Microsoft Reacts To Kaspersky's Antitrust Complaints

[Lucian Armasu]

Microsoft responded indirectly to Kaspersky's antitrust complaints about alleged abuse of the Windows dominance to eliminate or hurt third-party antivirus solutions.

Microsoft Reacts To Kaspersky's Antitrust Complaints : Read more

 

[cfenton]

There seems to be a big difference between the browser case and the anti-virus case. As far as I know, there's no one like Mozilla out there making free anti-virus software. Or, if they are, it isn't very popular. What would Microsoft reasonably offer up as a choice at installation? Maybe I'm wrong, but is any other company offering a truly free anti-virus solution? And I don't mean one that asks you several times a week to upgrade to the paid version and nags you about how much more secure you'd be if only you'd pay for more protection.

 

[falchard]

Could? Even if the claim wasn't true the EU will still open up an anti-trust claim against Microsoft and find them guilty. The EU is more than happy to rob the deep pockets of foreign software companies when they can.

 

[Joseph_206]

I'm sensing part of this is Microsoft wanting to rapidly iterate on Windows 10. Software seems broken more often after Windows update.

"Changing notifications in a way that hurt third-party antivirus’ companies subscription numbers"

I'm thinking popup windows saying "You have _____ days left to renew your subscription!"

 

[DerekA_C]

There is one that doesn't nag and is a very basic and completely free antivirus bit-defender free edition it is very minimal but has to have email registered and verified but lifetime free . However at this point with creator update and all my browsers having script and ad blockers win-defender works no fuss I only let in what I want seems pretty secure haven't had any issues. so yea why bother with third party anymore just more clutter to a clutter seems redundant.

 

[SockPuppet]

"The EU is more than happy to rob the deep pockets of foreign software companies when they can."

Indeed. They're going after Google right now for $1B. Personally, if I were running Google I'd tell the EU to suck it. I double dog dare you to block me in Europe.

 

[renz496]

There is one that doesn't nag and is a very basic and completely free antivirus bit-defender free edition it is very minimal but has to have email registered and verified but lifetime free . However at this point with creator update and all my browsers having script and ad blockers win-defender works no fuss I only let in what I want seems pretty secure haven't had any issues. so yea why bother with third party anymore just more clutter to a clutter seems redundant.

this might be true for AV software but i think the big implication is more on third party software in general. if MS get a free pass with this issue then what other initiatives will they do in the future in regards to third party software? imagine suddenly MS remove your Steam client (or any third party Game client like EA Origin and such) for whatever reason and all games must be played through MS own client or more extreme will only install game purchased using MS store?

 

[JonDol]

"Not allowing users to permanently deactivate Windows Defender anymore, thus potentially creating conflicts with other antivirus software"

Now look who's talking: they forgot to mention how deep you have to go into the system to completely deactivate their own solution too when one debugs software and wants to rule out the anti virus/firewall. The IE antitrust issue mentioned here I'd say it's a weak excuse to racket Microsoft because it doesn't make efforts to fight ignorance: the lack of advertising for IE competition didn't prevent me of using Opera since 2000/2001... I bet no one is attacking the grocery on his door step for lacking to inform the customers : 'you know, 100 meters farther there is another grocery potentially selling cheaper and better quality products'...

 

[LORD_ORION]

Looking at my hidden icons... yep "Action needed" because I have 3rd party firewall.

PS FU MS, I hope you lose bad.

 

[CKKwan]

MS, please do us a favor by removing the crappy Windows Defender. It had been writing to my SSD non-stop, more than 1TB in just 3 hours. When I only have 100GB of data (including the OS itself) on it. It is more dangerous than the Wannacry Ransomsware

 

[sykozis]

I still find this to be ridiculous and based on Kaspersky's complaint, I'm a bit curious as to whether or not they develop and release "malware" onto the web to gain sales. Or the Russian Gov't is mad cuz they can't steal more user data through Kaspersky....

There seems to be a big difference between the browser case and the anti-virus case. As far as I know, there's no one like Mozilla out there making free anti-virus software. Or, if they are, it isn't very popular. What would Microsoft reasonably offer up as a choice at installation? Maybe I'm wrong, but is any other company offering a truly free anti-virus solution? And I don't mean one that asks you several times a week to upgrade to the paid version and nags you about how much more secure you'd be if only you'd pay for more protection.

Sophos, BitDefender, Panda, Avira, Avast/AVG....all have free versions for consumers.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

I'm sensing part of this is Microsoft wanting to rapidly iterate on Windows 10. Software seems broken more often after Windows update.

"Changing notifications in a way that hurt third-party antivirus’ companies subscription numbers"

I'm thinking popup windows saying "You have _____ days left to renew your subscription!"

Might be more in line with how they attempt to nag you about NOT using their so-called "new" browser: Edge.

