Kaspersky Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft Over Windows 10 Antivirus Approach

[Lucian Armasu]

Kaspersky filed an antitrust complained against Microsoft with both the European Union and the German Federal Cartel Office. The antivirus company believes that Microsoft has used questionable tactics to hurt third-party antivirus products.

Kaspersky Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft Over Windows 10 Antivirus Approach : Read more

 

[valeman2012]

Sooo the issue is about a button....

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I use Kaspersky on a couple of my machines and noticed this issue , happens with Malwarebytes 3.0 too.

 

[greenmachineiijh]

I also experienced this. I have Kaspersky and a couple weeks ago I saw the Microsoft warning pop up that I was not secure. IT WILL NOT GO AWAY UNLESS YOU ENABLE WINDOWS ANTIVIRUS TOO. Now I have both running in the background so I don't see the warnings any more. NICE...

I was wondering why since Kaspersky has always integrated with Windows and the warnings about security were always removed once it was installed. Windows was "smart" in that regard. So this is not JUST "about a button". It is about changing behavior, falsely reporting statistics and warnings and FORCING the user to enable its own service even if it is not wanted or needed so that Microsoft can get the upper hand.

 

[fmaxwell]

Kaspersky is just whining because they see their revenue stream drying up. Kaspersky wants Microsoft to pop up a message at boot time that says "Kaspersky anti-virus not installed!" with two buttons: "Install Kaspersky AV" and "Shutdown".

 

[SockPuppet]

"It is about changing behavior, falsely reporting statistics and warnings and FORCING the user to enable its own service even if it is not wanted or needed so that Microsoft can get the upper hand."

The "upper hand" at what, exactly? Having to provide ongoing support for free in perpetuity?

 

[derekullo]

"Malware creators would love that to happen because it would be much easier and much more tempting to target a single security solution on which over a billion computers rely."

Sadfully, billions, or at least 100s of millions, of PC's already rely on Windows Defender as their only security solution due to Window's heavy handed approach to baking it into Windows 7/8/10 combined with the laziness and or ignorance of getting even a 3rd party free antivirus. (Heavy-handed makes it sound like I dislike it. Free always there antivirus is greatly appreciated and is a great step toward everyone having at least a basic level of protection.)

Malware creators need only target the top 4 anti-virus software in market share to reach the majority of users, that even use anti-virus, not including Defender.

https://www.metadefender.com/reports/anti-malware-market-share#!/

Avast, Eset (Nod32), McAfee, Avira

If your Kaspersky subscription expires and leaves you with no protection then I fully support Windows automatically disabling, not uninstalling, Kaspersky and allowing Defender to take over.
Weak anti-virus is better than no anti-virus.

If upgrading to Windows 10 breaks your antivirus then Windows is doing you a favor by saying "it won't work I'm uninstalling it" versus letting you use an antivirus that may not even work.
Now you can reinstall the antivirus along with the rest of your programs the upgrade broke.
I recommend doing a fresh reinstall of Windows 10 rather than upgrading 7 or 8.

"Afterwards, Microsoft replaces the Kaspersky antivirus with its own Windows Defender. Microsoft only seems to give users a warning, in passing and in a less readable font, that the Kaspersky antivirus was disabled in the upgrade process."

Even with Tom's low rez picture I can still read: "Renew your subscription to Kaspersky Internet Security to protect your PC. We turned on Windows Defender for the meantime"

Seems clear enough what I should do.

Do users want a cartoon showing Kaspersky dying with the only way to revive him being to take a Reinstall Pill?

 

[bloodroses]

I've ran into similar issues with the free version of Panda that I'm using as well.

The biggest issue is they're pulling the same thing they did back in the Windows 95 days when Internet Explorer was first integrated to the OS and continuously tried to force itself as the default browser. Microsoft got sued over it and lost. The same will probably happen here.

 

[MaCk0y]

This reminds me. What happened to the Web Browser choice list? Was it with Vista or 7? It has been some time now.

 

[IceMyth]

The problem with MS is that, they are trying :1) to push everything to go through their store; 2) or force users to switch to their services to MS that maybe free now but later it wont by making things harder for 3rd party programs.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I also experienced this. I have Kaspersky and a couple weeks ago I saw the Microsoft warning pop up that I was not secure. IT WILL NOT GO AWAY UNLESS YOU ENABLE WINDOWS ANTIVIRUS TOO. Now I have both running in the background so I don't see the warnings any more. NICE...

I was wondering why since Kaspersky has always integrated with Windows and the warnings about security were always removed once it was installed. Windows was "smart" in that regard. So this is not JUST "about a button". It is about changing behavior, falsely reporting statistics and warnings and FORCING the user to enable its own service even if it is not wanted or needed so that Microsoft can get the upper hand.

