Submitted by Symantec has previously complained that Vista’s PatchGuard kernel-protection technology might limit Symantec’s ability to protect the kernel with its own software. But what do other security vendors think? Yesterday Sophos’ Ron O’Brien told BetaNews that “Nothing about the way PatchGuard works would hinder Sophos’ architecture for an enterprise security suite. In fact, he argued, if Microsoft wants to use its own methods to close off the kernel, that’s a good thing.”
“If Microsoft won’t give us deep system access, you can’t blame us if something should slip through”. I know that’s really cynical but I can’t help but think that that played at least a small part in their consensus.
And frankly, I can’t blame Microsoft for keeping other vendors out of kernel space. I have seen Symantec muck up more systems than I’ve seen it protect. Whether it’s file locking issues or system resources gobbling, their AV has been a horror show since it came under the symantec umbrella (where have you gone Peter Norton?).
If Microsoft can maintain the integrity of the system’s internals, I’ll be more than happy to trust AV vendors with handling real time scanning and nothing more. That is a big ‘if’ but obviously, something needs to change wrt windows security.
Nonono… You got it all wrong..
Of course Microsoft will keep everything secret. You see, they going to sell antivirus software themselves..
Now – why the hell should they give acces to their system internals? They just want to sell an OS with big holes in it, keep ativirus-competition out of the way, and ask the costumers a nice price for the antivirus-software that closes the holes in their OS. By the way – keeping everything secret will get rid of all those nasty free anti-virus software like AVG too!!
There you have it! Sell a leaky OS and a seperate solution for that (preferably on subscription)… oh – and keep competition out of the way.. Result?? .. Double profit!!!
Of course.. that makes sense…. MS will keep access to the kernel from Antivirus writers… but before you can say “Trusted Computing” hackers will have it crawling on its knees…. I know that story. 🙂
Please buy us up Daddy Gates. We really can’t stand the software business anymore because people are moving to big bad linux (or is it big bad Mac) and nobody needs Antivirus anymore.
“We really can’t stand the software business anymore because people are moving to big bad linux (or is it big bad Mac)”
Yup. Linux’s .4% of the market is scary!!!
Agreed. No matter how hard people try, saying that Linux is great and that everyone is using it, doesn’t make it so.
I really don’t care how many users are using GNULinux as long as all the computers that I have to deal with are running it.
I can’t stand the annoyance of Microsoft windows but it’s amazing how many people can.
I can’t stand the annoyance of Microsoft windows but it’s amazing how many people can.
How so? I’ve yet to have any problems with Windows XP; unlike Linux, all my hardware works flawlessly, my wireless card works out of the box without a hickup, my sound works without distortion issues, and most of all, I can access big name software titles without needing to jump through the tool called wine simply to get things running on Linux.
If you are experiencing issues with Windows, maybe the first thing you need to ask yourself is, “am I doing something to cause this?”
… Why should he?
We both know that out of the box, using no 3rd-party drivers, XP is POS. I doubt that it’ll be able to -boot- the XP installer on this machine. (SATA+SCSI based Opteron workstation).
Ignoring for a second the “free” (Free as beer, free as speech) and security factors, Windows severely lacks diagnostic tools.
Here’s a couple of stories to prove my point.
Case1:
A couple of months ago a friend of mine brought his dead PC, asking me to fix (read: reinstall XP) on it.
The installation itself was rather event-less, but no matter what I tried, I couldn’t find drivers for his no-name webcam. (He lost/throw away the driver CD + box; XP’s search didn’t come up with anything and the webcam’s name didn’t come in Google)
I was about to send him to the nearest computer store when I decide to give Linux a chance, and look and behold, not only did Fedora Core 5 detect the webcam chipset (or actually udev did), it also installed the right drivers for it – in short, it worked out of the box.
I fired-up usbview, wrote down the chipset and manufacturer ID(s), and used this information to track down XP drivers for the webcam. Took me 5 minutes to find the drivers.
Case2:
Being a cross platform developer, I have a Windows XP based workstation which I use on a daily basis.
A couple of weeks ago the machine started BSOD’ing once or twice every day.
I checked the drivers, the eventlog, ran Sandra, memtest86 and even 3D mark. For the life of me I couldn’t find out what’s wrong with the machine.
A week ago I gave up, I boot the machine using DSL (Damn Small Linux CD) LiveCD and started following the kernel log while I worked.
After a couple of hours the Kernel log start spewing IDE errors: Seems that the IDE drive was slowly dieing, taking Windows XP with it.