 

[cfenton]

I still find this to be ridiculous and based on Kaspersky's complaint, I'm a bit curious as to whether or not they develop and release "malware" onto the web to gain sales. Or the Russian Gov't is mad cuz they can't steal more user data through Kaspersky....

There seems to be a big difference between the browser case and the anti-virus case. As far as I know, there's no one like Mozilla out there making free anti-virus software. Or, if they are, it isn't very popular. What would Microsoft reasonably offer up as a choice at installation? Maybe I'm wrong, but is any other company offering a truly free anti-virus solution? And I don't mean one that asks you several times a week to upgrade to the paid version and nags you about how much more secure you'd be if only you'd pay for more protection.

Sophos, BitDefender, Panda, Avira, Avast/AVG....all have free versions for consumers.

I've not used the first three, and someone earlier in the thread claimed BitDefeneder was ad-free, but those last three all nag you to upgrade and use scare tactics to get you to buy their mostly useless fancy editions. I get that they are for-profit companies, but that's the problem. Microsoft is offering a free solution built into their OS, while these other companies are offering you a limited free version and then endlessly nagging you to buy something. To me, that's much different than Internet Explorer competing with the equally free Netscape. Maybe BitDefender would be a viable option to offer if it really is free, but not Avast.

 

[techy1966]

"Microsoft also mentioned that its antivirus security is disabled when a third-party antivirus is running. However, Windows Defender will be re-enabled when the subscription for the third-party solution expires, to continue to protect users."

This is 100% true I see it almost everyday when working on clients systems. If their subscription is expired Defender takes over until the anti virus is renewed. What Kaspersky failed to mention was that when anti virus expires it stops protecting you it pretty much totally stops working. So it is no wonder Defender has to turn itself on. It does so because your anti virus just left you out to hang until you pay. They never used to do this in the past as you would still get protection just no def updates. Some protection is better than none.

These Anti virus companies did it to them selves by putting greed before their customers safety but now they complain about Microsoft stepping to try to fix things. MS may do some questionable things but this time around they are not at fault. Anti virus companies complain about lower subscriptions well maybe if your software didn't act like dead turds once expired MS wouldn't be forced to step in.

 

[sykozis]

I still find this to be ridiculous and based on Kaspersky's complaint, I'm a bit curious as to whether or not they develop and release "malware" onto the web to gain sales. Or the Russian Gov't is mad cuz they can't steal more user data through Kaspersky....

There seems to be a big difference between the browser case and the anti-virus case. As far as I know, there's no one like Mozilla out there making free anti-virus software. Or, if they are, it isn't very popular. What would Microsoft reasonably offer up as a choice at installation? Maybe I'm wrong, but is any other company offering a truly free anti-virus solution? And I don't mean one that asks you several times a week to upgrade to the paid version and nags you about how much more secure you'd be if only you'd pay for more protection.

Sophos, BitDefender, Panda, Avira, Avast/AVG....all have free versions for consumers.

I've not used the first three, and someone earlier in the thread claimed BitDefeneder was ad-free, but those last three all nag you to upgrade and use scare tactics to get you to buy their mostly useless fancy editions. I get that they are for-profit companies, but that's the problem. Microsoft is offering a free solution built into their OS, while these other companies are offering you a limited free version and then endlessly nagging you to buy something. To me, that's much different than Internet Explorer competing with the equally free Netscape. Maybe BitDefender would be a viable option to offer if it really is free, but not Avast.

Sophos does not offer a paid consumer version. They offer a free consumer antivirus and a free consumer firewall appliance (requires a PC setup as a dedicated hardware firewall). Their consumer antivirus uses components from their corporate offering. It does lack configuration settings though.

BitDefender does nag a little, but if memory serves, the nags only appear when you look at the incredibly simple UI.

Panda offers a free antivirus and does have a few nags, but they're only visible from the UI itself.

Nearly every company that offers a "free" consumer variant has nags of some sort. They only offer a "free" version as a marketing tool to lure people into buying the "premium" variant. Sophos is the only company I know of that doesn't do this, as they have no paid software for the consumer market at all.

Avira, in my experience, has been absolutely horrible with nag screens in the past. I refuse to use them now due to their previous behavior.

Avast/AVG (they're the same company now) has had a history of irritating nag screens but Avast has historically kept them limited to the UI for the most part.

If you want an absolutely free antivirus that isn't connected to Microsoft and doesn't display any sort of nag screen, Sophos is the only option.

There are also, supposedly, free versions from Adaware and ZoneAlarm....as well as Comodo, if you don't mind an AV that regularly fails when tested by independent labs.

