Its good for Microsoft to follow on our footsteps to make free security products!
Melih
That’s good for everybody. I wonder what will happen to the paid products like Eset\Symantec\Kaspersky\Avira?
As far as I see it, Eset is making itself go down the drain with the 100% CPU usage, which has not been solved at all.
Do people really want heavy security apps on their system? No! Specially, if they pay for it!
Microsoft is doing the right thing, IMHO. We can’t deny that Windows Vista, by itself, is safer than any other OS Microsoft ever brought out. They also included a native firewall (Not sure if were part of XP? I never actually used XP, so wouldn’t know and didn’t look for that info either. I’m a lazy person! 
.) They also included a native antispyware - Windows Defender.
Now they will include a free antivirus. I aplaud that. Why? If we think well, most of people, when they buy their new pcs, they will already come installed with antivirus such as AVG, avast! or Avira. Perhaps, some will also come with SpywareBlaster included to protect IE.
But, people who buy PCs - some of them - won’t even remember to ask if there’s an AV installed or an antispyware. Some don’t even know what such apps are, even less they exist. It happens.
That was all that came with a relative of mine’s new system. I, of course, installed and told to use other security apps, such as CFP and other preventive measures. Most computer stores won’t bother instructing users for that matter. Sad, but it happens.
Now that Microsoft will include a native antivirus, even if people, don’t remember to ask or don’t know such app exists, they will still have that protection. May not be the best (not saying it will be bad), but it will be better than not having it.
I guess that other security vendors will have to do what Comodo does (which is honourable!!!) offer free crippless security to home users and sell it to other companies (Not the case of Comodo, which also offers free security to other companies to some extent(?).). That’s my opinion.
Indeed a nice article.
I think that Microsoft would do better if they focused solely on operating systems rather than on other stuff as well (like IE, Windows Media Player, Windows Defender etc.). I understand that each brand wants to have a full range of its own products, but sometimes that is not a good thing.
Therefore, Microsoft’s operating systems could come bundled with Firefox or Opera instead of IE, CIS instead of Windows Defender etc.
I realize that M would have to pay some money for using other producers’ programmes, but, for sure, far less than it spends on R&D of its own ones.
However, I may be wrong, I’m not an expert (:TNG)
Quote from that article
"Rising competition, falling prices
Symantec, McAfee, and Trend Micro garner much of their business from loading trial versions of their programs on new PCs from Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and others. AVG, Comodo, and some other vendors give away basic antivirus capabilities, then try to sell users on buying paid versions with greater capabilities."
Comodo does not provide basic av capabilities. OK, there is still no heuristics. But that’s not because it is free, rather because it is still being developed. 
Then we have avast!, which the only different from paid to free version is the capability to detect scripts, if I am not mistaken?
"AVG is the product of choice for technically savvy people," says Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at consultant IT-Harvest.
There are a lot of “tecnically savvy” people here, and I don’t think they use AVG. They usually use Avast! (<—like me) or Avira (or maybe CIS, but I think they are planning on waiting a bit to switch totally to it).
I was sorry to see this in the article:
AVG, Comodo, and some other vendors give away basic antivirus capabilities, then try to sell users on buying paid versions with greater capabilities.
People do jump to conclusions and assume that because other companies are doing what this says, the same is true for Comodo.
Maybe this could be better explained on the download page, to point out that the paid option is solely for additional services? Also maybe a mention that there are options during installation allowing the various components to be installed separately.
There is some confusion out there, such as this thread I noticed on Bleeping Computer: