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Microsoft Acquires Spyware Removal Company 442

Posted by CowboyNeal from the keeping-things-clean dept.
ack154 writes "Checking for updates on my new favorite spyware removal company, I found that Microsoft has acquired Giant AntiSpyware as of 12/16. I must say that it is very refreshing to see Microsoft finally start to take some serious action to help combat this rampant problem. According to the Giant site, a beta version is expected within one month for Microsoft customers (running Windows 2000 and later, of course)."
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Microsoft Acquires Spyware Removal Company More

Microsoft Acquires Spyware Removal Company

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  • IE? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AmigaAvenger ( 210519 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:20PM (#11112088) Journal
    So i'm going to assume the first logical step is that the software uninstalls/disables IE?

  • Typical Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)

    by l810c ( 551591 ) * on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:20PM (#11112091)
    How long has their 'security first' initative been going on? They must not be getting anywhere, because they now have to aquire their security apps.

    What percentage of spyware comes in through IE and ActiveX? Seems like they would just fix that. Stop it at the door, don't wait for it to get in and then Try to kill it.

    I sure hope they don't start charging for this after the beta. Talk about a conflict of interest. We have this buggy, highly exploitable browser that we do not plan on updating for a couple of years until Longhorn comes out. But in the meantime, you can Buy this program that will maybe help after the fact.

    • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lordkuri ( 514498 )
      I sure hope they don't start charging for this after the beta.

      now I'm no lawyer, but isn't that borderline extortion? or maybe racketeering?
      • It seems to me that the basic act of having a free beta testing period for new software, after which fee is charged, is an acceptable, though not entirely aboveboard practice. (After all, you get free use of their software for a time, and they get lots of extra beta testers. Of course, it also could be considered as getting lots of free QA work...)

        Of course, in Microsoft's case, the extortion would be forcing customers to buy into their Windows monopoly, and then charging those customers extra money so

    • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)

      by danpat ( 119101 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:33PM (#11112191) Homepage

      Don't be silly. From a profit taking point of view, why on earth would they want to fix the problem, when it's the potential source of extra revenue?

      From MS's point of view, their large marketshare combined with a demand for security fixes has actually *created* demand for more things they can sell, rather than harming their business. With no real competitors in their space, they have the luxury of taking their time fixing things. There is no percieved alternative so they're not driven to compete with anyone in the security space.

      • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)

        by bob beta ( 778094 )
        Don't be silly. From a profit taking point of view, why on earth would they want to fix the problem, when it's the potential source of extra revenue?

        You just described the 'give the software away for free, make your money providing support' business plan, as championed by some of the Open Source advocates.

    • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:50PM (#11112316)
      Performing workarounds for Windows is what leads to acceptance of viruses (just buy an antivirus) and what leads to acceptance of spyware (just buy an antispyware) and what leads to acceptance of systems so bogged down by combinations of the above (just reinstall every 6 months).

      It's a bit like living in a really bad neighbourhood and denying it's a problem. "Oh we're OK, we live in a safe area. As long as you put bars on all your windows, don't leave the house when it's dark, put up bullet proof windows, and don't make eye contact with the neighbours you're perfectly safe"

      Apart from how it's broken, it works perfectly.

      MS is fucked, but they don't mind. The consumer state of society today means MS can just tell people they need to buy something, and people will do what they're told to.

    • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)

      by Johnathon_Dough ( 719310 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:56PM (#11112357)
      I sure hope they don't start charging for this after the beta.

      "Microsoft's tool, expected to be available within 30 days, initially will be free but the company isn't ruling out charging for future versions. 'We're going to be working through the issue of pricing and licensing," Nash said. "We'll come up with a plan and roll that out.' Microsoft's disclosure that it may eventually charge extra for Windows protection reflects a recognition inside the company that it could collect significant profits by helping to protect its customers,"
      Article Source [myway.com]

      Looks like they are investigating how much, not if.

      • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

        by spectre_240sx ( 720999 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:23PM (#11112530) Homepage
        Did anyone else notice that EVERYONE seems to profit here? Besides the end user of course. Microsoft makes bad software and saves money on fixing security holes because they've basically got a captive audience. Advertising companies figure out how to exploit these security holes and generate revenue by throwing computers down the toilet. Anti-Spyware companies profit from getting rid of software exploiting said security holes. Microsoft turns it around fully and purchases Anti-Spyware company for... even more profit!!!

