Kaspersky files antitrust suit against Microsoft

[bill]

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/windows_defender_competition_complaint/ [theregister.co.uk]

Kaspersky files antitrust suit against Microsoft

Kaspersky Lab has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft over allegations that Redmond is hobbling third-party antivirus software.

The complaint was submitted to both the European Commission and German Federal Cartel Office this week following earlier protests to Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service last year.

Kasperky Lab claims that Microsoft is abusing its "dominant position in the computer operating system (OS) market to fiercely promote its own – inferior – security software (Windows Defender)" at the expense of any third-party security software users have chosen to install. This applies to Kasperky Lab's rivals as much as it does to the Russian software maker, it is alleged.

[keyplyr]

inferior – security software (Windows Defender)

Strong language from Kasperky Labs. Actually, my experience with Kasperky is that they report a lot of false positives.

Facebook used Kasperky anti-virus software to combat a *perceived* wide spread infection a couple years ago. Kasperky falsely reported to FB that 3 accounts I manged were infected and FB locked them down until I downloaded/installed a Kasperky program and ran it, then uploaded the results to FB to unlock each account. All 3 accounts were falsely identified. I spent a couple needless hours, but Kasperky succeeded in getting its software installed on 3 machines. I call that "abuse."

I like Windows Defender. It's fast and easy and has received industry accolades. All the third party AV programs (Kasperky, Symantec, AVG, McAfee) are resource hogs and take time to load on start-up.

[martinibuster]

Are they trying to emulate the browser war lawsuit that Microsoft lost? I always disagreed with the judgment in that case where the judge felt it was wrong for MS to use their position to give away a free software. A case where technology and how it was marketed was ahead of society and the business world.

That is not the case today. Free software is the norm. Even Apple and Google do it. Granted, (and no offense to Europeans), it seems as if the judges in European technology cases have a loose grasp on how the Internet and technology industry functions (thinking about that British cookie law and some German lawsuits), so maybe they might have a chance.

[engine]

Good luck, Kaspersky, I think it may be tougher to crack that nut this time.

Microsoft has long offered a basic scanner, in various guides over the years. There's no question, it's better have something from Microsoft that's free than to have nothing on the system.

Many years back I used Kaspersky but eventually got frustrated with the false positives. I preferred a paid option to keep as up-to-date as possible, and it has paid off. Relying upon one package is always a risk, so i'm happy to take the Windows version as long as it does not clash with my current a/v software. Only time will tell.

thinking about that British cookie law

FYI, it's a European directive, but yes, it's badly thought through and remains a complete pain in the proverbial.

[martinibuster]

Ha! Thanks for the correction about that cookie law. :)

I pay for MalwareBytes because it's useful and complements Microsoft's AV. I tried a wide range of AV software and was willing to pay for them but ran into many different problems that made them inconvenient for me. I'm using Microsoft not because it's free but because it works well.