A Review of Windows Defender, Beta 2

  • Thread starter Thread starter SteveC
  • Start date Start date
Typical Paul, towing the party line.

He approves uncritically of the removal of many of the good features in
Antispyware (sys tray icon, more agents, more system explorers), that have
been removed in this dumbed down version.

'the ever-present tray icon from Windows Antispyware Beta 1 is missing as
well. Microsoft's new mantra for this release is that it should not be as
annoying (or more annoying) than the spyware you're trying to eradicate. So
there's no tray icon'

I found the systray icon very useful, as a check to know it's running, a
quick way of enabling/disabling agents or shutting down Antispyware. Now I
have to go through several clicks, open WD window to do any of those things.
NOT an improvement in my view.

'The available tools have dropped significantly from the Giant Company
Software releases, but that's in keeping with Microsoft's philosophy that
this product should do one thing as well as possible, and not provide a
kitchen sink's worth of functionality like its predecessor.'

I interpret that philosophy as meaning 'looks are the only things that
matter to the user, reduced functionality will helpfully discourage users
from interfering too much with what WD thinks is good for them'.
 
Hi

I likes it........... ;)

Light, easy and just running.

But..... I have started a timer to see
how fast the bad guys will disable Defendern
without any notice from a user.

It´s a scandal that MS hasn´t any supervision for
Defendern as with Vista Securitycenter.

A lot of missed settings from Beta 1 can be handled inside IE7.

So I hope MS will upgrade the Sceurity center as soon as possible for
XP, MS cannot leave Defendern unprotected.

But maybe they can ? to force users over to Vistan........ ;)

regards
plun
 
After two days of use, I think MS wanted to simplify it for non-saavy users.
I think also that it is less headache for IT people who will install this
because it works much more silently than MSAS. That said, I think there
should be an expert mode so that others can have more features. I agree
that we should be able to force updating of the definition files. I would
like an option for more stringent antispyware definitions. Defender has a
pretty high threshold for what it considers malware and spyware.
 
You can force updating--via Help, about.

--

SteveC said:
After two days of use, I think MS wanted to simplify it for non-saavy
users. I think also that it is less headache for IT people who will
install this because it works much more silently than MSAS. That said, I
think there should be an expert mode so that others can have more
features. I agree that we should be able to force updating of the
definition files. I would like an option for more stringent antispyware
definitions. Defender has a pretty high threshold for what it considers
malware and spyware.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Group,

As a Blind user I was unable to participate in the MAS Beta 1. However, I
do have some very serious concerns with the current WD Beta 2. If Microsoft
is really concerned about security, they will immediately put a systray
icon, readable to screen readers so the Blind, and all visual users will
know the program is running and protecting their computer. I also find some
of the information messages are not adequate. My screen reader will read
them, but unfortunately time I can activate my screen reader commands and
get to the message, the message has disappeared. Usually these messages
concern the moniting of unknown and unknown programs. I really have no
idea on what some of them where identifying. If the message would freeze
until I could read it and digest the information it would be extremely
helpful. Then I could tab to a button to save, close or submit. I am also
concerned that this version has been weakened in detection criteria. There
should be an option, possibly using plug-ins, which users can use advanced
features.

Thanks,
George


Hi

I likes it........... ;)

Light, easy and just running.

But..... I have started a timer to see
how fast the bad guys will disable Defendern
without any notice from a user.

It´s a scandal that MS hasn´t any supervision for
Defendern as with Vista Securitycenter.

A lot of missed settings from Beta 1 can be handled inside IE7.

So I hope MS will upgrade the Sceurity center as soon as possible for
XP, MS cannot leave Defendern unprotected.

But maybe they can ? to force users over to Vistan........ ;)

regards
plun
 
Excellent feedback--thanks.

If the tray icon only appears when something is wrong--for example, say, if
the underlying real-time protection service is stopped--would your screen
reader alert you to that?

I hear what you are saying, but am somewhat surprised that you'd prefer
seeing something there all the time to only seeing an alert when something
is wrong.

If the tray icon is present, and then disappears, will you get a
corresponding alert?

Do you get alerts as the icon changes--for example, one form of the icon
involves an exclamation point superimposed over the background icon--this is
shown, for example, when signatures are out of date--I assume Microsoft has
made provision for this to translate to something appropriate, but I don't
know how it appears to you?

--
 
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