Microsoft appeases Kaspersky with upcoming antivirus changes
Microsoft plans to introduces changes in the soon-to-be released Windows 10 Fall Creators update that intensifies the cooperation with third-party antivirus and security companies that publish products for Windows.
Russian antivirus and security company Kaspersky criticized Microsoft's handling of third-party antivirus in Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system.
Kaspersky's main points of criticism were that Microsoft enabled Windows Defender as soon as installed antivirus solutions expired, and that upgrades to Windows 10, and Windows 10 feature updates led to the removal of third-party antivirus solutions due to incompatibilities.
Starting with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Microsoft plans to introduce changes to improve support for security partners in "delivering security protections to Windows customers".
The company plans to change how users are informed about expiring security solutions. Windows 10 notified users in the Security Center up until now, and enabled Windows Defender in the process as well to enable protection on the system (since the third-party security solution expired).
The reworked flow shows a persistent notification on the Windows desktop that notifies users about the expiration and stays there until users renew the software license that expired, or switch Windows Defender or another installed security solution on instead.
Third-party security software vendors may create custom alerts and notifications on top of that to notify customers before and after their security products have expired to display options to renew the security products.
Another set of changes comes in form of better pre-release cooperation with security companies. Microsoft offers to help companies "with compatibility reviews in advance of each feature update" for instance.
Additionally, Microsoft plans to "better visibility and certainty around release schedules for feature updates".
Basically, what Microsoft hopes these two changes lead to is a reduction in software incompatibilities with Windows 10 Feature updates. Software that is deemed incompatible with Windows 10 will be removed from the system during feature updates.
If security companies get more help resolving these issues, less solutions may be removed due to incompatibilities.
It appears that Microsoft has settled its dispute with Kaspersky thanks to these upcoming changes.
We appreciate the feedback and continued dialogue with our partners and are pleased to have found common ground with Kaspersky Lab on the complaints raised in Russia and Europe.
Closing Words
Windows 10 users will be notified with a persistent notification when their antivirus software expires, and antivirus software companies may display custom notifications about the expiration -- before and after -- as well.
While that is nothing that experienced users may need or like, it is probably a good option for users who are less experienced when it comes to this.
Now You: What's your take on the announced change? (via Deskmodder)
It is also should be known that Kaspersky Lab is heavily affiliated with Russian federal government agencies (Evgeny Kaspersky is a former KGB officer, graduated in KGB Academy back in USSR) and has been implicated in multiple cases of providing access to personal computers of Russian opposition members without court order, stolen data short time after that partially published my ‘mysterious hackers’.
It probably won’t affect you if you don’t live in Russia but just something to have in mind.
“Kaspersky’s main points of criticism were that Microsoft enabled Windows Defender as soon as installed antivirus solutions expired”
Seriously?
forgot to mention. it’s still not e10 compatible (even the 2018 version)
to be honest though… i use kas stuff with win10 and didn’t notice any issue with the win10 feature upgrades (granted. the win10 was a clean install with win7 key at almost the end of the freebie period).
i don’t see any issue with ms turning on defender by default when the other solutions expired and presumably disabled. (providing it does just that, and not uninstalling the stuff) that sounds pretty sane to me, rather than leaving people wide open. though of course it should be done with a whacking big sign telling the user it’s done that.
the problem with kas and compatibility isn’t just with windows. i don’t even know if it works with firefox 64 yet without a lot of fiddling. or whether it distinguishes between firefox 32 and firefox 64 with their safe money thing. (especially given ff50 is defaulting to 64 bits, though oddly my ff hasn’t autoupdated to 50 yet)
i mean, kas’s stuff is good, but you wonder if they are doing enough with dev branches of things like firefox or windows. of course, kas has now released a freebie version. wonder if whatever version of kas (kav/kis/total) you have will automatically drop to the freebie version when subscription ends (and thus bypassing this altogether)
Kaspersky is running just fine on the latest version of Firefox – 55.01 64 bit. I have used pretty much everything out there over the years but I prefer Kaspersky.
Microsoft’s move came only after Kaspersky Labs filed antitrust complaints against Microsoft in Europe.
the best thing that microsoft has ever done in the last 10 years is microsoft security essentials or windows defender now
Defender never catches anything and it has the lowest detection rates out there.
And yeah I have used it. It’s a bunch of junk.
Agreed. I use Defender without any issues.
Windows 10 is the real threat – a virus and malware….
Well Windoze 10 is definitely adware and spyware, no doubt about it.
Another vain attempt by Microsoft to monopolize the AV market falls by the wayside.