 

[merikafyeah]

360 Total Security is a great free antivirus that doesn't nag its free users. I think you're shown a premium upgrade notice once and that's it. There are no popups to upgrade or other nonsense. It's light on resources and has the option to enable 3 separate AV engines: BitDefender's engine, Avira's engine, and 360's own AV engine, so it's effectiveness is definitely top tier if you enable all 3 engines at once but I've opted to only enable the 360 and Bitdefender engines.

As a bonus you also get Glasswire Firewall for free just for using 360 Total Security (optional install).

 

[FD2Raptor]

I still find this to be ridiculous and based on Kaspersky's complaint, I'm a bit curious as to whether or not they develop and release "malware" onto the web to gain sales. Or the Russian Gov't is mad cuz they can't steal more user data through Kaspersky....

There seems to be a big difference between the browser case and the anti-virus case. As far as I know, there's no one like Mozilla out there making free anti-virus software. Or, if they are, it isn't very popular. What would Microsoft reasonably offer up as a choice at installation? Maybe I'm wrong, but is any other company offering a truly free anti-virus solution? And I don't mean one that asks you several times a week to upgrade to the paid version and nags you about how much more secure you'd be if only you'd pay for more protection.

Sophos, BitDefender, Panda, Avira, Avast/AVG....all have free versions for consumers.

Emphasis added where I think you missed what cfenton was saying.

There is a reason why on the PC that I had Avira free AV on, only the update module/executable has internet access right.

ZoneAlarm I believe was ad-ware, or maybe it was their free firewall that was adware.

 

[warmon6]

MS, please do us a favor by removing the crappy Windows Defender. It had been writing to my SSD non-stop, more than 1TB in just 3 hours. When I only have 100GB of data (including the OS itself) on it. It is more dangerous than the Wannacry Ransomsware

1TB in three hours with windows defender? Im sorry but something else is going on with your system that you really need to be checking it out... Whether is faulty monitoring software (for how much data is written), you have an infected system, or something is corrupted on the system... defender alone is not the problem.

Either that.... Your willing to tell me that if defender is left alone on your system, in just a 3 to 4 days, Defender would have written more data to your SSD than my oldest SSD (Samsung 830) that has had only about 27TB written too over it's 5 year life time. Which that SSD has had different OS's installed on it over that time and those have had Defender or it's older form, Security Essentials depending on the OS....

So either you got more (and possibly bigger) problems that you haven't realized yet or your greatly exaggerated what defender is doing on your system.

(I've heard about defender having excessive writes but the largest amount i've ever heard is about 50ish GB's of data over 6 hour window.... Magnitudes smaller than a 1TB in 3 hours...)

 

[Serban13]

"CKKwan 1 day ago MS, please do us a favor by removing the crappy Windows Defender. It had been writing to my SSD non-stop, more than 1TB in just 3 hours. When I only have 100GB of data (including the OS itself) on it. It is more dangerous than the Wannacry Ransomsware"

That is not even possible. It would mean that Defender was writing with more than 94MB/s the whole 3 hours. Biggest lie I ever heard.

 

[cwolf78]

I use BitDefender free myself. The only caveat is that you have to register using an account, but they never nag you. It's a small price to pay to be free *and* ad free as well. The only e-mail I ever get from them is if there is a significant security event of which they want to make you aware... so pretty much maybe one e-mail in a six month period. I also love how it doesn't notify you when it updates unless a restart is required. It does its job quietly and doesn't impact system performance. An all around excellent product.

 

[sykozis]

I still find this to be ridiculous and based on Kaspersky's complaint, I'm a bit curious as to whether or not they develop and release "malware" onto the web to gain sales. Or the Russian Gov't is mad cuz they can't steal more user data through Kaspersky....

There seems to be a big difference between the browser case and the anti-virus case. As far as I know, there's no one like Mozilla out there making free anti-virus software. Or, if they are, it isn't very popular. What would Microsoft reasonably offer up as a choice at installation? Maybe I'm wrong, but is any other company offering a truly free anti-virus solution? And I don't mean one that asks you several times a week to upgrade to the paid version and nags you about how much more secure you'd be if only you'd pay for more protection.

Sophos, BitDefender, Panda, Avira, Avast/AVG....all have free versions for consumers.

Emphasis added where I think you missed what cfenton was saying.

There is a reason why on the PC that I had Avira free AV on, only the update module/executable has internet access right.

ZoneAlarm I believe was ad-ware, or maybe it was their free firewall that was adware.

I didn't miss that at all. The "nag" from BitDefender used to be at the bottom of the UI where the average user would never see it. The "nag" from Panda is in a box that only appears on the UI, if certain modules are enabled on the UI. Sophos has zero "nag" what so ever because they don't offer a paid consumer antivirus. Their completely free consumer antivirus is fully funded by the sale of their commercial products. Sophos is literally the only antivirus company that makes no attempt to sell a product to users of their (completely free) consumer antivirus product. In fact, the only consumer oriented product that Sophos sells is HitmanPro....lol

ZoneAlarm used to be strictly a "firewall" company. I don't recall their products every being adware, though they were never the best security products on the market.

