Defender is worthless for professionals and advanced users

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I was bragging up a storm how wonderful antispyware was for rooting out
severe spyware troubles with it's advanced options. Where did they go? Why
would Microsoft go from a good tool - to this program that offers nothing
better than the free stuff the others are putting out? Hope they don't try to
sell this one on the backs of yours and mine trial efforts. It's like we've
been sippping Dom Perignon - but when the product comes out we get Boonsfarm
apple wine.
 
I would have to agree with you on that one. I was quite impressed by
AntiSpyware as well, but 'Defender' seems to be taking two steps back from
the direction that particular package seemed to be heading in. Not to mention
the fact that getting the software to even update definitions has become an
exercise in futility for droves of users. Any time I wanted it to update I
have had to uninstall the old defs, login as an admin and run windows
updates. I've gone back to using AntiSpyware as of today, because this new
'Defender' as it stands is a smoldering pile o crud.

Unfortunately I'm finding that seems to be the case with more and more
software coming out of MS these days. On the bright side, my frustrations
with MS have led me to take a serious look at offerings from Apple. I have a
nice shiny review model of a MacBook Pro at home that has been a dream to use
- it's just too bad we're a committed Dell shop at work.
 
I completly agree with you. Antispyware looked to be a solid solution from
Microsoft that would finally patch a major security and vulnerability hole in
their product instead of leaving it to third party developers and leaving us
to foot the bill. Antispyware was clean and concise the interface was usable
and updates worked eaisly. With defender, however, the oversimplificiation
of the UI has severly crippiled the programs functionality and made it less
useful especially for advanced users as guru-geek pointed out. While I am
all for UI simplificiation, because average home users will reject one they
cannot easily understand, I don't believe that it should come at the expense
of functionality which is what has happened here.
 
What features are you talking about. Please be specific. I have used this
product since it was Giant. I am curious what features you are talking about.
 
Well for instance the ability to view your hosts files and see if there are
redirected ip addresses there. The ability to view the active X controls
installed in IE as well as toolbars and block or uninstall them. The ability
to view and edit all your default Internet Explorer settings. Easily acces
your scan options and the options are minimal etc. There is too much to
continue listing.
 
That still doesn't give you the options to view them all yourself - I can
understand the "idiot proof" philosophy - being a programmer myself - but I
want my advanced users to get the full benefit of my product.
 
The following are now in Internet Explorer 7:

- Ability to view active X controls (View, Block, Uninstall)
- Ability to view Toolbars (View, Block, Uninstall)
- Ability to view BHO (View, Block, Uninstall)
- Ability to edit default Internet Explorer settings – Win defender Notifies
when it changes
- Notifies you of Host file changes.

But I guess your point is that you wanted to see them all yourself.
However, this is now going to be a part of Vista, so why consolidate
everything into one program when it is more logical that Toolbar, BHO, and
Explorer settings all appear in Internet Explorer? I understand the
simplification of the interface. It is made for the masses, and the masses
do not really enjoy complicated interfaces. In addition, perhaps it is best
to not allow people to view their host files within the application. Any
user with the sophistication of understanding host files and host file
configurations should feel comfortable going to:

%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\

And viewing it from there. But I see your point. However, I also
understand why MS did it and agree with them. I think the most impressive
thing so far is the frequency of updates and the use of Spynet.
 
That is all fine if you are running only Windows XP - but I still have many
2000 machines out there which IE 7 does not support. Anti-Spyware had all
those features and now they are gone. I know where all the settings are to
manually get to them, but once again Antispyware had something better - a
quick interface - much like the msconfig in Windows 98, now it doesn't. I
would have been willing to pay for anti-spyware and reccommend it to others-
but definitely not defender.
 
The code for Microsoft Antispyware is still downloadable. I don't know what
will happen on expiration, but experience in the past was that the explorers
became unusable, though--i.e. nothing worked.

I like the additional data shown by the new explorers, but I can see that
for your particular needs, they aren't going to be as useful.
 
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