Kaspersky Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft Over Disabling Its Antivirus Software (bloomberg.com) 134
Russian security software maker Kaspersky Lab has filed antitrust complaints against Microsoft with the European Commission and the German federal cartel office, it said in a statement on Tuesday. From a report: Kaspersky sent a formal complaint to European Union and German antitrust regulators, saying "hurdles" created by Microsoft limit consumer choice and drive up the cost of security software. "With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft started to create obstacles to competing manufacturers of security solutions, and introduce different ways of pushing users to forgo third-party software in favor of its own Windows Defender," Moscow-based Kaspersky said in a statement. In a statement, Eugene Kaspersky said, "We see clearly -- and are ready to prove -- that Microsoft uses its dominant position in the computer operating system (OS) market to fiercely promote its own -- inferior -- security software (Windows Defender) at the expense of users' previously self-chosen security solution. Such promotion is conducted using questionable methods, and we want to bring these methods to the attention of the anti-competition authorities."
What is the problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Churchill to Lady: Madame you are ugly. And in the morning I will be sober, but you will still be ugly.
Regardless of whatever hardware is running, Windows is still a security mess compared to OS X.
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A) 900 years
B) 3,000 years
C) 11 years.
Re: to bad apple hardware sucks (Score:2)
Well Dick, it seemed like B but I'm going to go for A.
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It can handle 128GB and it's trivial to install your own RAM. But I know that won't affect your opinion. Instead you'll just find something else to complain about. And if that too turns out to be totally wrong then you'll again find something else, without your opinion softening in the slightest along the way. That's some fine critical thinking. Reach a conclusion first, then find the reasons later.
it's not trivial to retape the screen (Score:2)
it's not trivial to retape the screen in imac's to do some thing that other AIO's make easy to change and for 5K 32G with only an 8 core cpu is low.
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I feel my complaint is more then justified.
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Except Kaspersky is Russian, and according to our Glorious People's Democratic Party here in the USA, Russians are evil hackers trying to ruin us.
Triangle (Score:2)
Yeah.
Russian company (Kaspersky), produces product (KAV) that removes non-russian malware (e.g.: WannaCry's NSA ancestor), but perhaps spies on the users, on behalf of Russian organisation (FSB, ex-KGB).
American compagny (Microsoft), produces product (Security Essentials), that removes non-american malware, but very probably spies (Windows 10's cluster fuck of telemetry) on the users, on behalf of American organisation (NSA - see Snowden files).
And you could very likely be able to say the same about chinese
Re: Triangle (Score:1)
You're full of shit. Neither product targets malware of any specific origin. I've seen both take out malware from any country.
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Except that FSB has inherited only a part of the former KGB duties, hence nowadays it is basically the same as FBI, but with additional border and coast guard duties. Espionage is the responsibility of SVR.
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Except Kaspersky is Russian, and according to our Glorious People's Democratic Party here in the USA, Russians are evil hackers trying to ruin us.
A. Russians are evil hackers
B. Kaspersky is Russian
C: Kaspersky is evil hacker
Looks logical right? However, it is actually a fallacy [wikipedia.org]. It is similar to...
All B is A.
All C is B.
Therefore, all C is A.
Whereas B=Russians, A=evil hacker, and C=Kasperky
You may wish to re-read the article - what you quoted was presented as a simple syllogism, not a fallacy. From Wiki:
A syllogism (Greek: syllogismos, "conclusion, inference") is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.
In its earliest form, defined by Aristotle, from the combination of a general statement (the major premise) and a specific statement (the minor premise), a conclusion is deduced. For example, knowing that all men are mortal (major premise) and that Socrates is a man (minor premise), we may validly conclude that Socrates is mortal. Syllogistic arguments are usually represented in a three-line form:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
But speaking of fallacies,
By your extreme generalization of expression, the statement becomes "all" Russians are evil hackers, which is wrong. The reason is that only "some" Russians are evil hackers.
is a nice example of begging the question, which is indeed a logical fallacy.
Bare Bones Never Sold Worth Spit. (Score:2)
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The AC told you how it is and what he wrote is on the mark.
As for MS packaging tools within their OS, it's about providing a complete solution. MS is packaging an Anti-Virus to protect it's users and the image of its OS. Anti-virus isn't optional software in today's ecosystem, it's a necessity for most users.
