Right now, I have two antivirus packages available for “free” – Norton (through my university), and McAfee (through my cable provider). Since Norton is well-known to be bloatware of the first order, I decided to go with McAfee this time.

All I wanted was an antivirus and software firewall (yes, I know, hardware firewalls are best, but I don’t have one right now). The program gave me no choice to selectively install certain components. As a result, I now have a program that contains features that obviously have nothing to do with antivirus and firewall functions (such as a disk backup utility, a “quickclean” utility, parental controls for blocking dirty websites), as well as other features that are only marginally useful to me (such as Privacy Guard for protecting personal information, email and instant messenger protection).

So when I run McAfee, I have 7 different McAfee-related processes running, using up a total of 172 MB of memory. All the time my computer is on. 172 MB lost to me forever. Here’s the proof:

172 MB of memory, just for a firewall and antivirus. Not the best one around either, at least not according to web reviews I’ve read. A poorly updated program at that, with one of the lowest frequencies of virus-definition updates. What were these people thinking?

I can understand that part of the problem is just the business model. Both Norton and McAfee have been around for a very long time, both are among the earliest vendors of antivirus products. Over the years, the desire to go one better than the competition can lead to a sort of arms race, where feature sets keep expanding, more to give reviewers something to talk about than for any actual benefit they provide to the end user. But the software industry is no longer new. People are less easily impressed by vast feature sets and more easily upset by bloat. Look at the success of Google, with its minimalistic interface. So even if this sort of arms race was justification once upon a time, it certainly isn’t now.

I wonder what holds them back from simply offering two separate versions of their software. A lean, stripped down version with just the anti-virus / anti-spyware / firewall features, and another with all the bells and whistles. Perhaps they are afraid that the lean version will cut into the sales of the bigger version, and they won’t be able to justify the higher price?

Alternatively, what about just selling the more expensive version with all the extras, but allowing the user at install time to selectively install only the feature set he needs? I know plenty of people (including myself) who would pay extra to buy a basic antivirus from McAfee rather than some unknown company. Not that this proves that the McAfee product is better, it’s just name recognition. Based on the vague idea that a well-established company with good cash flow ought to be better able to hire a staff that can keep the virus definitions updated.

At this point, I have decided to switch to either BitDefender or Kaspersky. I haven’t used either of those programs before, but they seem to have consistently good reviews from the press.

The antivirus / computer security market might be up for a shakeup soon. Microsoft announced that they will discontinue their Live OneCare service (their current antivirus / firewall offering) and instead offer a free security service to all Windows users. This will be based on the same Morro engine that’s currently used in OneCare, which has already passed all major security certifications. It will be part of a new design philosophy of keeping the antivirus engine lean and efficient. According to their press release:

Windows Live OneCare, one of the first all-in-one suites to be launched in the consumer market, includes a number of non-security features, such as printer sharing and automated PC tune-up. By shifting to focus on the core anti-malware features that most consumers still don’t keep up to date, “Morro” will be able to provide the essential protections that consumers need without overusing system resources, and will help more consumers have better protection against online threats.

Microsoft isn’t exactly known for non-bloat software, but if this is true, it sounds like exactly what I’ve been looking for. Supposedly, this new service will go live in the second half of this year, and will be available free to all users of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

I wonder how this will affect the “security suite” market. Microsoft certainly has the muscle to make its presence felt, and there are few more powerful selling points to the consumers’ mind than “free”. It should certainly make other manufacturers refocus their efforts. I can’t imagine McAfee getting very far if they say “buy our software, we throw in a disk backup utility!” People would then wonder if they really need a backup utility, whether they want it running all the time as part of their antivirus program. And since they can get the antivirus and firewall free from Microsoft anyway, they are really looking at McAfee’s $39.95 offering as what they pay for a backup utility. The competition then, for McAfee, would not simply be antivirus vendors, but rather disk utilities vendors as well. I have the feeling that this is not a winning strategy, and such extras will fall by the wayside.

I think the focus instead will be something like “we offer more complete protection”. This will be a hard thing to prove, unless Microsoft does an uncommonly poor job with Morro. A-V tests are a dime a dozen, and many of them mean little, being biased by the source of the sponsoring cash and the personal feelings of the tester. Perhaps this will encourage more scientific testing of antivirus software. But I can already imagine that the bigger selling point that many vendors will automatically jump to is bigger and better “extras” – things like privacy guard, spam filters, cookie management tools, anti-porno filters for people with kids, etc. This is what manufacturers will use to justify why people ought to give them money instead of just downloading the free software from Microsoft.

I am still hoping that a niche remains for antivirus vendors who provide lean and efficient security software that does exactly what you expect from security software and nothing more, and that uses minimal memory and CPU resources.