        This is why I'm saving up for a PowerMac.

        • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Ibanez ( 37490 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @01:40AM (#11113611)
          Well, until the average person realizes how crooked this is, its one hell of a business plan. You have to give it to them, they're pretty close to mastering the art of screwing your customers.

          Its almost like a drug dealer who also owns the rehab center.

      • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bogie ( 31020 )
        Unfucking believable. And when they run every other anti-spyware company out of business then what? We are stuck with the same company that makes the flaws and then sells us software to protect us from those flaws. Can you say fucking conflict of interest? Design better software, don't sell me a bandaid I have to pay a subscription for.

    • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:31PM (#11112582)
      Actually I have come up with an almost perfect solution for most people. I have a pair of scripts that use the Microsoft command line ACL tool from the 2000 server resource kit. The first one sets the downloaded program files directory to read only for everyone, and the other sets it to read for everyone and full controll for the person running the script (they obviously must have permissions on the parent container in order to be able to change the ACL's on the downloaded program files directory). Basically you normally run with read only permissions and only change to full permission to allow trusted ActiveX controlls to install. This gets you most of the protection of disabling ActiveX without breaking things like the Adobe Reader plugin. I expect Microsoft might include something like this in the next major revision of IE, there is precidense with the run as restricted user feature in XP.

      • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:3, Informative)

        by Keeper ( 56691 )
        You can get this same set of functionality by adding 'trusted' sites (ie: sites you are willing to run ActiveX controls on) to the trusted sites zone. Modify the internet zone activex setting which turns on/off activex controls to "administrator approved". If there is an ActiveX control you know is safe and want to be viewable in the "internet zone", add the control to the list of administrator approved controls.

        Wish SP2 you also have the ability to disable specific ActiveX controls so that they'll never
    • Well ... yes and no. IF spyware only entered a system via Internet Explorer or operating system security holes, I would tend to agree. However, there are many, many shareware (and regular commercial) applications that bundle third-party spyware modules or have spyware-like capabilities of their own. That's not Microsoft's fault or responsibility, and if they wish to market a product that helps identify such products I don't see anything wrong with that. In principle.

      Now ... having said that, I can't

    • Re:Typical Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)

      by raddan ( 519638 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:53PM (#11112725)
      What percentage of spyware comes in through IE and ActiveX? Seems like they would just fix that. Stop it at the door, don't wait for it to get in and then Try to kill it.

      This is exactly the point I've been trying to make within our corporation for the last year. Relatively unsuccessfully, I might add.

      Naturally, our office, which I admin and which has about 100 PC users, is almost completely a Firefox shop. Malware was a serious problem when I arrived, and after implementing a centralized antivirus setup and switching everyone to Firefox, support calls have dwindled to nearly nothing, and the few calls I have gotten were those few sneaky users who thought that they could get away with using IE behind my back.

      I was in a corporation-wide IT meeting last month, and I brought up using Firefox. Apparently the help desks for other offices are totally swamped. So the head IT guy asks me if switching has affected malware infection rate, so I told him the same thing I mentioned above. The room was totally silent; these guys were shocked. The meeting ended with a decision to start "testing" Firefox, but a few people were outright hostile to the idea at all. As far as I'm aware, they still haven't even given the "testing" idea a second thought, even though their malware problem continues to grow.

      But the big thing stopping us from going to Firefox completely is our damn intranet apps. We've poured millions into these half-assed ActiveX programs that require IE. I mean, WTF? Why on Earth would you write a web-based application that requires a specific OS (Windows), a specific browser (IE), and a specific processor (i386)? It's madness! Sure, you could argue that application updates can still be done centrally, but even this they've fucked up-- every time an update comes out, we have to remove the program manually from "C:\windows\downloaded program files". Talk about living in the dark ages!

      Anyhow... I'm guessing that this is the big reason why Microsoft doesn't just axe the whole ActiveX thing-- this would be a nightmare for many an IT manager. Not to mention-- look at where ActiveX came from: it started as OLE, became COM, and is now becoming .NET. MS has dumped tons of cash into a flawed piece of software, and thousands of programmers know how to write software for it.