Based on your reasoning, MS should NEVER have included Notepad, Calc, any image viewing tools, no file explorer, no zip support, no browser, no built-in drivers, no... the list goes on. Any other produc
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Almost literally forcing => gave very good volume discount. For larger manufacturers it could be cheaper to ship Windows on a computer than not, some shipped machines installed with Windows even when another OS was to be installed later as they got a better profit. Some say the discounts were too aggressive as even selling a few computers without Windows drastically increased the prices. In combination with Windows being the preferred OS for most customers that made it very hard for manufacturers to both
Re:What is the problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
To its credit Microsoft, years ago, got very serious about security. And I applaud them for it.
Google has also been very proactive with Android security.
Linux. Well? Somewhat. Not as much as I'd like. But we generally don't see large scale problems in the wild. Of course, one day we will.
Re:What is the problem? (Score:4, Funny)
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Over 2 billion people have Linux devices in their pockets. On Amazon, Chromebooks have been outselling Windows laptops for years and years now.
Re:What is the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux. Well? Somewhat. Not as much as I'd like. But we generally don't see large scale problems in the wild. Of course, one day we will.
The only problems we've seen with Linux have been with server installations, usually targeting software that's only installed on internet-facing servers. We haven't seen anything at all that targets desktop Linux. And it's false to claim that "one day we will"; maybe we will, maybe we won't. With desktop Linux marketshare so low, and little sign of that improving any time soon (despite the absolute horrors of Windows 10), there's not much incentive for malware writers to target it. Of course, there's other factors: Linux has a better security model from the outset, plus it has generally more savvy users who are too smart to install some stupid toolbar, and on top of that it doesn't have Outlook which seems to have been one of the major attack vectors in Windows for a while now. So with all that in mind, it's quite likely we'll never see large-scale problems in the wild with desktop Linux.
Incentive (Score:2)
On the other hand :
Linux is extremely pervasive on anything else except the desktop.
Both ends of the scale.
Linux is extremely popular on cluster compute nodes. All the top 500 super computers exclusively run Linux.
That some heavy power that would be very handy to hacker groups if they managed to get their hands on
(lots of potential abuse, from tools to helps crack leaked password salted hashes, to mundane use like mining whatever crypto coin is currently CPU-only (or GPU-only if you managed to get your hand
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Linux is in things without screens. Routers. Printers. Network attached storage devices for home networks.
The average household has more Linux instances running than Windows instances.
A sign fascinated to the wall said bring your broken iPhone here
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All the top 500 super computers exclusively run Linux.
Not yet, there are two AIX machines, the better one at 386th position.
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The only problems we've seen with Linux have been with server installations
I hate to be the one that tells a kid there's no Santa, but you do realise that the year of Linux on Desktop is a joke right?
Also I fell off my bike last week. For some reason that only ever happens when I ride my bike. Make no mistake, if the Linux on Desktop thing ever stops being a joke there will need to be some dramatic shortening of rope required for end users. Windows users have just enough to hang themselves with. Linux users have enough to go bungee jumping by the neck.
With great power comes great
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Windows IS still a security mess compared to OS X
Different needs and tech. If Windows was as "closed" as OS X it wouldn't have these issues. It comes with the territory. MS has gone a long way in it's ability to tackle security.
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Android is not a desktop OS (despite what some idiots would have you believe), just like Windows is not a mobile OS (I mean Windows 10, the desktop OS; it sure would help if MS didn't adopt such confusing naming conventions by calling everything "Windows" even though that name is used for several different OSes that are entirely different from each other).
Windows is the only desktop OS that has a real problem with malware.
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"Windows" even though that name is used for several different OSes that are entirely different from each other).
It's part of their strategy. They are trying to head towards a "one framework for all devices". They've already someone accomplished this. From the DEV side it's almost seamless.
Politics and anti-virus. (Score:1, Funny)
I'm sure this topic combining both politics and anti-virus will be filled with insightful commentary and free from any prejudices or biased opinions. Thanks slashdot editors.
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You forgot to add Microsoft in the mix.
Anti-Virus software in order to work, needs to be rather invasive to the system it is running on. So the OS Maker doesn't want to have anyone making an "Anti-Virus" program to be installed with that level of rights. As we have a mountain of scams coming from the disguise of anti-virus and security software.
Now Kaspersky could be making a solid and safe product... However their country of origin has been a bad player in the world community, so there is also general fe
Hypothetical (Score:1)
Imagine the lawsuits if Microsoft decided to make a secure OS!
