February 13th, 2006
Microsoft Anti-Spyware vs. Norton Anti-Virus — User Loses
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Well, that’s why Microsoft’s Anti-Spyware is still beta right? However, rather than the program, it seems related to the latest definitions file (5805, 5807. I’ve seen my AV list a false positive before if a file was erroneously detected because of a definitions file mistake (or heuristics). In this case, Norton Antivirus files are detected as PWS.Bancos.A (Password Stealer). There are several threads about this in Microsoft’s discussion groups (here’s one).
When Microsoft Anti-Spyware users remove the flagged Norton file as prompted, Symantec’s product gets corrupted and no longer protects the user’s machine. The Norton user then has to go through the Windows registry and delete multiple entries (registry editing is always a dicey affair that can quickly hose a system if the user doesn’t know what he or she is doing) so that the program can be completely removed and re-installed. Source: Washington Post
We Say: I know Microsoft still wants to take over the software world, but isn’t this a little heavy-handed? I mean, OneCare Live doesn’t even ship (and start bringing in revenue!) until June . 
Seriously, though, it is a beta product. Personally though, if one security product flagged another as a virus, I would do some checking before deleting anything, even with a mature product. I’ve seen too many false positives.
Tris Hussey says:
I agree. The firewall, I found, caused lots of strange blocks and errors.
February 13th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Microsoft AntiSpyware Vs. Norton Anti-Virus - User Loses
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes: Well, that’s why Microsoft’s AntiSpyware is still beta right? However, rather than the program, it seems related to the latest definitions file (5805, 5807. I’ve seen my AV list a false positive before if a file…
February 13th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Benjamin Van Hoesen says:
I own a computer network support company so we deal with this stuff everyday…
DO NOT INSTALL ONECARE! It’s a sad attempt at giving a number of really bad applications a single interface.
Forget the personal firewall software all of it just causes way more problems than it’s worth and doesn’t provide you with much more protection than a NAT Router will.
Microsoft Anti-Spyware is pretty good I have to say, I actually like it and use it and in turn so do our clients.
The Anti-Virus I can’t say if it’s good or bad, at this point I haven’t seen it installed on 20 + machines when a new bug comes out yet. But honestly Kaspersky is the best Anti-Virus solution that we have found we used Symantec (aka Norton) for 3 years and have recently changed over to Kaspersky. Everyone is better for it.
The Disk Defrag is “Diskeeper Lite” Diskeeper is an awesome piece of software the build in windows one uses a version from the late 90’s… I personally would put my money and my clients on Diskeeper network wide.
I don’t trust MS enough to have them take care of all these things. Anti-Virus most of all.
February 13th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Geek News Central says:
Geek News Central 2006-02-14 #146
The Number One fan of this show joins me during the first 15 minutes of the show. She wants to hear your comments, so make sure you send your audio comments to 619-342-7365 or your written comments to geeknews@gmail.com [Save…
February 14th, 2006 at 1:28 am
Perros says:
Antivirus products have always been pretty bad at giving each other false positives. Its often because heuristics detection can appear similar to viruses when looked at naively.
You shouldn’t run two virus scanners simultaneously, if you are unsure about using a beta then don’t use it, or put it on a “non-production” machine.
-Perros-
February 14th, 2006 at 3:23 am
John Corliss says:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Microsoft should not be in the malware market because there is an obvious conflict of interest involved. In fact, I will go so far as to say that the U.S. Justice Departement should tell them “NO!”
February 14th, 2006 at 7:22 am
Michael Santo says:
Benjamin, while you’re right about two AV products, you should be able to use an Anti-Spyware and AV.
February 14th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Bubba says:
Michael is is doing his usual “troll” reporting.
It’s beta. It shouldn’t installed on production systems.
What’s so hard for Michael to understand about that?
February 14th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Dating says:
Good post. Thanks for sharing.
September 25th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Alfredo says:
TIENEN LA RAZON CREO YO QUE LOS ANTIVIRUS DE MICROSOFT NO SON TAN BUENOS LO QUE YO RECOMENDARIA SERIA EL NOD32 COMO ANTIVIRUS YA QUE BIENE MUY COMPLETO
February 10th, 2008 at 10:01 am