I replaced the drive and the machine returned to normal.
Does any of this makes Linux suitable for -your- needs? No.
But at least I didn’t blame you for having a bad experience with Linux.
– Gilboa
Maybe let’s not lie here – there is NO Wifi card who would work out of box on Windows, unless you are using unsecure b version of WiFi
And I don’t need big name software titles to get a work done, thank you. You propably have bough all of your software, though, though
Ever pulled the network plug or intentionally disabled the network device on a windows box?
It’s fun how everything freezes up while windows works out that the network interface is now disabled.
Ever looked at windows help and noticed how it lacks anything even mildly technical?
Fun error messages that instead of telling me that the issue is, tell me to contact my system administrator(me).
Every tried installing windows across multiple partions so that you don’t have to reinstall all your applications when windows eventually needs a reinstall.
Microsoft does get many things right especially those things required for the average home user but there are so many basic things that aren’t intutative.
I can’t stand the annoyance of Microsoft windows but it’s amazing how many people can.
It’s not that amazing once you realize that not everyone is a paranoid raving lunatic with a baseless personal vendetta against Microsoft.
Linux’s how ever you say it, anyway the user-friendliness suck as far as installing stuff. Outside YaST or whatever you have, to spite how buggy & prone to security threats windows is, I like downloading a file clicking once for a .exe to install twice for .zip it is done amazing. You can say go back to windows if you want, but just because I want easy to use doesn’t mean I don’t want security plus stability (sp?).
I assume by “linux” you mean “most linux distros,” considering that there are even easier ways to install software on linux, e.g. Rox’s application directories (just download and you’re done!) or the various no-install package managers.
Yup. Linux’s .4% of the market is scary!!!
I assume that is an attempt at humor, as it isn’t very accurate. The +5 rating you have is likely due to humor, as being factual didn’t seem to be a concern in your post.
According to IDC[1], Linux desktop is around 3%, while server marketshare is around 24%. Since this is about antivirus/API access, the servers are likely to be performing virus scanning operations, as anti-virus isn’t just a “desktop” app.
I would call 24% significant. 3% is a bit small, but it is nearly a whole order of magnitude above your un-cited statistic.
[1] http://www.theage.com.au/news/Management-Focus/War-is-over/2005/02/…
“According to IDC[1], Linux desktop is around 3%”
According to weblogs from very large log aggragators, Linux is .4%.
3% for Linux is a total fantasy.
“Since this is about antivirus/API access, the servers are likely to be performing virus scanning operations, as anti-virus isn’t just a “desktop” app.”
Well, unit sales for desktops are about 150,000,000 a year, and for servers its about 7,000,000 a year. Server sales are miniscule portion of total sales of computers.
Edited 2006-09-29 20:22
Any links for these aggregators, and their methods?
And this certainly does not refute the increased sales that IDG and Gartner measure.
(offtopic: now, why was my earlier post modded down to -2? It certainly violated no rules)
(offtopic: now, why was my earlier post modded down to -2? It certainly violated no rules)
either because the windows fanboys disagreed with you. or that guy notparker has a few accounts here.
his posts always get modded up to +5 or so, and they never say anything useful.
and people he disagrees with go down to -2 or -3
can you check that guy out please moderators ?
Edited 2006-09-30 07:16
Linux doesn’t have a .4% market share, it is more close to 5% – 6%, or even more.
However, it is just my guess as metrics to get market share levels doesn’t work anymore in era of warez and free downloads of Linux distros
When a product like Symantec Windows Utillities is based entirely around another product that they don’t own like Windows XP, they’re setting themselves up for a hard time if there are any product revisions outside of their control. If there’s an auto parts manufacturer that makes better replacement products than the OEM they have to live with the fact that one day they may not be able to sell carburators anymore because the OEM moved to a new technology. This isn’t anti-compeditive despite what many people would wish.
I don’t see the risk you espouse. Aftermarket parts work because cars last a long time Meor! XP has lasted a long time. TOO LONG! Vista will probably have similar lifespan. That’s a security blanket for your business plan, not a risk.
France couldn’t get Apple to share their DRM, good luck getting into Vista’s kernel.
Seriously, Symantec is blaming Microsoft for doing the job it should do? Microsoft is securing up is own kernel and instead of saying bravo, Symantec is crying because it will lose it’s business? Man, wake up Symantec, your software are made for securing up an other vendor OS. If this OS become more secure, will it make your software useless? Yes! Will it be bad for the end-user? We’ll see.