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Compared to Linux? Because there are no hacks against Linux? And because the malware protection software for Linux is so damn good you can't even find it to know whether it's working or not unless you actually like digging through
Compared to Mac OS X that yesterday asked me for my administrator password 14 times so that I could give absolute access to all kinds of programs without reading what program was asking or what access it was asking for? And let's not forg
This didn't end well for Netscape. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not expecting any different outcome in the long run.
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Selective memory argument (Score:3)
Netscape was just one small example of MSes anti-competitive business practices. Microsoft saw NetNanny, Cybersitter, and other internet control projects as a threat (some due to bad press). So they built in their own inferior system, and put the majority of those out of business. Microsoft wanted total control of Office Applications, gave away enough "Word" to put competitors out of business. Novell was basically put out of business by MS giving "free" licensing (scaling limits) with NT3 and NT4 for a f
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See what MS did to Bordland for compiler space as well.
gcc got a lot more popular at the same time that Borland was getting less popular, so it might not be realistic to blame MS.
I doubt I'm the only person who made that switch.
Apologist? (Score:2)
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Or, it demonstrates that MS was guilty of using unfair tactics. It isn't at all clear that it was successful against Borland.
Obviously, WordPerfect and Netscape Navigator were harmed. They were also a lot more exposed.
In the case of Borland, they (and others) were possibly out-competing them anyways. Universities were using the MS toolchain already outside of *nix. Borland required knowing about lots of silly #pragma statements to get things done that MS had gui options for. Even their fans weren't very str
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Or, it demonstrates that MS was guilty of using unfair tactics. It isn't at all clear that it was successful against Borland.
So you are claiming that the court that found MS guilty was wrong in the case for Bordland, but in the other cases was correct? Or perhaps you are ignoring facts and creating fantasy...
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No.
I am saying that MS was found to have harmed Netscape and others really bad using unfair practices, and to have engaged in unfair practices against Borland with less certain results. Clearly they were guilty of trying, and some say they succeeded. Others say they were kicking a corpse.
Almost everybody agrees that MS should not have been kicking Borland, regardless of if it was assault or abuse of a corpse.
Oh, Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, Microsoft, is there anything you can't fuck up? Is there any line you won't cross in pursuit of profits and customer lock-in? Is there not a single engineer, programmer, or executive in your organization with an intact pair of balls who will pause, and think, "Wait, we shouldn't do this..."?
No? Okay, just checking.
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I think that the heart of the complaint by Kapersky depends on short-comings related to their developers, development process and project managers. Microsoft doesn't exactly just drop new versions of Window
Say It Ain't So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Car analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Car analogy (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite the right analogy. The car company does not fix the locks. They make their own accessory like the 3rd party accessories to fix the locks. Then they sell that accessory.
Microsoft does not sell Windows Defender as a separate product, it comes with Windows at no cost.
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I, for one, support Microsoft.
Chrome and Firefox shouldn't run at all on Windows 10. After all, Windows 10 already comes with Edge.
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I breathe with my mouth. Humans generally do. I'm not an idiot.
You on the other hand seem to be an ass-breathing idiot.
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Did you see where I wrote: Maybe at some point the car manufacturer includes the accessory with the car, but still does not actually fix the locks.
But that sounds exactly like not selling Windows Defender as a separate product and including it when you acquire: "Windows at no cost".
But this would be in keeping with the monopolist mindset. If we can't make money selling Windows Defender, then nob
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Kind of what they did with Internet Explorer. History repeats itself.
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You're wrong in two ways.
As the other responder pointed out, Windows Defender is part of Windows and is not a separate product, and does not cost extra. It's a free part of the OS, just like the calculator or Solitaire or the disk defragmenter.
Secondly, your analogy is stupid. A better car analogy is car alarms. 20+ years ago, if you wanted to try protecting your car from theft, you could buy various 3rd-party accessories such as "The Club", or an alarm system. These days, cars actually come from the fa
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It's not a monopoly. If you don't like Windows and don't agree to what they include, don't buy it. Are you going to bitch and complain that your car has a built-in alarm system or door locks too? Are you going to claim that it's "anti-competitive" that cars come from the factory with A/C instead of making people get aftermarket air conditioners installed like they did in the 50s?
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Windows is a monopoly, in that a great many people have no practical alternative. Windows 10 is a demonstration of monopoly power.
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That's just plain wrong. There are several practical alternatives: Macs and a bunch of Linux distros. If you're just surfing the web and doing light document work and watching videos, either one will work for you just fine. Doing things on computers without Windows is easier than ever now, thanks to the rise of web apps.
