Is Microsoft Deliberately Trying to Rid Computers of Chrome?
Posted on 05. Oct, 2011 by Daniel Cawrey in Chrome, News
It seems unlikely, what I wrote in the title. But it’s still comical to witness the fact that Microsoft’s Security Essentials software is seemingly removing copies of Chrome on users’ computers. I must admit, I think that Security Essentials is actually a good piece of software. It’s a free virus scanning and protection program that the company offers to help thwart what has been some very bad publicity over malicious software through the years.
Could it be possible that Microsoft is purposely trying to hold down Chrome? While it’s hard to put it past them, one would think that the company should know better than to try and participate in anti-competitive practices that would threaten put them into a litigious situation. Even though they have been known to put themselves in that particular position in the past.
And while Microsoft is claiming that the issue is a bug, last week Google posted a blog article explaining the situation and how to reinstall Chrome without incident. Surprising to me that the removal of a competitor’s software could possibly be construed as a “bug” and identifying it as a piece of malware called “PWS:Win32/Zbot” but I guess anything is plausible in Microsoft-land.
Look, Microsoft has a hold of the enterprise market for the time being. And Security Essentials is aimed squarely at the consumer market. I could understand if Security Essentials caused Chrome not to run, but a complete removal of the software? Come on. While it may be problematic from Microsoft’s perspective that Chrome is installed in the user profile file structure, it is still under “Google” and then “Chrome”, causing the removal of “chrome.exe”. Is that an accident?
I’m just bringing up these questions. At the same time, as I’ve stated above, it would be extremely dumb for Microsoft to think that they would be able to get away with this. Of course, they used to think that all software must cost money, which doesn’t always seem to be the case these days.
via LA Times
9 Responses to “Is Microsoft Deliberately Trying to Rid Computers of Chrome?”
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d-d
05. Oct, 2011
For me obviously yes. It is quite difficult to imaggine that chrome.exe was put on the balck list by purely machine error. Technically it is vistuallu impossible, it is certainly human factor involved.
Anyway – it’s just pathetic.
Is Microsoft Deliberately Trying to Rid Computers of Chrome? | ChromeBytes
05. Oct, 2011
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barry
10. Oct, 2011
This is plainly ridiculous. False positives are par for the course for antivirus products ever since heuristic analysis was implemented. And if this was a deliberate act then people are more likely to remove MSE, causing harm to Microsoft’s reputation, than remove Chrome.
I believe the most likely cause was an engineering test using the Chrome executable as a guinea pig which unfortunately made it into the wild. If so then somebody at Microsoft got an ear chewing for sure.
Andres
26. Oct, 2011
OT: Is this blog still alive? I used to love reading it to keep up to date on ChromeOS and Chromebooks in general, but it’s been weeks since the last update. Surely it’s not for lack of news. Sad that I don’t see more frequent updates like there used to be!
bob
27. Oct, 2011
same here. there’s been a recent stable release too – no update?
miguelamx
30. Oct, 2011
same here. I’ve read this site since the start. what happened?
Jim
19. Nov, 2011
The reason for this, is that Chrome added the ability to do Remote Desktop through the browser, and MS SE viewed this a thread at first. Chrome’s next update made the RDC protocol more in-line, and less of a false positive.
MS SE is just doing its job, showing you that suddenly your browser has the ability to take control of your entire computer. That should set any security software off.
Tours Boy
09. Jan, 2012
I Love You Google Chrome!
Md Aslam Technician
09. Jan, 2012
We Are Waiting For A Complete Chrome Os, better Than Windows.