Microsoft to bundle anti-spyware with vista
Well it shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but Microsoft is expected to bundle their anti-spyware product (which will be renamed windows defender) with Vista when the next version of the OS ships. It’s probably not a big surprise given the headaches that people have with spyware and the potential for a subscription update service. For most people this will probably be the only anti-spyware application they have.
According to what I’ve read it will be possible to uninstall this and install a third party application which may be enough to make the courts happy, but is it wise to get your security software from the same company that has so consistently shown a lack of secure design that they’ve made their add-on security software necessary? The security fix has more details and some of the same reservations about relying on a security tool from Microsoft.
I am unconvinced that Microsoft has what it takes to respond in a timely manner to either virus or spyware profile updates. Will we have the second Tuesday of the month security patch/spyware definition and antivirus update triple witching day? Or will they be able to do some serious quick responsiveness?
The Microsoft Blog announcement can be found here.