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Microsoft to Offer Free Antivirus Software

Paul Lilly — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:04:23 -0600

Because hackers target Microsoft's Windows operating systems more than any other OSes, one could argue that it would be only fitting for the software maker to offer its users a free security suite, and that's exactly what Microsoft intends to do. Noting the rapid increase in the prominence of malware, Microsoft says it will discontinue retails sales of it's fee-based Live OneCare subscription service by June 30, 2009 and replace it with a free security suite currently code-named "Morrow."

"Customers around the world have told us that they need comprehensive, ongoing protection from new and existing threats, and we take that concern seriously,” said Amy Barzdukas, senior director of product management for the Online Services and Windows Division at Microsoft. “This new, no-cost offering will give us the ability to protect an even greater number of consumers, especially in markets where the growth of new PC purchases is outpaced only by the growth of malware."

Morrow, which will offer protection against viruses, spyware, rootkis, Trojans, and other malware, will be built to use fewer resources, which Microsoft claims will make it well suited for both low bandwidth situations and low-power PCs. According to Microsoft, Morrow's protection will be on the same level as the company's enterprise solutions.

While that sounds like good news for Windows users, McAfee sees it as an even better opportunity for themselves and doesn't appear worried that it might lose paying customers to Morrow.

"Consumers have voted; OneCare, in its two years on the market, has achieved less than 2 percent market share," he said in an interview. "Microsoft is giving up and has defaulted to a dressed-down freeware model that does not meet consumer security needs. This is good news for McAfee."

Is McAfee underestimating Morrow? Hit the jump and give us your thoughts.

Check Point to Celebrate 15th Anniversary by Giving Away ZoneAlarm Pro Software

Paul Lilly — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:18:19 -0600

Given the widespread availability of free solutions, we know how power users hate to pay for security software. If you fall into this category, your options will become slightly more robust this Tuesday, November 18.

According to a spattering of reports, a company spokeswoman for Check Point said the company plans to celebrate its 15th anniversary by giving away a 1-year subscription to its ZoneAlarm Pro software security suite. For those not familiar with the program, ZoneAlarm Pro expands on the company's popular firewall solution by throwing in a spyware remover, protection against rootkits, ID theft protection, and other security odds and ends. The full program typically sells for $40/year.

If the reports hold true, you can download your copy from this link beginning at 6:00 AM PDT Tuesday morning. Procrastinators be warned, the link will only stay active for 24 hours.

Microsoft Opens a U.S. Marketplace and Offers the Ability to Download its Software

Justin Kerr — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:49:55 -0600

Microsoft lobbed another artillery shell towards brick and mortar retailers on Thursday with the debut of its new U.S. online marketplace. Microsoft has been slowly expanding its direct to consumer sales channel over the past several months and launched its first pilot program in the UK and Germany back in July. Currently the online marketplace offers everything from Mice and Keyboards to Xbox games and consoles. Landmark PC software products such as Windows and Office will also naturally be made available.

A disproportionately large percentage of our readers have been shopping on Newegg and Tiger Direct for years. And the idea of buying items online isn’t all that unique to most of us. Perhaps the most interesting new feature of the online marketplace however, is the option to download software and install it without the need for the physical media. Downloaded software can be burned by the customer to a DVD, but this process is optional. Microsoft will also allow repeat downloads of its software, and offer remote access to product keys. According to Microsoft’s Trevin Chow; "There is no longer any need to pay for shipping costs and waiting for the big brown truck to drive across the country."

We all know that online software distribution is hardly a novel concept, and people have been downloading productivity software and OS’s such as Open Office and Linux for years. Despite these facts however, this is still a huge step for the Redmond based software giant and a further reminder that internet distribution is here to stay. Let’s just hope they find new ways to compress this stuff. I’m not sure how much more of this my bandwidth cap will take!

25 Years Ago, Bill Gates Announced Windows 1.0

Andy Salisbury — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:40:15 -0600

Nearly a quarter century ago, a young, pinup version Bill Gates released Microsoft’s first operating system, Windows. While the announcement was made in 1983, and the boxes wouldn’t see store shelves until 1985, Gates’ debut at New York’s Helmsley Palace Hotel was a notably ambitious one.

Gates stated that his fledgling operating system would be powering 90% of IBM’s computers by 1984. This didn’t come true initially (read: missed release date by a year), but it has managed to come to fruition as a number that’s near Windows’ market share today.

While Windows 1 was a short-lived ride, being made obsolete only two years later by Windows 2, it was a great start for Microsoft. Using a brand new graphical interface, it certainly made an impact on computing, as we know it today.