What upper hand? Let me ask you this, does it cost Microsoft more to put out patches for Defender or to help people for hours and hours trying to get their system back up and running?

Honestly all I see is Microsoft trying to help protect their customer base.

"Malware creators would love that to happen because it would be much easier and much more tempting to target a single security solution on which over a billion computers rely."

Sadfully, billions, or at least 100s of millions, of PC's already rely on Windows Defender as their only security solution due to Window's heavy handed approach to baking it into Windows 7/8/10 combined with the laziness and or ignorance of getting even a 3rd party free antivirus. (Heavy-handed makes it sound like I dislike it. Free always there antivirus is greatly appreciated and is a great step toward everyone having at least a basic level of protection.)

Malware creators need only target the top 4 anti-virus software in market share to reach the majority of users, that even use anti-virus, not including Defender.

https://www.metadefender.com/reports/anti-malware-market-share#!/

Avast, Eset (Nod32), McAfee, Avira

If your Kaspersky subscription expires and leaves you with no protection then I fully support Windows automatically disabling, not uninstalling, Kaspersky and allowing Defender to take over.
Weak anti-virus is better than no anti-virus.

If upgrading to Windows 10 breaks your antivirus then Windows is doing you a favor by saying "it won't work I'm uninstalling it" versus letting you use an antivirus that may not even work.
Now you can reinstall the antivirus along with the rest of your programs the upgrade broke.
I recommend doing a fresh reinstall of Windows 10 rather than upgrading 7 or 8.

"Afterwards, Microsoft replaces the Kaspersky antivirus with its own Windows Defender. Microsoft only seems to give users a warning, in passing and in a less readable font, that the Kaspersky antivirus was disabled in the upgrade process."

Even with Tom's low rez picture I can still read: "Renew your subscription to Kaspersky Internet Security to protect your PC. We turned on Windows Defender for the meantime"

Seems clear enough what I should do.

Do users want a cartoon showing Kaspersky dying with the only way to revive him being to take a Reinstall Pill?

I mean that is the only true way to portray it. Maybe have Clippy standing over Kasperky with a knife....

This reminds me. What happened to the Web Browser choice list? Was it with Vista or 7? It has been some time now.

Was in Europe only and as far as I remember it affected 7 and newer, as at the time Vista was still an after though.

I am still waiting for Europe to make Apple, Google and Linux do the same with their OSes.

The problem with MS is that, they are trying :1) to push everything to go through their store; 2) or force users to switch to their services to MS that maybe free now but later it wont by making things harder for 3rd party programs.

1. They are pushing the store but I have yet to see anything be restricted only to it. Google and Apple do the same, although MacOS is more open yet on Android apps can be removed (censored) if they do not meet the standards.

2. I have yet to see Microsoft force anything. Would you rather your PC have the tools to protect you in case something else can't or no? Has there been one program that Microsoft has not allowed you or someone to use short of compatibility issues? As in you know the program works but Microsoft said no?

I have yet to.

We have no issues with 10 and ESET yet at work. Every system with it on and any version of 10, Defender is fine as is the security center. Well to be fair our security center is alerted only because we turn off the Windows firewall as we have a hardware one, but the AV has no issues.

 

[Martell1977]

I find it interesting the way people are talking like Kap is the only AV out there and MS is trying to knock them out. When I upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 with TrendMicro Titanium, I had no issue with it. Then again, I keep my AV software on the latest version and it was for 7/8/8.1/10.

MS has nothing to gain by forcing Kap out and it seems like more a failure of Kap by not helping people keep up to date. When a new version of my AV comes out, Trend has a pop-up that offers me the new version. If people were keeping up to date, there is no reason it should be incompatible after the upgrade. Again, it sounds like a failure of Kap as I don't see a bunch of others complaining.

I have no issue with Defender turning on while people sort out the AV issue. At least it's something. Makes you wonder how many people have Kap because it came on the computer and they were too lazy to change it or uninformed that there are better products available.

 

[sykozis]

I've upgraded systems running Kaspersky, BitDefender, Panda and McAfee. Kaspersky is the only one I had any issue with. I currently use McAfee, Windows Defender and Sophos.... McAfee has it's own popup that appears when subscriptions have expired and doesn't use the Action Center. If McAfee can do it, so can Kaspersky.

Seems to me that Kaspersky is crying about nothing.

If anyone at Kaspersky actually paid attention to what that "Turn On" button actually does, they'd find out it does nothing with a proper antivirus installed. Worse case, you turn on "Limited Periodic Scanning". I've never seen it disable a 3rd party antivirus. I don't understand this idiotic idea that an additional line of defense is bad....

 

[Dantte]

I find it interesting the way people are talking like Kap is the only AV out there and MS is trying to knock them out. When I upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 with TrendMicro Titanium, I had no issue with it. Then again, I keep my AV software on the latest version and it was for 7/8/8.1/10.

