pros and cons beta 1

[Guest]

pros: free for genuine window user, works well with
Window XP SP2, no matter how buggy this antispyware we
still use it.

cons: Slow progress, producing 3 versions of beta 1 and
no sign of beta 2 or preview 2, Has remained in beta 1
for a very long time. it's been rush out to the public
too early due to user demand on antispywre utilies and
popularity. Administrator account requirements in order
to work properly, no password protection. weird image
indicator yellow stars doesn't make sense at all.
file analyzer is so basic it's should be remove or make
more improvements on it so its usefull. error.log takes
2gb to 4gb. cookie scanning is missing in action. no
pause and resum on antispyware scanning.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

The error.log file issue is fixed in current builds--delete the old file,
and it will not continue to grow.

It won't hurt to mention that, whatever the movitations and plusses and
minuses of having released this beta when it was released--millions of
customers have received measurable benefit--in terms of items cleaned--from
this beta.

 

[Alan]

Actually it was NOT rushed to the public.

It was originally produced by Giant Company. It had been
around for quite a while before MS bought out Giant
Company. CounterSpy, another leading antispyware app,
was designed around the Giant AntiSpyware engine.
CounterSpy and Giant Company were business partners until
MS bought out Giant on Dec. 16, 2004.

MS didn't release the beta until Jan. 6, 2005. Plenty of
time to rework some of the code, but not enough time to
convert the app from a single-user app to a multi-user
app. Just imagine the chaos if they released a program
that wasn't properly alpha (pre-beta) tested before
releasing it to the public. The amount of code for even
a simple app can be well over 1000 lines. MSAS likely
has 10 - 1000 time that amount since it isn't a simple
app. That amount of recoding made it impossible to do
the necessary recoding and testing before releasing it to
the public. Not to mention the fact that the original
app was coded using Visual Basic, and most MS apps are
coded using Visual C++ (mainly .NET) or Visual C# .NET.
Converting from one language to another takes time, a lot
of time. Also, they must make certain that file and
folder permissions and access are not changed in any way
when they convert the app from single-user to multi-user.

Plus since Giant produced the original app, most of the
features that were in the product were from their design
and don't necessarily meet MS UI design standards. MS
has been spending a lot of time making the product more
robust and better at dealing with spyware than changing
the little things, such as the yellow stars, among
others. These things can be changed later when they have
the majority of the work done that must be completed.

If you think that this app's been in beta a long time,
look at Longhorn, now named Windows Vista. It just went
beta a few weeks ago and isn't likely to go final until
sometime in summer '06! MSAS has only been beta less
than seven months. Since they are reworking another
company's product, this is to be expected.

The problem with the error logs is a know bug. Shutdown
MSAS, delete the log, and do an update install (Start >
Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs > Micosoft
AntiSpyware > Update).

Cookies are not dealt with simply because they are not
spyware (i.e., not a program). They can be dealt with by
changing the Privacy settings in IE and with a good
firewall. MS has said numerous time that they will
revisit cookies later based upon the responses they get
during beta testing.

We should see marked improvements to the product when
Beta 2 is released, likely before the end of the year.

Alan