 

[David_774]

Whine,whine Kepersky commrade. So MS throws in a lame anti-virus,as is well known most attacts today are Malware,not virus attacks. I don't know about now but Kepersky used to be at a ridiculous price--gosh could that be why you don't sell your product? I use a free version of Malwarebytes and what MS includes with Win 10 which never gives me any problems. And NO,Malwarebytes has NEVER been uninstalled with a Win 10 update and has NEVER uninstalled on an older laptop that still runs Win 7. I'm not a MS fanboy by any stretch but this is ridiculous.

 

[wirefire]

There was always a pretty distinct line between OS security and security software solutions. OS security was updated through patches and service packs. It secures the OS but does not fundamentally change any functionality. Security software by definition has to be something that changes constantly as threats constantly change. Microsoft is leveraging its position as an OS distributor to undermine other security providers. If the Microsoft security product has access to or modifies areas of the OS that other security providers do not have access to modify, even something simple as the notification system, then they likely are in violation of anti-trust laws. Microsoft could make a kill switch for ransomware, or at least a basic protection system... All you have to do is make an Install mode on the computer very similar to what terminal server had. MOST of the time a user will only use or edit a small handful of files at a time, If a program starts doing something suspect (like reading and writing files in a systematic method that should be able to be recognized by the file system.). windows could prompt / shut down the process unless install mode is disabled. Basically the UAC should do this but it can't because the UAC doesn't protect a user directory and even today too many software packages REQUIRE that UAC is disabled.

 

[sykozis]

There was always a pretty distinct line between OS security and security software solutions. OS security was updated through patches and service packs. It secures the OS but does not fundamentally change any functionality. Security software by definition has to be something that changes constantly as threats constantly change. Microsoft is leveraging its position as an OS distributor to undermine other security providers. If the Microsoft security product has access to or modifies areas of the OS that other security providers do not have access to modify, even something simple as the notification system, then they likely are in violation of anti-trust laws. Microsoft could make a kill switch for ransomware, or at least a basic protection system... All you have to do is make an Install mode on the computer very similar to what terminal server had. MOST of the time a user will only use or edit a small handful of files at a time, If a program starts doing something suspect (like reading and writing files in a systematic method that should be able to be recognized by the file system.). windows could prompt / shut down the process unless install mode is disabled. Basically the UAC should do this but it can't because the UAC doesn't protect a user directory and even today too many software packages REQUIRE that UAC is disabled.

Security software shouldn't create security holes in other applications, yet that seems to be standard practice for most security suites. Even Google's own security researches have stated that Windows Defender is the only "security application" that doesn't create more security holes.

MS developed the Operating System. MS has an obligation to ensure a reasonable level of security. To state that MS, while attempting to secure their own software, is in violation of anti-trust laws is ridiculous. Windows Defender is not the only "security application" that has access to provide notifications. McAfee does it without issue. Avast does it without issue. BitDefender does it without issue. AVG does it without issue. Sophos does it without issue. Malwarebyte's does it without issue. HitMan Pro does it without issue. Norton does it without issue. Panda does it without issue. Why is it that Kaspersky is the only vendor having an issue with this? Even anti-malware vendors aren't having issues. Even Emsisoft Anti-Malware has no issue. This issue appears to be limited to Kaspersky. I have personally tested the aforementioned security applications and Kaspersky is the ONLY vendor I've found to have issues with anything, including basic functionality.

Yes, there are files that only Windows Defender has access to. There is no reason for any other "security application" to have access to those files. No security vendor has a legal right to access those files as they belong to Microsoft. There is no "anti-trust" issue involved at all. MS holds exclusive rights to those files.

 

[DerekA_C]

360 Total Security is a great free antivirus that doesn't nag its free users. I think you're shown a premium upgrade notice once and that's it. There are no popups to upgrade or other nonsense. It's light on resources and has the option to enable 3 separate AV engines: BitDefender's engine, Avira's engine, and 360's own AV engine, so it's effectiveness is definitely top tier if you enable all 3 engines at once but I've opted to only enable the 360 and Bitdefender engines.

As a bonus you also get Glasswire Firewall for free just for using 360 Total Security (optional install).

Yikes I'm sorry but advertising this very un-trusted Chinese spying av is not good man look up the history of this company look at the ratings and the protection. Seriously they are no good you dig on your machine and try to remove or replace it you will find the spying and the extra bs i swear they hack your stuff. Made this mistake myself about 2 years ago totally screwed up my computer. it's either bitdefender free which is one of the best right next to kaspersky for detection and protection. or windows defender and ad and script blockers in a good updated browser with malwarebytes free as a backup scanner. and use a reg cleaner monitor startup programs and monitor services.