MS has nothing to gain by forcing Kap out and it seems like more a failure of Kap by not helping people keep up to date. When a new version of my AV comes out, Trend has a pop-up that offers me the new version. If people were keeping up to date, there is no reason it should be incompatible after the upgrade. Again, it sounds like a failure of Kap as I don't see a bunch of others complaining.

I have no issue with Defender turning on while people sort out the AV issue. At least it's something. Makes you wonder how many people have Kap because it came on the computer and they were too lazy to change it or uninformed that there are better products available.

The level of ignorance is off the charts here! For your last part "there are better products available.", there are more POPULAR products available, but Kaspersky is regarded as one, if not the BEST, AV software available!

I've never had a problem until the creators update. Windows now has a popup in the action center alerting me that my computer "may not have the best possible protection" and I should turn on defender; right below that it says "You're using other antivirus providers." Also in the action center it says "Your firewalls are turned off, your device may be vulnerable", but when i goto the windows firewall manager it says "These settings are being managed by vendor application Kaspersky Internet Security".

Being that I deal with this everyday, a little investigation confirms that Kaspersky is running normally and this is a WINDOWS issue. I have also tested with Avast, and the same result happens, only after the creators update is applied. Basically the action center is attempting to "trick" you into believing that your 3rd party AV software is either inferior or not running so you turn on and use MS services.

Running 2 or more AV software programs at a time can cause conflicts with your PC and create false positives. Over time these false positives from multiple AV softwares conflicting will corrupt system files and prevent your computer from working. So no, turning on defender while you have another software running is not "better"!

 

[alextheblue]

Lucian the whole "developer testing time" thing is highly suspect. You don't think Kaspersky had access to Windows 10 previews for a LONG time prior to the official RTM release? Yeah... OK. I'm totally convinced they didn't have access to a preview for several months. Not.

Also to compare game compatibility to antivirus compatibility is pretty irresponsible. Yes, old software that isn't maintained can break between major OS revisions. But to imply that something like a game that may or may not run properly is the same as an incompatible AV program that could trash your system and runs at boot time? Not even close.

Either way, compatibility issues with old unsupported software is NOT going to stop developers from making new software, and there are often solutions/workarounds. If devs were actually concerned they'd patch their old software.

 

[OldStabby]

KGB anti-virus, seems like a oxymoron.

 

[sosofm]

Windows 10 is a malware OS. That's why i still use Windows 7.

 

[Guest]

Windows 10 is a malware / spyware OS therefore the best protection from it is to run Windows 7 and that's what i do.

 

[KuroHouou]

The problem is these Antivirus companies end up trying to tie in deeply to the core code of Windows in order to "protect" your system, but in turn their bugs have software and become an attack vector as well. Not to mention those vendors start to get access to all your data this way. Nothing like a Russian company having deep roots into your OS.. Honestly what Microsoft is doing is perfectly fine imo. I haven't had a virus on my system since Windows Defender came out years ago. They keep my OS safe, just like they should, they created this OS. All the Anti Virus companies can go way and keep their bug ridden and security flawed software away for all I care! Everyone is better off since MS implemented Windows Defender.

 

[KuroHouou]

Personally all of these Anti Virus companies have only shown they lack the security principles at a bases for protecting users machines and keeping data safe. You look at companies that have installed root certificates in order to "protect" your data, yet now they have access to all of it themselves. And if their software is compromised, guess what now someone else has access. I trust MS with the security of their OS more then anyone else. Ever since Windows Defender came out I have had 0 viruses, I remember back in the days before MS released this having to reformat my computer at least once a year. My parents computers were even worse! I think two things made Windows more secure, one Chrome (Not using IE anymore) and two, Windows Defender. MS is doing everyone a service by securing their OS, I would expect nothing less and they have done nothing wrong IMO. These "security" companies are just upset they are now useless. Like the horse and cart.

 

[sykozis]

A proper anti-malware solution, i.e., software that does not try to "secure" everything on the system, is a better option than nothing at all. It's already been proven that these "internet security suites" actually cause more security problems than they solve. Most interfere with the security functions built into "modern" web-browsers. Even Google recommends using Windows Defender, specifically because it doesn't cause additional security holes for no reason. It doesn't interfere with the security mechanisms built into Chrome, Firefox, IE/Edge, Opera, etc.... It allows the browser to be as secure as it's developer coded it to be. Google Chrome is a browser that comes with spyware baked in, but at least Google attempts to make sure that they're the only ones getting the data that Chrome is collecting. Most 3rd party "internet security" suites make it easier for others besides Google to acquire the data that Chrome is collecting and transmitting....

 

[Dantte]

Goto https://www.av-test.org for comparisons of software, this is your best resource for any and all info related to AVs and malware.