DivX 7 Beta 1 Released with H.264 Support

Paul Lilly — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:21:48 -0600

DivX has begun offering its upcoming DivX Player 7.0 in Beta 1 form, and with it support for MKV files containing high definition H.264 video and surround sound AAC audio.

DivX has been playing around with H.264 support for some time now as part of its "Rémoulade" project, but this marks the first player release to incorporate this capability. DivX says the player's H.264 video decoding will come with support for Baseline, Main, High, High 10, and High 4:2:2 profiles, full interlace support, multithreading decoding on up to 8 CPU cores, and optimizations for MMX, SSE, and SSE2 instruction sets.

The release will also contain several general improvements over the currently shipping DivX Player 6.8.2, including wider Direct3D videocard compatibility, the return of the GDI renderer allowing the player to display video when no hardware acceleration is available, and better handling of AVI files that have a broken index, and improved support for media created with the company's DivX Author application.

DirectX Package Gets Minor Update for November, Nothing to Write Home About

Paul Lilly — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:02:36 -0600

Microsoft has released its DirectX November 2008 update as part of the company's loosely followed bi-annual update schedule. The last DirectX update was served up in August.

A number of enhancements mostly of interest to developers come packaged in the November DirectX SDK, as well as a Direct3D 11 technical preview with associated components and tools. As far as gamers are concerned, we found little information as to what possible bugs and performance enhancements the new update addresses.

If you're experiencing unexplained wonkiness while gaming and have been unable to troubleshoot the problem, you may want to give the November update a spin. Otherwise, you'll likely receive the update as a pre-packaged install on a new game at some point.

Hackers Target Third Party Apps to Squirm Their Way Through Windows Security

Paul Lilly — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:33:13 -0600

Microsoft last week released the fifth volume of its Security Intelligence Report (SIR) covering the period between January through June of 2008. The report, which purports to offer an "in-depth perspective on software vulnerabilities and exploits, malicious code threats, and potentially unwanted software," uses data derived from what Microsoft claims are hundreds of millions of Windows users, all of which is analyzed and laid out in a tidy 13MB PDF download.

According to the 150-page report, hackers are increasingly honing in on third party applications rather than attempting to attack Microsoft directly. Vulnerabilities in programs like RealPlayer, QuickTime, WinZip, and other non-operating system software provide hackers with a greater number of exploits requiring a low degree of complexity, the report claims.

"It is alarming to see that more than 90 percent of vulnerabilities disclosed in 1H08 affected applications, and nearly half of all industry vulnerabilities are rated as High Severity," Microsoft says in its report. "Additionally, 1H08 showed how threats are increasingly affecting a variety of vendors beyond Microsoft."

The report also notes several geographical trends in security threats. Among them, password stealers such are Win32/Bancos are most prominent in Brazil where the overall infection rate has risen an alarming 81.8 percent from 2H07 to 1H08. In the U.S., trojan downloaders, like Win32/Zlob, account for the largest single category of threat.

Windows Growth Slows, are Netbooks to Blame?

Justin Kerr — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:29:56 -0600

As hardware junkies, we have little trouble justifying our desire for netbooks. Microsoft on the other hand, is having a huge problem trying to figure out how to cash in on the craze. According to new research conducted by Bloomberg, Microsoft’s historic stock plunge of over 40 percent this year alone can be tied in part to the success of netbooks. These sub $500 PC’s are by far the fastest growing segment in the computing industry. And unfortunately for Microsoft, many of these devices don’t ship with Windows.

Internally, Microsoft estimates that around 70 percent of netbooks run at least some version of Windows. This is a far cry from the over 90 percent market penetration they enjoy in the notebook and desktop segments. Additionally, since the vast majority of netbooks run older versions of Windows, margins are much thinner. The OEM licensing fee of $40/$50 for Windows XP is a drop in the bucket when you compare it to the $100 or more they expect for Vista. Bridging the revenue gap isn’t as easy as raising the price for XP either. Especially when you consider that it only costs around $5 to deploy a version of Linux. The Microsoft tax is widely debated by netbook manufacturers who are scrambling to keep sticker prices low. As a result, Microsoft has cut projections for Windows growth in Q4 to as little as 2 percent. Earlier in the year they were estimating growth of around 9 to 10 percent.

While Microsoft might suffer in the short term, it appears the long term strategy is to address netbooks with the upcoming release of Windows 7. During PDC last week, Steven Sinofsky showed off a $399 netbook running the new OS. And according to Senior Vice President Jon DeVaan, “People will be pleasantly surprised and excited by how Windows 7 runs on low-cost machines”. The over arching question here is if Linux will gain any long term momentum as a result of its new found market penetration. I guess only time will tell.

So would you rather a faster netbook running Linux, or a slightly slower machine with Windows?

Hit the jump and let us know.