Wednesday, June 29, 2005

New Version of MS Anti-Spyware Beta

I've been running Microsoft's beta antispyware package on several systems. For the most part, it's been uneventful. I see onscreen dialogs ,once a day when the full scan runs, and every so often, there's a new set of signatures are downloaded. Today I got a offered a "new version". I've accepted and it's downloaded and is running, but there are a couple of things that bother me.

First, it was all too easy to just click yes, yes, yes to install. Is this an attack vector? Second, I'm not sure what's changed or why I needed this update (same refers to the occasional signature updates). I'd like to see update notes. And third, the installation requires a reboot - which was not disclosed before I started the install (see my first point!). GRRRRRR!!!

Finally, I'm not sure it's really doing much. Thus far, after several months of use (and aside from one recurring false positive), it's found nothing new on my 3 main systems. I'm not interested in going to sites where I might get sypware installed automatically, so I'm NOT offereing to do that bit of beta testing!

I guess I'd like to see regular release notes (dump them into the install folder) and some more details on the efficacy of this product in the wild. An updated RTM schedule would also be appreciated!

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