Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

Jamie — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:20:38 GMT

Family Safety is coming (likely December with the rest of them) - i was lucky a hour ago to get directed onto the beta server

*screenshots sent to liveside tips so they might do a story but it is wave 3 layout/ theme and the name is called family safety (although those looking on hotmail and some wave 3 services might get the name 'safety' instead*

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

BV2312 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:13:04 GMT

@surilamin I didn't mean OneCare should be released with Wave 3 what i meants was that if you look at the menu in Wave 3 OneCare wasn't there plus with all this integration one would assume that there would be talk of OneCare..

Personally i use Norton IS 2009 (Don't diss untill you try it it has changed)

Plus OneCare did do a lot tho they were the first to have 3 user licences as standard and 'all in one' suite too

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

damaster — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:06:26 GMT

@JohnCz: Regarding Family Safety, with the "Wave 3" release it has gotten rid of the "OneCare" branding and Microsoft seems to have moved it out of the "OneCare" family (it was developed separately anyway). So I'd assume that Family Safety will still be available, living on with the new name "Windows Live Family Safety" (instead of the old long name of "Family Safety from Windows Live OneCare")

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

avatar — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:38:40 GMT

I must say that i am very sad they are changng direction. i bet this must have something to do with the anti-competitive lawsuites from other anti-virus suites and the pressure they have put on microsoft to drop a paid security suite.

I like HB8 have been using it since it came out and i was amazed at how quickly evolved and at how good 2.5 is. i alone must have sold around 50 OneCare software kits to people that came to me asking for a alternative to norton or mcfee. once set up for the first time. OneCare DOES EVERYTHING for the user without the user to put its mind into it. the only requisite was for you to set it up all when you first installed it. i can also said that those i sold it to renewed the software because the fact you could use it in 3 machine for the same price was a no brainer. i remember getting 10 software kits for 250 dlls and sold each for 450 pesos (45 dlls back when i sold them) so that is 15 dlls per machine a year... some people that bought them for themselves at bestbuy or elsewhere got them as low as 30dlls . that is 10 bucks per machine. there is no other security suite as complete and as cheap that offer 3 machines for one license. i think that is the problem and what caused the lawsuits and the pressure. funny that "morro" in spanish means "kiddo" or "little child" or "Childish". that means it is the kid from OneCare?. i hope that it is just a tuned onecare utility with the antivirus/antispyware/antimalware parts. sad it is no longer going to offer a better firewall, tuning, management and backup. but i will set for the main core to be there. no way i am going back to AVG after the serious screw up with the false positive that caused hundreds upon hundreds of pc`s to get their windows xp installs to get damaged. So i welcome Kiddo (morro)

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

someone — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:29:44 GMT

Good riddance! 1 click tuneup. No thanks. I want to know what's its doing to my PC. OneCare had so little configurability and customizability compared to the other powerful AVs.

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

Alber1690 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:36:27 GMT

It was quite a surprise for me. The first related headline I had read was something about cutting Equipt, so I assumed it would just be the combo Circuit City deal, but when I actually read that OneCare would face the similar fate, it was a little hard to swallow. Regardless it needed a lot of work to meet certain standards of McAfee and Norton, as an early tester, I became very attached to the product and always wanted to help improve it. It had a lot of potential and lead paths for multiple-PC licensing models and back-up functionalities in security suites. RIP.

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

cJr — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:27:58 GMT

I agree with surilamin about bundling this into Windows 7 as part of it's security.

I think this 'Morro' application should work alongside Windows Defender and therefore not be part of Windows Live. In fact, maybe it should be bundeled into Windows Defender and have the antu-spyware and anti-malware protection both branded as Windows Defender? I can't think of a suitable name for Morro anyway...

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

surilamin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:35:10 GMT

I'll have to disagree with you on this one BV2312...

Onecare was always on a different schedule than the rest of the Live suite. Many times I wondered why it was even part of the live suite...

I am fairly shocked that they're discontinued the product. I have a paid subscription for the product and beta tested all revisions of the product, and even windows defender when it was bought from GIANT.

They should bundle both windows defender and the new morro into Win 7. Your average user is an idiot. They are not going to bother to download it.

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

JohnCz — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:31:25 GMT

How does this affect Family Safety?

fss.live.com

Although I'm sadden to see it go, I have a great backup solution with Windows Home Server. Hopefully the OneCare printer sharing can be rolled into WHS.

Online Photo backup will likely be replaced with Live Mesh.

Tune-up, don't be surprised if this becomes a Windows Ultimate Add-on. Just kidding.

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

cJr — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:26:35 GMT

@Hb8:

From what I understand there will still be an antivirus program for you to download (albeit, free, luckily). So I'm sure we will see most of the Windows Live OneCare functionality built into that? It is currently codenamed 'Morro'.

I'm personally glad to see the back of Windows Live OneCare as a name and image. I just don't see how it fits into the Windows Live brand? Also, you had to pay for it and I never liked that! :P

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

Hb8 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:45:55 GMT

Wow this is really surprising! saddening too.

I've been running OneCare since it's release and I've had almost no problems at all with it. It generally takes care of itself without being totally invasive and with minimal user intervention. I've found it to be a great product. I'm very sad to hear it's going to be discontinued.

I've tried McAfee and Norton both and I found them to be worse than getting a worm or virus itself and not at all friendly to the OS or the user, so I guess I'll have to find yet another alternative.

Sad, sad day :(

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

damaster — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:15:55 GMT

And this is after they just updated the OneCare website too (and released OneCare for Small Business/Server). Always thought OneCare 3.0 was coming though - at least it was listed as a new category in WSUS not long ago and the WSUS blog once announced it was in preparation for OnceCare 3.0 (but later on pulled the post). Also wonder what will the new Hotmail scans be based on now that they've switched from Trend Micro to OneCare.....

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

Chris — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:00:56 GMT

FYI, OneCare doesn't run on the same timetable as the rest of the Windows Live suite.

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

AndyD — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:29:13 GMT

For anyone who has seen the Jeff Dunham skit with Achmed, I just had a "holy crap" moment when I saw the OneCare team post come up in my Google RSS Reader.

I immediately flipped over here, but it mainly says the same thing in the presspass article.

re: Microsoft discontinues Windows Live OneCare – offers lightweight alternative for free

JSYOUNG571 — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:23:22 GMT

Curious! Now since Windows Live Onecare is folding, what is going to replace Trend Micro in the new version of Windows Live Hotmail phase 3 and also the scanner for Windows Live Messenger? I know right now that we see Trend Micro in the beta version of Windows Live Hotmail, but in the preview of the final version I saw Windows Live Onecare. As far as the Messenger beta...you can't even download the scanner, I think it has been disabled.