Windows 10. Getting their software approved for the Windows Store in a short time frame sounds more likely.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
The reason that Windows 10 disables older Anti-Virus software when upgrading is that the older Anti-Virus software is incompatible with 10 and can cause the system to crash if you continue to use it. Rather than give the user no anti-virus protection at all, they enable Defender and notify the user with a system tray pop-up that their old Anti-Virus software needs to be upgraded before it will work.
There really isn't anything sinister going on here.
It has come to my attention that you feel the bundling of Microsoft's defender product is bad for your business.
While I agree that bundling is a nefarious action, I also would like to point out the serious inferiority of your (ahem) "similarly priced" (ahem) products, when compared to the bundled product.
Even if the defender product was not bundled with windows, I find it very likely that users would prefer it over your advertisment laden, system resource hogging, nagscreen insistent offering of similar price. In comparison, windows defender consumes significantly fewer resources, wastes far fewer manhours of development on elaborate eye candy on an app that users would prefer did not have to be there in the first place, but simply need because of fuckwits who want to abuse the shit out of their computers when they arent looking-- and quite frankly, does not constantly demand money out of them every 6 months.
Perhaps if you offered a superior product, people would rush to install it?
Just a thought.
Anybody else remember about 25 years ago when MS got slapped down for including an A/V component with DOS 6?
Exactly. Antivirus software treads so close to "cure is worse than the disease" territory, and they need to face up to it.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Why not just make Kaspersky automatically reinstall on a windows upgrade? It's not like windows startup entries are removed in an upgrade.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Dear AV makers,
May I bring to your attention that your "business" depend of the "flaws" of another product? This basically mean that you're trying to sue MS for fixing their OS.
Be grateful your business lasted as long as it did.
Elok
From a customer perspective, windows defender has been a blessing.
Giving 2 decades of virus tools that mostly seem to exist to nag you, rip your money, open extra security holes, slow you system to a halt or just crash it, lock files for read or write access, advertise other products, block installs of valid and mainstream software, causes compatibility issues and nag you more, leading to a situation where the only viable alternative for a (not even) power-user would be running the open-source clamav on-demand scan.
Windows defender was there, and i never looked back. I just made sure it was installed on all friends&family-owned windows PC's. It reduced calls for help by a number close to 100%. Where possible, i suggested to run Linux or a chromebook. The only issue with windows defender is that it is -yet- another monoculture, but so far it done its job just fine.
And now Kaspersky labs, the guys that couldn't even bother to make an affordable deal, or offer a free version, who crippled their online scan and live cd's over the years, the guys that are charging a premium subscription for a home user costing way more than the OS license itself, are what? They are/were respectable as virus-hunters. Yet, apparently they failed to make a business model that attract enough users simply by only offering overpriced stuff and crippling their products. Make me an offer i can't resist - like a high performance scanner charging no more than $5 / year payable by any payment method i see fit, and we talk again. Until that day, look in the mirror when complaining.
Let's be honest, Kaspersky Anti-Virus engine is white-listing some selected Russian malware and trojans. Capable of DDoS and remot access. MS is just protecting its users.
While I agree that bundling is a nefarious action, I also would like to point out the serious inferiority of your (ahem) "similarly priced" (ahem) products, when compared to the bundled product.
Even if the defender product was not bundled with windows, I find it very likely that users would prefer it
Actually, Kaspersky Lab makes some of the highest rated AV tools. Windows Defender is far less effective. You don't take my word for it either.
over your advertisment laden, system resource hogging, nagscreen insistent offering of similar price.
If you don't like the ads, just fork over some money. If you don't like paying money for software then you shouldn't be using Windows.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I am a customer of Kaspersky Endpoint Security (the antivirus version for business). For the past 3 years, Kaspersky has never had an antivirus product compatible for the latest Windows version upon release. Windows 10 correctly disabled Kaspersky upon install. I don't know if the claim about disabling even compatible versions is true.
They never even had betas before release. We had to wait nearly a year for a compatible version with Windows 8.1 and several months for Windows 10.
In my opinion, they seem understaffed
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Then stop using Windows.
I guess clown attack season is over and you've come here instead.
Anyway there's no need to stop using Windows and no need to pay for all software since Windows defender is there which is the case, scenario and why it's used. It's free and make Windows somewhat more secure.