Free Antivirus from Microsoft - Morro
Microsoft seems to be rocking a few boats in the antivirus market with the announcement that they will now be offering a FREE antivirus solution next year. This product is called Morro and is going to be released sometime in the second half of 2009 (with Windows 7 maybe??). Also, as of June 2009 OneCare is also going to be discontinued.
Computers purchased from places like Dell might be affected by this move, and also have an effect on the consumers pocket books. Some of the ‘crapware’ that’s installed on each machine at the time of purchase actually lowers the price. I don’t have any hard figures, but I would guess that Norton (and others) pay a good chunk of money to be installed by default on a new machine. I understand there are already good free antivirus packages out there, but what if MS can make this part of each build, right in the base OS? Are vendors going to double up and install Norton on each machine?
Only time will tell, but what’s going to happen to all these antivirus products that charge money? Are they going to still be around and profitable after the Morrow release? I’m just asking…
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About the Author: As a News and Features Writer for GBM, Matt lives and breathes gadgets and mobile computing. In addition, he contributes to daily news posts, InkShow video reviews, and podcasts.
seifip | Nov 19, 2008 | Reply
Finally!
It always seemed so logical to have an antivirus and antispyware built-in in Windows. The second part came to reality with Vista and I'm very glad they'll finally make the first one true as well in Windows 7…
Ben | Nov 19, 2008 | Reply
sweet. i'd use that, probably.
to heck with norton. however, i suspect vendors might just double up. afterall, if 1 is secure, just imagine how secure 2 is!! (and what do they care if your computer is slow? everyone will just blame MS, and buy a new computer sooner than they need to.)
GoodThings2Life | Nov 20, 2008 | Reply
1) I've been using OneCare since it first launched 1.0. Despite a few hiccups on occasion, it's worked really well, so I am interested in seeing what Morro has to offer, but I hope it's like the rest of the Windows Live services and that it's offered as a free download, rather than integrated. I'd hate to deal with another antitrust case against Microsoft.
2) Norton and McAfee are both HORRIBLE solutions and have been for a while now. I used to depend on Symantec's Corporate edition, but even that has been bogged down in recent versions.
3) AVG, while not readily available with the OS, is free and also a much better solution than many of the antivirus programs available. I've been recommending it for years now, and it has yet to disappoint.
Mark (K0LO) | Nov 20, 2008 | Reply
I'm 100% satisfied with the Antivirus solution that I've been using with Vista for about a year now (i.e. none!) :-)