{"id":2053,"date":"2013-04-13T00:48:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-13T06:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=2053"},"modified":"2013-04-13T01:46:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-13T07:46:28","slug":"or-ill-do-to-you-what-i-did-to-internet-explorer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=2053","title":{"rendered":"… or I’ll do to you what I did to Internet Explorer!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I imagine some suit at Microsoft sneering this line after emasculating poor Microsoft Security Essentials for Christmas laughs late last year.<\/p>\n

This info is a little old now, but since I’m on a “write about Microsoft products” kick on this here crappy blog, I thought I’d mention it anyway.<\/p>\n

According to a computer lab filled with serious German scientists, (from this source<\/a> and this source<\/a>), it would seem that Microsoft’s very own anti-malware tool is kind of useless compared to what other companies have released.\u00a0 Again, I don’t use MSE, so I really don’t care a whole lot.\u00a0 I also use Linux for most of what I do on the internet, and comparing Linux to Windows for internet security is like comparing a sirloin steak to a moldy bag of peanuts that has roaches and ants in it and also somehow gonorrhea .\u00a0 I also don’t know if these glaring failures have been reversed.\u00a0 But here are some graphs which I shamelessly stole from one of these articles:<\/p>\n

\"msefail1\"<\/a> \"msefail2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Were I one of the millions of users of Microsoft Security Essentials, I would be freaking out right about now.\u00a0 Actually, I would have freaked out months ago when I first read this, but that’s beside the point.<\/p>\n

Speaking of point, I should get on with mine.\u00a0 This makes me think of the way that Microsoft handled their ill-gotten victory in the late 90s browser wars.\u00a0 One they had used their monopoly in PC operating systems to spread their browser Internet Exploiter<\/del> Explorer, and once they had left poor scrappy Netscrape<\/del> Netscape Navigator in a pool of its own blood and broken teeth, progress on IE stalled.<\/p>\n

There was no need for Microsoft to “waste” resources on improving it after IE6 came out.\u00a0 They had a massive majority in the browser market, and at the time they had “won” it, IE6 was technically a more capable browser than Navigator.<\/p>\n

But you might remember the massive security hole that IE6 was and still is.\u00a0 ActiveX controls?\u00a0 Let websites control certain functions of your computer?\u00a0 What a great fucking idea!\u00a0 That wasn’t the only security vulnerability.\u00a0 Back then, Microsoft was just synonymous with terrible security.<\/p>\n

Back to my point.\u00a0 Microsoft let IE6 basically rot.\u00a0 It took Firefox rising from Netscape’s ashes to get them to, you know, compete in the browser market again.\u00a0 The more that MS got scared that they would lose market share, the more they desperately applied lipstick to the pig that is IE.<\/p>\n

Can you see where I’m going with this?\u00a0 I know, it’s like watching Ray Charles driving a nitro-burning funny car, but bear with me<\/a>.\u00a0 I’m thinking that this is what’s going on with Microsoft Security Essentials now.\u00a0 (The IE thing, not the Ray Charles thing.)<\/p>\n

MSE took market share from all the other antivirus\/anti-malware programs out there because it was fast and lean.\u00a0 It still is much faster and leaner because it doesn’t quite work in the same way as those other programs do.\u00a0 And I guess it turns out that it doesn’t quite work.<\/p>\n

But after gaining that market lead, why would Microsoft waste resources by innovating or improving MSE?\u00a0 Why not let it rot?\u00a0 That seems to be what they do between applying fresh coats of lipstick on their various pigs.<\/p>\n

Okay, Ray Charles is changing lanes now.\u00a0 I use Windows XP in a virtual machine on my Linux computer.\u00a0 The virtual XP has an internet connection, so I have to protect it.\u00a0 Using a Windows PC operating system is like dropping the soap in jail while singing showtunes.\u00a0 So I have antivirus (Avast), anti-spyware (SpyBot) and a firewall (ZoneAlarm) running to keep the wee beasties out.<\/p>\n

Ray Charles is being flagged to come in for a pit stop, but he can’t see the flag.\u00a0 Is that how racing works?\u00a0 I don’t know, I’ve never watched it.\u00a0 It’s all just a whole bunch of left turns anyway.\u00a0 What’s so exciting about that?<\/p>\n

Ahem.\u00a0 Avast seems to be regarded as the best free antivirus.\u00a0 But damn, has the latest version ever decided that it’s all my virtual XP was made to do.\u00a0 Light and lithe it ain’t.\u00a0 But I read about the new features that this latest version has, and I can see why it’s taking up my VM’s allotted processor cycles so much.\u00a0 I guess I don’t mind then.\u00a0 It beats being like MSE and, you know, not working very well.<\/p>\n

I’m Ray Charles and you’ve been fabulous!\u00a0 Goodnight!<\/p>\n

\"Ray-Charles-Photo1\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I imagine some suit at Microsoft sneering this line after emasculating poor Microsoft Security Essentials for Christmas laughs late last year. This info is a little old now, but since I’m on a “write about Microsoft products” kick on this here crappy blog, I thought I’d mention it anyway. According to a computer lab filled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,26],"tags":[449,368,133,450],"class_list":["post-2053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-windows","tag-antivirus","tag-malware","tag-microsoft","tag-ray-charles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2053"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2066,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions\/2066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}