If you can't play some AAA game on anything but Windows, that's not a monopoly problem; that's a luxury and you've bought into a vendor that only supports a single platform. Don't play t
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If you're only doing the light stuff you mention, I'd recommend a user-friendly Linux distro like Linux. That isn't everybody.
Why do you think monopolies can't exist on luxuries? "Monopoly" is an economic term, not a moral one.
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Why do you think monopolies can't exist on luxuries? "Monopoly" is an economic term, not a moral one.
Maybe, but I find it silly to whine and complain about a "monopoly" when you're willingly buying into the monopoly to feed your desire for some particular luxury good. It's like complaining about the local monopoly of Rolls-Royce dealers because you just *had* to buy a Rolls. Cry me a river.
Besides, if you really like some stupid game that much, you can always just dual-boot and use Windows just for that o
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Rolls-Royce is not a monopoly. There are other manufacturers of luxury automobiles, and RR doesn't have dominating market share. If Rolls-Royce produced the only really nice cars, they could end up as a monopoly. (In practice, this would mean that other manufacturers would start producing really nice cars, so the monopoly wouldn't last. This isn't the case with Windows.)
Again, "monopoly" is an economic term, not a moral term. It's entirely possible to have a monopoly on something people can do witho
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Rolls-Royce is not a monopoly.
Neither is some AAA game, unless you want to try to argue that RR has a monopoly on RR cars the way [game publisher] has a monopoly on [game title]. There are other makers of games.
(In practice, this would mean that other manufacturers would start producing really nice cars, so the monopoly wouldn't last. This isn't the case with Windows.)
There are other OS makers out there, including Apple with MacOS, just like there's other luxury carmakers. Of course, Windows and MacOS ar
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There are a reasonable number of AAA games, and it generally doesn't make much sense to treat each individual one as a monopoly, since there are other AAA games. (The Madden football game might be an exception.) If most AAA games are only playable on Windows, that is a monopoly.
I just don't see some of your assumptions as being valid. Luxury buyers are price-conscious just like anyone else, they just have a different demand curve. There may be a drive to have better luxuries than someone else, but th
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There are a reasonable number of AAA games, and it generally doesn't make much sense to treat each individual one as a monopoly, since there are other AAA games.
You're treating these games as interchangeable cogs. Someone who's interested in Game X is quite likely to not be so interested in Game Y. Your logic is a lot like saying that someone who can't find a theater playing Wonder Woman nearby will instead just watch The Mummy. This is quite likely false: the former has excellent reviews, and the latter
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Why does that make them "parasites"? If somebody plugs a hole created by slothful oligopolies/monopolies, more power to them!
By that definition, many of us in IT are "parasites" because our jobs possibly wouldn't exist if Microsoft made decent stuff. I guestimate that if we had rational standards and sufficient OS/network competition, at least half of IT job
It is an argument there's no way for them to win (Score:2)
Particularly because Windows is very happy to work with other security solutions. If you install a 3rd party AV or firewall it is no big deal. That software can turn off Windows' included solutions and then once installed, Windows will happily report that the new stuff is acting as your security solution. MS does not insist on you using their product, they just include it as an option.
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Hasn't this been going on since Vista? (Score:1)
Give us access to the low level stuff/make the system more insecure so we can sell our product!
Kaspersky sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft sucks, too...and they're deserving of the hate they get, but Kaspersky may suck worse. I lost all respect for them as an "antivirus" application when one of my clients couldn't use Git because of it. Kaspersky identified Git (using SourceTree as a client) as malware, and kind of fucked up her file system, requiring her to do a system restore. After that, the client pretty much refused to use SourceTree, because she was convinced that it was a virus. Fuck Kaspersky...go Microsoft.
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I could give you horror stories about other anti-malware vendors also. It's possible they all suck in part because Windows is a mess, and they have to use duck-wire and chicken-tape to patch/fix/use something that is also duck-wire and chicken-tape: Windows. (Word swapperoo intentional)
The fact their server is in Russia is why (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, I work in the IT industry, many of us ban all traffic from Russia and several Asian states by default. This means that Kapersky has the unfortunate side effect even though being cheaper unable to automatically update because it's on russian soil thus for us IT folks we've started to Migrate to other software that does auto update without fail and has local servers. If Kapersky would setup sub update servers on each state and tie their software to the country, with the correct DNS ties in the software the update process wouldn't be that difficult to maintain.
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While that's not a terrible idea (many sites I see get 99% of their spam from Brazil, countries near India, and China.)