      • The history of ActiveX (Score:3, Informative)

        by jonwil ( 467024 )
        It started when microsoft created Visual Basic way back when.
        They invented this new thing called a VBX.
        a VBX was basicly a custom control in a DLL file and had hooks where VB could talk to the control and where the control could talk to VB.
        The VBX evolved along with Visual Basic through versions 2,3 and 4 on the 16 bit platform.
        Also, some other programs (including 16 bit versions of Visual C++) were able to embed VBX files.

        Next we have OLE. This started out with OLE 1.0 and advanced to OLE 2.0 and to COM.

  • Buying a company... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eggplant62 ( 120514 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:21PM (#11112095)
    Does not a turn-around make. Just because MS sees a possible investment opportunity doesn't mean that this is them taking steps to fix their broken software. Ever think this might just be an attempt to cash in on their problems??

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:22PM (#11112103)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • What kind of spyware runs on Linux?

      I use XP for my desktop for many reasons so am unaware of things that may affect KDE/Gnome systems.

      I do have a RH Ent. VPS server, a RH 9 fileserver wiht Samba at home and use HPUX at work, just really don't pay that much attention to the Linux desktop world too much besides installing one a couple times a year or trying a Live CD.

    • Re:SpyBot still better (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:33PM (#11112598) Homepage
      I ran Giant anti-spyware a few weeks ago on a system I had just used Ad-Aware and Spybot on, and it found more stuff. Real stuff too, not just cookies from doubleclick. The system was really deeply infested, and Giant got lots of stuff the others didn't.

      Have you tried it? Or was your generalization based on assumption?

  • Discussion @ BBR/DSLR's security forum... (Score:4, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:22PM (#11112105) Homepage Journal
    There is a discussion in Broadband Reports/DSL Reports' security forum [broadbandreports.com] about this.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:22PM (#11112108)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:No way (Score:2, Insightful)

      by PocketPick ( 798123 )
      Having secure software does prevent spyware (though it goes a long way towards helping it). No doubt, Microsoft will tout this as an application that removes spyware that became present "due to human error" (or at least they would like you to believe that).

    • Re:No way (Score:5, Insightful)

      by the pickle ( 261584 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:28PM (#11112155) Homepage
      they would rather make money...How can this be a good thing?

      I think you just answered your own question.

      p
    • As long as you let users install programs that can do meaningful things, people will have spyware. It does not matter how secure your software is.

    • Re:No way (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aldoman ( 670791 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:59PM (#11112383) Homepage
      You might want to see how most spyware gets onto the system.

      The vast majority is either installed via 'yes' on spyware dialogs (XP SP2 declines this automatically so they are trying to prevent it) or via apps like Kazaa and 'Weather in your system tray!!!' programs. I suspect the majority will comes from the latter in future.

      Please explain to me how you prevent spyware like this getting onto the system via an-administrator authorized account pressing 'next' and installing a bunch of spyware via an installer?

      The only way I can see to prevent this is either not running as administrator, which is clumsy as most people want to install software, printers, games without having to log in and out, or by digitally signing every file that is allowed to be transfered onto the filesystem and executed. Gee, that sounds like Trusted Computing which the Slashdot crowd hated (rightly so, it is a horrible idea).

      The fact remains that getting rid of spyware is very, very hard. It's like a car maker trying to prevent people flooring it and driving off a cliff - they are telling the machine to basically, jump off a cliff in terms of performance and security. There is very little that you can do without being very extreme in stopping people doing things that you want to do on the computer.

      • Re:No way (Score:3, Interesting)

        by IchBinEinPenguin ( 589252 )
        The fact remains that getting rid of spyware is very, very hard.

        Agreed. However, installing spyware in the first place shouldn't be as ridiculously easy as it is!

        The design tradeoffs between security/usability have in IE have created a wonderful inTRAnet explorer. It's great for filling in the company timesheet using some custom ActiveX applet, but it should _NEVER_ be allowed on the inTERnet.

        To follow your analogy, a dune-buggy is fantastic at messing around on dunes, but you wouldn't want to be

    • Re:No way (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Hatechall ( 541378 )
      Prevention is always better than cure.

      True. But telling this to somewone who already has AIDS doesn't help alot, either.

      And although I am a minority voice here on Slashdot, I seriously think that they are looking to prevent future security breaches. Of course they are not doing it to feel all warm and fuzzy or whatever, but I do believe it is being done. Call me an unreasonable optimist if you must.
      And yes, this isn't an easy issue to deal with. Maybe it should have been delt with better by now, but
      • Prevention is always better than cure. True. But telling this to somewone who already has AIDS doesn't help alot, either.

