| [Edit]
Windows Live OneCare, previously known as Windows OneCare Live and formerly code-named A1, is a computer security service developed by Microsoft for its Windows operating systems. An annual charge of US$49.95 is required for the service, which can be used on up to three computers per charge.
Windows Live OneCare
History
Features
Protection
Performance
Backup
Future
Criticism
| | Logo |
top
History
Microsoft designed OneCare as part of an idea set named Windows Live (see official ideas website). Windows Live OneCare itself entered a beta state in the summer of 2005. The managed beta program was launched before the public beta, and was located on BetaPlace, Microsoft's old beta delivery system.
On May 31, 2006, Windows Live OneCare made its official debut in retail stores in the United States.
Windows Live OneCare 1.5 Beta was released in early October by Microsoft.
top
Features
Windows Live OneCare currently features its own antivirus program, firewall, backup utility, tune-up utility, and includes Windows Defender for malware protection. Announced future plans are to add a registry cleaner.
Windows Live OneCare is built for ease-of-use and is targeted at introductory users. OneCare also attempts a very minimal interface to lessen user confusion. At the most basic, it adds an icon to the system tray that tells the user at a glance the status of the system's health. Three alert levels are available, from green (good) to yellow (minor problem) to red (major problem).
top
Protection
Windows Live OneCare Protection Plus is the security component in the OneCare suite. It consists of three parts:
A two-way firewall blocking both incoming and outgoing traffic, as opposed to that of Windows XP that only blocks incoming traffic. A two-way firewall protects against trojan or other viral infections running on the local computer.
An antivirus tool that uses regularly updated antivirus definition files.
An anti-spyware tool that uses Windows Defender as a core. Windows Defender can be managed and launched through OneCare but it is not fully integrated into the interface.
top
Performance
Windows Live OneCare Performance Plus is the component that performs monthly PC tune-up related tasks, such as:
A full virus scan by using the antivirus component in the suite.
User notification if files are in need of backing up.
top
Backup
Windows Live OneCare Backup and Restore is the component that aids in backing up important files. Files can be backed up to various recordable media, such as external hard disks, CDs, and DVDs. When restoring files, the entirety or a subset of them can also be restored to a networked computer, as long as it's running OneCare as well. The Backup and Restore component supports expected modern backup software features such as incremental backups and scheduling.
top
Future
Yoav Schwartz of the Windows Live OneCare Blog stated on March 27, 2006 that the second most requested feature, behind anti-spyware, was a registry cleaner and that they would consider implementing it in the future. *
Version 1.5 is the first version, albeit in beta, to support Windows Vista and countries and languages other than US/English. x64 support, however, is not present.
top
Criticism
On January 26, 2006, Windows Live OneCare received criticism from Foundstone, a part of McAfee, for the included firewall having default white lists set up to allow Java applications and digitally signed software to bypass the warnings, since neither of those applications carry assurances that they will not have security flaws or be written with a malicious intent. * Microsoft has since responded to the criticism, justifying their decision in that Java applications are "widely used by third party applications, and is a popular and trusted program among our users", and that "it is highly unusual for malware to be signed." *
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|