That really wouldn't stop a simple VPN at all...
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"This means that Kapersky has the unfortunate side effect even though being cheaper unable to automatically update because it's on russian soil thus for us IT folks we've started to Migrate to other software that does auto update without fail and has local servers"
You must be really fucking new to the IT industry if you don't have a VPN tunnel dedicated specifically for remote updates.
Re:The fact their server is in Russia is why (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't do this because Kapersky is one of the ways Russian GRU intelligence is using to exploit and spy on everyone. I have not doubt in my mind it's backdoored to high hell because one of the lead founders was recently arrested for spying and it was noted he was a ranking member of the Russian Intelligence services. This would be like Norton being owned by the NSA. Given that I don't know how anyone can trust Kapersky not to be littered with backdoors and Russian intelligence extra's.
Just an an FYI, Kapersky anti-virus is banned from use on US government computers for this reason just as several Chinese made switches are banned because the company executives are high ranking PRC Army intelligence.
You might not like Microsoft but their executives aren't ranking spies in the NSA or other spy agencies.
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[anti-M$-hat: ON]
Wouldn't NSA want to have competent people? Just saying...
[anti-M$-hat: OFF]
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While some companies might do that, I really doubt Microsoft is doing country-level blocks in Win10 as quite a lot of people would notice that. Where the server is located is no excuse for Microsoft to screw up the update process, it's just the same clients have experienced that their privacy and default application settings were "mysteriously" reset to the default.
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Tremendous service?? Kaspersky has offered, shit service...well, maybe marginal service, at best. I don't think it has to do with Russia so much as the fact that Kaspersky just sucks as an application. Nginx is Russian, too, and there's been no attempt to put them down. As far as I can tell, Nginx is flourishing and could very well take over Apache.</noXenophobia>
How inferior can it be (Score:4, Informative)
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That's a good question. It seems that your info matched Windows Defender Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] page. However, if you look at GeCAD [wikipedia.org] page, there is a portion of info that should give you some thought.
... Its most prominent product, Reliable Antivirus, or RAV, was first developed in 1994.[1] In 2003, after amassing over 10 million users in 60 countries worldwide, the technology was acquired by Microsoft...
So the question would be, what did Microsoft do with the RAV "technology" which was very popular at the time??? Could it be merged into Giant AntiSpyware???
Opposite Problem (Score:1)
Since it became possible, I have enabled regular Defender checks in the side of the third-party antivirus. For a long time every anti-virus software update disabled the parallel check without any notification.
What about iOS? (Score:1)
I don't see (hardly any) anti virus applications out there for iOS as I assume the Virus interception is handled by the OS. If Windows Defender comes free with the OS, couldn't the argument be made that Microsoft is acting the same as Apple is with iOS? Seriously, Apple has bundled all sorts of crap in their OS for decades (or it may be hidden beneath the covers) but no one seems to have much of an issue with it. I say "so what" to Kaspersky. If your product is so much more valuable your customers will know
Kaspersky should also sue Linus (Score:2)
The ‘hurdles’ are Kernel Patch Protect (Score:1)
Kernel Patch Protection is a mechanism used by Windows which aims to protect the integrity of certain Windows modules and structures in memory. An example of these is the System Service Dispatch / Descriptor Table (SSDT) which is essentially a table of Windows kernel function pointers and which is infamous for being used by malware, rootkits and a DRM system by Sony to intercept Windows kernel functions. It is also used by many anti-virus software and some drivers and this is again infamous for causing stab
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just dump windows and... (Score:3)
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Android has security problems also. Some claim it's "not Linux's fault", but that only means device vendors can find ways to F up anything.
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Wasn't there a zero day for Linux... THIS MONTH? Granted, only works on older versions but many people still run those.
It was cool as shit too. The NES music format support in the gstreamer library runs a full 6502 CPU to play the music, so they hacked it.
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One Note Samba. (Score:2)
switch to Linux
The geek has been dancing to this tune since 1995 but the only Linux client distribution to win significant popular acceptance is Android --- arguably the least secure of all mass market oriented operating systems. T
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just how shitty does the MS-Windows environment have to get
Given how the environment is leaps and bounds above where it was in the days of XP with most anti-virus being worse than the virus itself, I'd say we have a long way to go.
A core part of the OS sitting out of the way doing anti-virus in ways that doesn't fuck up the entire system? There's never been a better time to be a windows user (telemetry and windows updates not withstanding).
If you're trying talk about the environment getting shittier to convince people to change, you're using a very wrong marketing