        But, so what? Telling it to someone who already has a cold *does* help (well at least it could help). Isn't that more analogous to spyware?

    • missing the point (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dipster ( 830908 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:26PM (#11112547)
      Why would Microsoft fix their bugs? It doesnt matter how many holes Windows/IE have, people will still buy it. You can see that every day as new windows exploits come out and yet we dont have a mass migration to Linux and/or Unix.

      Microsoft makes money based on upgrades. New versions of Windows, new versions of Office, new versions of whatever. People blindly upgrade in the hopes that the new version will fix the bugs of the old one. But all these new versions are just as buggy as the first. Not the same bugs, but all new ones...

      Now if Microsoft were to make a product that performed wonderfully the first time around, why would you have any incentive to upgrade? They can tout new features and bells and whistles, but if the product you have is working fine for you, then why spend the money?

      As long as they hold a monopoly, they can continue to create buggy software with no real risk of losing customers.

      Now what if they could sweeten the deal even more. What if they "forced" people to buy software that had a giant problem, and they also sold the cure. Then they get to charge you twice. They could fix the problem, but then they would lose money. That doesn't make much sense. As long as there are no real alternatives to the average user, Microsoft has free reign to run their stratagy.

      Microsoft isn't dumb. There's a reason they are where they are today. They've found a damn good buisness stratagy that works.

    • Keep in mind that MS's new anti-spyware product isn't going to remove anything that they want to remain on your machine. All current anti-spyware products have this problem, which is why most people need more than one.
    • You can't completely prevent spyware. Half of that stuff comes through the browser, but the other half comes though users who install the happy jumping monkey screensaver that has spyware bundled with it. Anytime you install a program, you're subject to installing spyware. The only defense there is to trust the source.

  • Stop using IE! (Score:5, Funny)

    by CypherXero ( 798440 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:23PM (#11112111) Homepage
    Firefox. That's how you stop spyware from getting on your machine. Good god, Microsoft just spent a shit load of money, when they could have just downloaded Firefox. Tsk tsk.

    • Re:Stop using IE! (Score:5, Informative)

      by freitasm ( 444970 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:27PM (#11112140) Homepage
      Spyware and adware infections will not stop by simply using Firefox... How many users are still going to download the cute p2p program full of dialers, spyware and adware, regardless of using Firefox, Mozilla, Internet Explorer or even Mosaic?

      A lot of people still download and install programs manually...
    • Don't give them any ideas. We all know M$ would have never discovered spyware to be a problem until they come read at slashdot.

    • Yeppers. I recommend it everywhere I go. Even confronted the software company that hooked my present boss on his stupid MS/.NET/IIS solution about MS abandoning further development on IE other than plugging the holes, dutch boy style, and what their plans were as to provide support for alternate browsers. His answer, of course, was that we could pay for that type of development if we really wanted it. I'll keep pushing the boss that after the six month trial is up, we abandon this one and find someone w

    • Next announcement from M$:
      • Microsoft Acquires Firefox
      If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em!

  • forward thinkers (Score:5, Funny)

    by fearanddread ( 836731 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:23PM (#11112114)
    It's good they are looking ahead before this kind of stuff really becomes a problem!

  • Bad track record (Score:5, Interesting)

    by confusion ( 14388 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:23PM (#11112116) Homepage
    At first, I thought this was going to spell the end of a lot of anti-spyware companies, but then I realized that MS has bought a lot of companies and done next to nothing with them (what was the name of the A/V company they bought again?)

    On the upside, if they are serious about it, I think this is going to be a huge boon for corporate IT. Spyware has become one of the biggest headaches for IT these days. I believe about 50% of our support tickets are related to spyware.

    Jerry
    http://www.syslog.org/ [syslog.org]

    • I believe about 50% of our support tickets are related to spyware.

      Redundencies?

      Don't need to worry about outsourcing if there no job to do in the first place.
    • From the article:

      "Microsoft plans to make available to Windows customers a beta version of a spyware protection, detection and removal tool, based on the GIANT AntiSpyware product, within one month"

      "This announcement and the release of the free beta will help consumers regain control over their PCs."