As far as security goes, MS Defender got a 98.8%, Kaspersky has ALWAYS been 100%. This is close enough to ignore the question of "who's product is more secure..."

BUT, when you compare the system resources each piece of software uses, MS Defender is a hog and a PC takes a massive performance hit of upto 50% in some instances with most other categories in double digits (37% and 29%); while Kaspersky only maxes out at 23% in the same 50% category as Defender and with most others in single digits (2% and 8% respectively). This alone should be alarming enough to disable MS Defender and get a 3rd party solution; how can an embedded program tax a system at this level while at the same time providing LESS security?

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

One time, I thought I would have to format my hard-disk and start over with reinstalling everything, because my computer just would not do a Microsoft update. For some reason, I decided to uninstall AVG and everything started working again.

 

[Martell1977]

The level of ignorance is off the charts here! For your last part "there are better products available.", there are more POPULAR products available, but Kaspersky is regarded as one, if not the BEST, AV software available!

I've never had a problem until the creators update. Windows now has a popup in the action center alerting me that my computer "may not have the best possible protection" and I should turn on defender; right below that it says "You're using other antivirus providers." Also in the action center it says "Your firewalls are turned off, your device may be vulnerable", but when i goto the windows firewall manager it says "These settings are being managed by vendor application Kaspersky Internet Security".

Being that I deal with this everyday, a little investigation confirms that Kaspersky is running normally and this is a WINDOWS issue. I have also tested with Avast, and the same result happens, only after the creators update is applied. Basically the action center is attempting to "trick" you into believing that your 3rd party AV software is either inferior or not running so you turn on and use MS services.

Running 2 or more AV software programs at a time can cause conflicts with your PC and create false positives. Over time these false positives from multiple AV softwares conflicting will corrupt system files and prevent your computer from working. So no, turning on defender while you have another software running is not "better"!

I have multiple machines and client machines running Trend, but one client runs Kap as they have some time on their subscription left. All the machines run Windows 10, all are fully up to date, yet Kap is the only one having the issue and the client had me change it out.

Why is it that they have this issue, but so many others do not? If this was a complaint of multiple companies I'd give it a bit more credence, but I don't see others chiming in, and I doubt MS just decided to single Kap out.

Who was talking about running more than one AV? (other than you). I said the Defender was better than nothing, meaning that if Kap has issues and is NOT running, Defender kicking on is not a bad thing. So long as it goes away once Kap gets their stuff figured out.

How is Kap "one of the best" if it can't seem to get it's software working right on the OS that covers a huge portion of the market? The fact that they are suing instead of fixing the issue doesn't inspire my confidence.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Goto https://www.av-test.org for comparisons of software, this is your best resource for any and all info related to AVs and malware.

As far as security goes, MS Defender got a 98.8%, Kaspersky has ALWAYS been 100%. This is close enough to ignore the question of "who's product is more secure..."

BUT, when you compare the system resources each piece of software uses, MS Defender is a hog and a PC takes a massive performance hit of upto 50% in some instances with most other categories in double digits (37% and 29%); while Kaspersky only maxes out at 23% in the same 50% category as Defender and with most others in single digits (2% and 8% respectively). This alone should be alarming enough to disable MS Defender and get a 3rd party solution; how can an embedded program tax a system at this level while at the same time providing LESS security?

I question their results actually. How would a high end PC install programs slower than a standard PC? A standard PC has a HDD which maxes at normally 100MB/s writes. A high end PC will have, at minimum, a SSD with 500MB/s writes. That's 5x the speed not to mention the IOPS which the SSD destroys a HDD in.

Yet at the same time the download speed jumped by 90% from a standard to high end PC. Unless the "standard" PC had a piss poor NIC and piss poor CPU that should not happen. Most high end and standard PCs use either a Realtek or Intel NIC. Some high end ones may have a Killer NIC but I doubt theirs did as they are only in a few mobo brands. They should all be 1Gbps NICs as well. So how did the program affect it that much? And how did it, again on a high end PC where downloads went vastly faster, cause install speeds to get worse from the standard PC?

Actually I found my answers. Because their setup is piss poor.

This is what that site uses:

Specification "Standard PC": Intel Xeon X3360 @ 2,83GHz, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD
Specification "High end PC": Intel i7 3770 @ 3,40GHz, 16 GB RAM, Samsung 512 GB SSD

The "high end" PC is OK and has what I would expect drive wise but the CPU is old. In fact a new i3 7350K can provide i7 2600K performance with less cores.

That said, the "standard PC" is just bad. The CPU is based on Yorksfield which is almost 10 years old. Very few people will have a system that old. Most will be on Core I or AMD FX by now and it is a bad way to fully test.

I still have no idea how the High end beat the Standard system in network so badly.

As for you issues, maybe Kaspersky needs to work on their notifications to the Security Center. No one else seems to have issues.