For the price, Vista should include anti-virus protection
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Before I get started, Happy Holidays everyone, stay safe. Now then, Vista ships with just about every new computer but users of said computer are not well protected from viruses or malware out of the box. If that’s what you’re after you will have to go with Linux or Mac OSX.
Retail copies are expensive, more expensive than competing operating systems, a copy of Vista Ultimate will run you $400 whereas the OEM copy will run $170 but doesn’t come with documentation or support.
The Seattle Times had a few things to say about Vista and thinks that Vista should include anti-virus software, I would like to expand on that idea.
Assuming this would work (I’ll get to why it wouldn’t in a minute), Microsoft couldn’t or rather wouldn’t include this feature with all versions of Windows, Basic would be left out as its missing many features of its bigger brothers anyway, Premium would be border line but I’d say that it wouldn’t have it. Business and Ultimate editions would be prime candidates for including the OneCare suite with one year subscription.
But, how much good would that do, most systems ship with Vista Premium, a few ship with basic and even fewer ship with Ultimate or Business and most of those are special orders but a few retail models can be found with those versions.
Here’s why this wouldn’t work. Even though it wouldn’t be included on all editions of Vista, this could be considered another monopoly play on Microsoft’s part. By including its own OneCare suite with the operating system, that pushes out Symantec and McAfee which people gladly pay for now. I think both companies would complain about it.
The company takes enough heat as it is with including media player (which can’t play many common formats “out of the box”) and Internet Explorer which is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to web browsing and novice users only use it because it’s included and don’t want to/need to seek out an alternative.
And the same would be true of OneCare, why seek out an alternative anti-virus when it’s included? Of course, OneCare includes several utilities as well as a more configurable firewall, anti-virus and integrates with Windows Defender for malware protection.
There is a way around this, Microsoft could make “special” OneCare editions of Vista, let’s call it Vista Ultimate or Business OneCare which would add two additional Vista options to the already confusing line of editions to choose from.
I agree that Vista should include some out of the box anti-virus protection that’s not a trial from Symantec or McAfee, full one-year versions of those would be better than nothing. I’m sure if it could, Microsoft would include OneCare with a six month or one-year subscription and my guess is, it can’t or it would rather sell you the $50 OneCare package in addition to the $200~$400 you already spent on Vista.
There are enough free third party firewalls, anti-virus software and malware protection to shake a stick at, but for most users, a nice integrated suite is the way to go and the only way to get that is to buy one.
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December 30th, 2007
Virus protection is becoming increasingly important for everyone – both business users and home users – as technology becomes more and more complex. I would hope that as companies (and especially big ones like Microsoft!) continue to work on designing products that meet the complex needs of their loyal customers, they will start to work in what I think is very basic security features into their software packages. I think it’s a good sign that Microsoft has been relatively responsive to complaints about Vista in the past year or so, and it will be interesting to see how the company continues to develop its products.
January 10th, 2008
Ahh…. What! One care FREE….
Why even bother. There are plenty of FREE Anti-virus software on the NET that crush even the likes of Symantec and McAfee. Products like Avast Home Edition and AVG, etc… kick A..
Just search them up on the NET ….