      (emphasis mine)

      I think that spells it out pretty clearly, at least for the beta. As others have pointed out, yes its a conflict of interests. However considering how bad the spyware problem is, FTA

  • Conflict of interest (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mr.Zuka ( 166632 )
    Isnt this a conflict of interest making the software that has the bugs and also selling the software that covers over those bugs. (I know Microsoft...)
    I think this really shows how Micky Mouse the code is that they are taking this route instead of getting the protocols right from the start.

  • Irony (Score:5, Interesting)

    by theycallmerenda ( 765018 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:25PM (#11112127)
    The first post after the spoofing vulnerabilitiy in IE is MSFT buying their way out of their own self-created problems...
  • So will this cause adaward and spybot to get eliminated b/c MSFT will just ship (for free) malware removal software?

  • Something brewing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:28PM (#11112152) Homepage
    In 2003, they bought GeCAD [enterpriseitplanet.com] , makers of RAV-AntiVirus [ravantivirus.com] . So is Microsoft going to release their own anti-virus too?
    • In 2003, they bought GeCAD, makers of RAV-AntiVirus.

      What I always thought was interesting was the RAV guys were very pro-Linux and sunk a lot of money into AV for Linux. The next day when every heard this (After advertising it Ad Nauseum in Linux Journal), M$ bought them out almost immediately. I was always suspicious that RAV was a "prime buy-out material" just for that reason.

      As always, add your own conspiracy theory below by clicking on the [reply to this] button.

  • Thanks again, Microsoft! (Score:5, Funny)

    by goon america ( 536413 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:28PM (#11112153) Homepage Journal
    Thank you Microsoft, for valiently saving us from the dangers you created!

    Microsoft: Acting more and more like a government every day.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It has potential to be worse than that. For the right price Microsoft will probably have their anti-spyware program "miss" a company's spyware and adware.
  • concentrate on fixing the system so that crap like that can't happen in the first place.

  • Whoa, misread that... (Score:5, Funny)

    by powerlinekid ( 442532 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:29PM (#11112165)
    I thought that said "Microsoft acquires spyware company" at which point my coworker responded "Makes sense, they try to integrate everything else".

  • Can't wait for the bad precident (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:31PM (#11112174) Homepage Journal
    Ya know, as soon as they release a Microsoft branded spyware removal tool will be the day they draw the line in the sand defining exactly what apps are welcome on the Microsoft platform and what apps are not. If Microsoft gets the final say of what runs on your machine, what makes you think they're only going to be removing spyware?
  • "See, it'd be a real shame, ya know, if something were, say - now I'm just saying if here, don't get me wrong - if something bad were to happen and your PC wound up with so much spyware on it that it didn't even have enough CPU cycles left over to display the log-in screen for you. Ain't that right, Ape? Ya see, Ape agrees with me. So any-hoo, we was thinkin' you might want to protect your PC against those bad things happening to it... and we have just the service to do it, and I'm sure you'll agree our

  • its funny cuz its true (Score:4, Insightful)

    by viva_fourier ( 232973 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @09:37PM (#11112220) Journal
    Irregardless of the quality of the anti-spyware, isn't it just damned *ironic* when a company can make a huge profit on a product, and then make *another* goatload of cash by fixing it.

    So I ask you, why would Microsoft *ever* wish to produce flawless software???
    • What makes you think they're going to charge for it? Microsoft has taken a hit on OS utilities before. They spent millions developing IE, which they then gave away. IIS is included with Windows for free. Tools like SFU can be downloaded for free. They included a disk defragmenter in W2K and newer. My guess is they'll include it in the next release of the OS, or maybe next XP service pack.
  • So, MS now has Alexa - a spyware program distributed free with Internet Explorer, the world's premier spyware platform and a removal tool...
  • I've just recently started Giant's AntiSpyware program and found it to be excellent at cleaning up the VX2 remanents and anything else left over after running Spybot S&D and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. I sure hope that M$'s take-over doesn't make a worth-while antispyware tool worthless.


  • ...that Gates and/or Ballmer read /.?
    • Failing Grades For Most Anti-Spyware Tools [slashdot.org]

      ...only 3 ASW programs had a 'batting average' of better than .500 when it came to eradicating the broad range of spyware in the test... The top three? Giant Anti-Spyware, Spy Sweeper, and Ad-Aware....

    Maybe someone at M$ read that article and said, "Hmmmm, that might be just what we need. Buy 'em!"

