"Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23rrYKBquIHA.4528@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...<span style="color:blue">
> <snipped>
> Entire FUD here:
>
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.p...c4c9ce3dc451b46
> ( What's FUD?
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt )
>
>
>
> Joseph Meehan wrote:<span style="color:green">
>> Let's see PCTOOLS does what? They sell protection software. I
>> wonder if they might have a vested interest in those numbers?</span>
>
> jim wrote:<span style="color:green">
>> Just an FYI : Those numbers happen to be from the tool that they
>> give away for FREE - Threatfire.</span>
>
> jim,
>
> Seriously - look at what you just said and what you said it in response
> to. Let's analyze it...
>
> You seem to be saying that since they give away a version of their
> software for free, the point that they also sell protection software for
> computers is null and void and thus they have no vested interest in saying
> that one OS or another is vulnerable to attack... .</span>
Of course they have something to gain. But, in reality, MANY more people
use their free software than buy any of their tools. It is this way with
AVG and other vendors who give out free, diminished feature versions of
their software.
<span style="color:blue">
>And strangely - the latest version of the OS, the one that is spreading in
>the consumer market quickly and will be around for quite a while - is
>mentioned as the weakest.</span>
Actually that isn't true. XP proved to be the weakest. Vista was approx
37% better than XP in the area of security according to the published tests.
<span style="color:blue">
>They won't benefit at all from supposedly pointing out the fact that an OS
>is vulnerable - but not so much if you use their product.</span>
I tried Threatfire. But, like Vistas UAC, it blocked too much and was a
general hinderance to my PC use.....so I dumped it.
<span style="color:blue">
> Picture it from their point of view... Free or not - they gain market
> share. The more people see it - the more people start to believe they may
> need something the 'for pay' version has. "$30? shrug No biggie - my
> pictures and music and contacts and documents are worth that..." starts to
> be heard echoing through the masses. 1 million sales at $30/sale - nice
> tidy sum in short order. ;-)</span>
If only it were that easy.....
<span style="color:blue">
>
> While their product may be a fine one (don't know - have had no need to
> try it - other free products have filled the gap prior quite nicely) - you
> cannot deny that a company that sells (or even gives away) a product that
> solves a problem would not benefit from making the problem seem larger
> than it may actually be...</span>
Sure they could. But, in today's connected IT world, they would soon be
outed as not really knowing what they were doing or being outright
dishonest. I suspect the resulting negative press would do more harm than
good. I also suspect that they know that.
<span style="color:blue">
>
> - PCTools sells protection software.
> - They have a free version of a malware software available.
> - They also sell a version of said software.
>
http://www.threatfire.com/download/
> - Computers connected to the Internet are more vulnerable in general.
> - Most percentages/statistics are made up to benefit those making up the
> numbers. When confronted, it is usually difficult for those who made up
> the numbers to present concrete facts backing them up and usually easy for
> someone else to bend/make up numbers of their own to the contrary. This
> is especially true when dealing with things that are difficult to quantify
> because of the lack of reliable numbers (like the security of an OS versus
> an older OS and knowing how prevalent those OSes are and what other
> protections may already be in place that prevent the supposed issues from
> ever even reaching the OS...)</span>
We'll see. I'm sure somebody else will call them on this if they cannot
produce satisfactory data to back their claims.
<span style="color:blue">
>
> It's very interesting to see where all you posted this:
>
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?en...VAfM_q59x2ZScCa
> ... as well as what type of postings you seem to propogate.
>
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP</span>
I tend to post articles where they will be acted upon by the most people.
As for the list of all of those articles in your link, the "Post Activity"
portion is bogus data. I am certainly not the author of all of those posts.
Perhaps you (and Google) should do a little digging into how newsgroups work
and the fact that not all
jim@home.net users are the same person.
Then again, an MS-MVPs would have more to gain by shooting the messenger of
this topic than by discussing it rationally, wouldn't they?
jim
