Mafiasoft: Microsoft to charge $50 per year for security service to protect Windows
Tuesday, February 07, 2006 - 03:13 PM EDT"A new security service from Microsoft Corp. will charge users $49.95 per year to better protect its Windows operating system from spyware, viruses and other Internet attacks," Allison Linn reports for The Associated Press. "Microsoft plans to release the product in early June."
"Called Windows OneCare Live, the subscription service will compete with security products made by traditional Microsoft partners, including Symantec Corp. and McAfee Inc. — although the software giant insists that its aim is not to run those companies out of business," Linn reports. "Ryan Hamlin, general manager of Microsoft's Technology Care and Safety Group, said Microsoft is less concerned with converting people already using other products. Instead, Hamlin says Microsoft's goal is to provide protection for users who don't have any added or up-to-date security — a group that Microsoft estimates comprises 70 percent of consumer users."
"Microsoft, whose Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser are constant targets of worms, viruses and other disruptive attacks, announced more than a year ago that it would offer the paid service," Linn reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wasn't Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP supposed to be secure? Now, they're promising Windows Vista will be secure. Yeah, riiight. And, because they're incapable of making Window secure, they're going to charge their pigeons $50 per year? For "Microsoft Security," a misnomer if ever there was one? Why not make Windows itself secure? You know, like Apple's Mac OS X.
Anyone who buys Windows and then pays Mafiasoft $50 per year in protection money is a damn fool. If you're that stupid, you deserve to use Windows, and only Windows, for the rest of your life. Wonder what will happen if and when Microsoft's security subscription earnings dip and need to be, ahem, "reinvigorated?"
Here's the best personal computer advice you'll get all year, perhaps ever: If you only use Windows, dump it and get a Mac. Take the $50 you would have wasted for trying to secure the Windows mess, add in all of your annual wasted time and the costs of your other Windows anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-malware software plus the processor cycles you waste running them, and apply it toward your .Mac subscription instead. Don't forget to ask your software vendors to "cross-grade" your software (pay the upgrade price - or in some cases just the shipping cost - to switch from the Windows version to the Mac version, instead of the full retail price - many vendors will accommodate you). You'll come out so far ahead, you'll think you've jumped forward a decade - which, of course, would be true.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Mafiasoft? Microsoft to 'offer' new subscription security protection racket - October 07, 2005
Sleazy Microsoft sells out anti-spyware Windows users, downgrades Claria Gator to 'ignore' - July 07, 2005
Mafiasoft? Microsoft to roll out anti-virus subscription protection racket - May 13, 2005
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How about one that strongly recommends having one at all times? Don't buy cardboard rowboats people, the only Vista they have is a view of the ocean below as you look through the holes in the bottom.
As a Mac user, I just gotta laugh out loud.