Still, I don’t like Symantec at all, nor Microsft, but still I think I respect Microsoft decisision. This is good will they are putting in Vista. Viruses and worms need to be confined in user-space. In fact, I think if this protection is working and can’t be breached, this will put Windows Vista near Linux and MacOS X in term of virus resistance.
The things is that people forgot that virus are using security hole in the OS to work. Under Windows it has become so common that people tend to find this normal. But hey, this is serious! This is a hole in the OS, a complete breach of security. Nobody who got a sain IT head would stand to put at risk it’s data. Do security hole stay unpatched under linux? If it happen that a security whole if found in the kernel, do Linus Torvald will tell you: Hey, just go out and buy a virus scanning software, it’s all your fault! Certainly not. Microsoft minds have been shake up with Linux and Mac OS X. They see the treat now, and they are back in the competition.
You can’t blame anywhone for being more secure, this is just the great common sense!
Yup.
What if Microsoft realeased an awesome new secure OS after Vista, hypothetically speaking of course
. Perhaps based on the awesome, legacy free, built from the ground up Singularity project.
Will Symantec claim anti-trust violation against Microsoft because they dared to release a product that doesn’t need and therefore does not even provide hooks for Symantec products? (not to imply we need them now either)
I own a consulting company and for 3 years was the sole worker. I never had good luck with the Symantect Anti Virus, and it was always a pain in the rear to remove. It also seemed to be very very heavy on the OS. I ended up using Trend Micro almost all the time.
Do any of you have a similar history with their products?
It’s been my experience (your mileage may vary) that Symantec’s products (like many of Microsoft’s) work reasonably okay initially but, after enough time, mileage, and general use, they tend to decay and cause sluggish performance. Now, some of those problems may have nothing to do specifically with Symantec but, rather, from unanticipated interactions with other components. But, either way, it’s often frustrating for users to buy a new machine and see it degrade over a few months. I should probably mention that Symantec isn’t the only vendor that I’ve seen this happen with. Most of the other AV/firewall vendors have similar kinds of problems.
Personally, I would prefer if MS drew hard lines between the kernel and the utility vendors. It’s very dangerous for utility vendors to start mucking around with the kernel and modify its functionality in unstructured ways. The vendors may not like it, but it will make us all safer in the long run. Just my two cents.
Symantec AntiVirus itself, if you buy it by itself without anything else bundled and install only the antivirus, is serviceable, but no better than any of the alternatives and certainly heavier on the OS than some. But I wouldn’t touch any of Symantec’s other tools with a ten-foot pole, based on my experiences with them. As just one small example, installing the 2005 version of GoBack resulted in my not being able to boot Windows anymore. As for McAfee, I wouldn’t even touch their antivirus with a ten-foot pole, their software is that buggy and bad, I won’t even go into the details of my torture when dealing with that software. Aside from that, it’s pretty much impossible to install McAfee over Symantec, or vice-versa, without manually deleting thousands of registry keys (read: hours of pure torturous monotony), and even then it might not work. This just goes to show the ridiculous level of embeddedment these programs require you to submit to, you just have to resign yourself to never getting rid of the old skeletons of these programs in your system. And yes, they definitely do slow down your system. So to sum up: get something else, preferably a free program like Avast, AVG or AntiVir, which have all been shown to have excellent protection (I’ve used Avast for a while and am quite happy with it, it just needs a few things to be configured to make it more usable, like turning off audible alerts).
Edited 2006-09-30 10:10
Sure, Norton Antivirus is a horror. Worst evil from their family is Internet Security 2006 package, who can brought fresh and fast computer to it’s knees. I avoid it as much as possible, ignoring that it comes free with lot of motherboard drivers.
Being a cross platform developer, I have a Windows XP based workstation which I use on a daily basis.
A couple of weeks ago the machine started BSOD’ing once or twice every day.
I checked the drivers, the eventlog, ran Sandra, memtest86 and even 3D mark. For the life of me I couldn’t find out what’s wrong with the machine.
A week ago I gave up, I boot the machine using DSL (Damn Small Linux CD) LiveCD and started following the kernel log while I worked.
After a couple of hours the Kernel log start spewing IDE errors: Seems that the IDE drive was slowly dieing, taking Windows XP with it.
I replaced the drive and the machine returned to normal.
Strange that MY eventlog keeps reporting bad sectors, disk and controller errors all the time. I had no need to boot some Linux live CD to find that out. Hell, in the case of my deteriorating IDE cable, it told me even which IDE port.