  • Finally, a REAL "Profit!" plan.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by flinxmeister ( 601654 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:06PM (#11112423) Homepage
    1. Write buggy OS with no security model
    2. Acquire company that bolts on a bandaid
    3. Profit!

    What next?

    "Microsoft to buy Large antivirus firm."

    "Microsoft announces acquisition of blue-screen-B-gone Inc."

    "Microsoft acquires company that removes the freakin' paperclip"
  • Checking for updates on my new favorite spyware removal company

    I am afraid there is something wrong with the mindset of ack154. He is so often checking for spyware removal tools, so he has a favourite one??? If I had a spyware problem for the second time, I would seek immediately an option to drop such a platform completely.

  • And in other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by aardwolf204 ( 630780 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:13PM (#11112461)
    In other news, Philip Morris [philipmorrisusa.com] acquires Pfizer's [pfizer.com] Nicotrol [nicotrol.com] divison.

    Story at eleven.
  • Just like those M$ bastards to buy a company like this and then say they're going to stop making a Mac and a Linux version.

    Oh, wait...nevermind...
  • In Japan, the same companies that produce and sell cigarettes also produce and sell the cancer drugs used to fight the maladies brought on by smoking.

    MS can now control the spam, yes, meaning they can charge the spammers to learn how to avoid the barriers (you paid? ok, here's the key...next in line! keep it moving!), while also charging the users - similar to how the phone compnay sells your number to marketers, while charging you a fee for a device that will block them - nice work if you can get it.
  • I think this is a way for them to make money on (or get credit for) selling you a shoddy product and then selling you an expensive bandaid.

    As I try to remind people. There are almost no "email" viruses. There are "Outlook viruses." Outlook wasn't always the number one email client, but it has always been the number one email client with security problems.

    There is almost no general "spyware". There is almost only "IE spyware". IE wasn't always the premier browser, but it has always had the biggest/mos
    • There is almost no general "spyware". Sorry, this is just plain incorrect. There is a lot of general spyware. It runs as another process and doesn't depend on IE at all. Take GAIN (Gator) for example... it brings up its own windows with ads in them, IE not necessary at all. Often this software is bundled with stuff like Kazaa or other P2P software and installed silently.
  • As in Anti spyware-removal?

  • Windows98 clean install results in 8 spyware... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:49PM (#11112701) Homepage Journal
    ...items....

    Now think again why MS would want such a anti-spyware product.
    • First off, Spyware didn't even exist at the time that Windows 98 was made. I would suggest that if you are being infected on a clean install, that you trash your stolen copy of the OS and go buy a real one. ISO downloads are quite often infected by spyware, trojans and such. So I wouldn't be surprised if you were having that problem.

  • Good move. Just not the whole solution (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Timbotronic ( 717458 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @10:54PM (#11112735)
    All the posts about prevention being better than cure miss the point. There are already millions of compromised systems out there. Sorry to break the /. code of compulsory MS bashing, but any initiative that could help reduce the number of spam bots out there is a good thing.

    MS needs to fix and upgrade IE as part of any attempt to fix the problem. No question. But the need for spyware removal tools is still there.

  • SpamInspector (Score:3, Informative)

    by delus10n0 ( 524126 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @11:24PM (#11112934)
    GIANT Software makes a product called Spam Inspector, and up until about 6 months ago, it was one of the best anti-spam products for Outlook. Then they started to demand yearly fees to use the program (when they originally sold it as a one-time payment.)

    So yeah, I ditched the program and found Spambayes [sourceforge.net], and I haven't had a complaint. I'm bummed I wasted money on SpamInspector, though.

  • My personal opinion.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by hawkes ( 264103 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @11:24PM (#11112935)
    ...is that it was a move to generate the worlds most ironic headline :

    "Microsoft acquires Giant Company"

  • Was probably cheaper (Score:3, Funny)

    by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <giles.jones@nospaM.zen.co.uk> on Friday December 17, 2004 @05:38AM (#11114396)
    They probably bought the company since it was cheaper than buying licenses for all of their machines at Redmond :)

  • An ounce of prevention... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by C_Kode ( 102755 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @08:53AM (#11115075) Journal
    As they say, An ounce of prevention is more valuable than a pound of cure. Why don't they fix the hole in Internet Explorer rather than implement software to remove exploits? Oh thats right! It's not a security hole, it's a feature.

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