Microsoft has officially announced that they will unveil a new antivirus service, but this one is free. The company is willing to replace the Live OneCare service with Morro antivirus which is free, and should be released by the end of the year. Microsoft says that Morro will be better than Live One Care, beta will come soon, and they the antivirus service will not be bundled with Windows Vista or Windows 7.
I admit that Microsoft is not the best when it comes to protection, and that you might question their service, but there are some who don’t look at it with good eyes. Microsoft Live OneCare wasn’t free, and it wasn’t that good, and now that Morro will be better and free, Symantec and McAfee are starting to panic because they cannot release free anti-spyware services. It is clear that people like free stuff if it helps them in one way or another therefore only few will pay to get something “only” slightly better.
Microsoft said that they won’t bundle Morro with Windows versions because they are afraid of antitrust suits. We’ve seen Microsoft paying a lot of fines, and now they announced the removal of a bunch of apps from Windows 7. Well, the good thing is that you can download these apps and this antivirus service for free from Microsoft. Wait for Microsoft Morro beta to become available, download it, and if you like it, then maybe you’ll download the final version when it shows up before the end of the year.
There are so several incorrect comments in this piece. For instance, “Morro” is a code name. They have not names the product yet. Also, Microsoft has not said that “Morro” will be “better” thatn OneCare. They have said that it will be built on the same award winning antimalware engine that powers thier enterprise line of products – OneCare has the same engine. What Morro will not be is power hogging security suite. And yes, McAffee and Symantec are panicing. As they should.