Microsoft to give away anti-virus

**The News Bot** · 13-06-2009, 7:05 AM

Microsoft is close to releasing free software that protects PC users against malicious programs.
More...

England100 · 13-06-2009, 9:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The News Bot

Microsoft is close to releasing free software that protects PC users against malicious programs.
More...

As the company that developed a system that could be affected by viruses it's the least they could do,

fortean · 14-06-2009, 10:39 AM

I wonder how long it will take the EU to ban this as anti-competetive practice.

VinnyP! · 14-06-2009, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by England100

As the company that developed a system that could be affected by viruses it's the least they could do,

Viruses were around long before microsoft.

I'd love to see the system that can't be affected by viruses. In truth Vista for all it's faults is probably more secure than Linux or Apple OS out of the box. Unfortunately for windos users the volume makes them a far more attractive target for malware. It's odd that the unpopularity of Vista has led to more virii for open source and Apple.

*rovex33* · 14-06-2009, 12:11 PM

This is good and i think a perfectly valid thing to do. Oh and MacOS is starting to get attacked quite a lot now, there are some very nasty worms for MacOS, but Apple is still in denial about it. MacOS is not that secure.

dannius · 14-06-2009, 5:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fortean

I wonder how long it will take the EU to ban this as anti-competetive practice.

quite.

Samiri · 14-06-2009, 6:34 PM

Probably still better off getting branded AV

MikeTV · 15-06-2009, 1:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VinnyP!

Viruses were around long before microsoft.

Well, only the biological variety. The first computer virus was around 1980, and MS was founded in 1975.

Just call me Mr Pendant.

fortean · 15-06-2009, 8:15 AM

Perhaps Microsoft intend to stop fixing holes in the OS in future and instead rely on cleaning up after infection or catching stuff as it arrives.

It would probably make more sense to do it this way round.

Alty08 · 15-06-2009, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The News Bot

Microsoft is close to releasing free software that protects PC users against malicious programs.
More...

All they need now is something to protect your computer against ;MS software.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rovex33

This is good and i think a perfectly valid thing to do. Oh and MacOS is starting to get attacked quite a lot now, there are some very nasty worms for MacOS, but Apple is still in denial about it. MacOS is not that secure.

Mmmm, we`ve used Macs since 96 and never once had anything `nasty` on ours, and never used any anti-virus SW, hands up who has?

No system is secure but please tell me what there is 'in the wild' that will infect my Mac (without user intervention) and just to clarify, a `worm` isn`t a virus, so slightly OT but bringing Macs into the thread is anyway so....bfn.

*rovex33* · 15-06-2009, 10:49 AM

Recent examples...

BBC NEWS | Technology | Experts warn of porn Mac attacks

Windows is still he best PC OS as a package, nothing in MacOS, which i use daily, suggests otherwise. Anyway..

It should be noted that ive never had a Virus, Worm or trojan on Windows. Microsoft already has Windows defender, wrongly considered rubbish by the usual microsoft haters. Its actually very good, based on Giant spyware remover. It finds less problems than Spybot S&D or Ad-Aware, but thats because both of those produce fake results when there are no issues and wrongly label many tracker cookies as spyware.