I guess Microsoft has decided they have cornered enough of the Anti-Spyware market to start charging for the tool to fix their insecure OS. Microsoft popped up a dialog offering to download the new version of the anti-spyware tools. Usually the upgrade doesn't pop-up a separate window, so I was suspicious.Upon downloading the software and reading the terms of service, I read that the new version will stop working on December 31st, 2006, and I am not licensed to use the free version if Microsoft ever decides to sell it commercially.
It is fine for them to sell an anti-spyware product, and I won't argue against that. I do have a problem with sneaky terms that most people won't see since Microsoft displays a 15 page document 10 lines at a time, and so no one will ever read the whole thing. I also dislike a license that says I am allowed to use it for now, but if Microsoft changes their mind tomorrow, I have to stop using it. Again, it is fine for them to stop providing updates for a product, (and anti-spyware probably isn't much use without updates, so maybe it is the same thing), but it is stated differently.
I also think it strange that Microsoft feels they can charge for a product whose sole purpose is to fix problems resulting from bugs that they wrote.
Microsoft's tool never found anything anyway, so it either doesn't work, or I don't have any spyware stuff. I didn't install the Defender application, and went ahead and uninstalled the anti-spyware tool as well. I will probably use a different vendor, or else take my chances on not running one at all.
Posted by
Jon Daley on
May 6, 2006, 4:16 pm
| Read 2375 times
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