Hotmail becomes even less a free
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In order to stop the spread of spam, Microsoft will start charging users who use Outlook or Outlook Express to access e-mail. It will stop being free in April of 2005.
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Microsoft Corp. has switched from McAfee Inc.'s antivirus technology to Trend Micro Inc.'s for its free Internet e-mail service MSN Hotmail.
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Storm Worm spam switches from featuring Christmas strippers to New Year messages.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft forced a popular alternative to Windows Update off the Internet today, sending the maker of AutoPatcher cease-and-desist e-mail. The free utility has been removed from its download site. Microsoft did not give a reason for the move, which came more than four years after AutoPatcher debuted. "Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history," said Antonis Kaladis, the 20-year-old Greek college student and author of the program. "As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down." AutoPatcher, which was in version 5.6, let users collect Windows hotfixes and security patches from Microsoft's update services, then package them so they could be applied to multiple machines, or reused multiple times on a single PC. It was especially popular among people who frequently reformatted drives or those who did informal tech support for friends and family or in a small business. Each month, the current set of Windows' -- and as of this month, Office's as well -- updates and hotfixes would be added to the packages. The program supported Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Server 2003. This month, Kaladis and his team of volunteers added support for Office XP 2003 and 2007. The Microsoft take-down e-mail was posted to the Neowin.net forum that AutoPatcher used for its user support. "Microsoft has received information that the domain listed above [www.autopatcher.com/downloads/], which appears to be on servers under your control, is offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to copyrighted works published by Microsoft," the e-mail read. "We hereby give notice of these activities to you and request that you take expeditious action to remove or disable access to the material described above, and thereby prevent the illegal reproduction and distribution of this software via your company's network," it continued after listing various versions of Windows and Office. The e-mail was signed by a Peter Anaman, a Microsoft Internet investigator. Users of AutoPatcher were, not surprisingly, hot. "I cannot believe that Microsoft did this," Andrew Lucas said in a response to Kaladis' posting of the news. "You are providing a service Microsoft refuses to do. It has now been over 3 years since Microsoft released SP2 for XP." "The end of AutoPatcher is the end of my use of any Windows product, period," swore a user identified only as KMan. Other users -- lots of others -- literally swore at Microsoft in the comments attached to Kaladis' post or on the Neowin forum. More than a few however, took a more c'est la guerre approach to AutoPatcher's demise. "I don't get why everyone is so annoyed, I'm shocked AutoPatcher was allowed to continue for so long in the first place. Is anyone really surprised by this?" asked a user calling himself kudos in a post to Neowin. Microsoft has dealt similar cease-and-desist orders to other patch-related Web sites or services in the past. In April, it leaned on Hotfix.net, whose operator, Ethan Allen, had posted more than 100 hotfixes he expected would be part of Vista SP1. Coincidentally, Vista SP1 was talked up by Microsoft today. Allen also complied by yanking the download. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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If you don't mind a little paperwork, you can scoop up the 3-user edition of Norton AntiVirus 2008 for free after a pair of mail-in rebates.
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As part of an update to Office 2003, Microsoft is cutting off the feature, which it says can save time, but risks exposing confidential information.
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Microsoft finally made good on a five months&#39;-old promise Thursday by upping the storage allowance for new members of its Hotmail e-mail service.
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A contentious campaign to bump up the bandwidth bills of spammers by flooding their sites with data has been dropped. Lycos Europe&#39;s Make Love, Not Spam campaign began in late November but its tactics proved controversial.
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After days of negative publicity and criticism, Lycos Europe&#39;s &quot;Make love not spam&quot; screensaver application is no longer available.
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Also: Companies face new rules on e-mails. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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Get more efficient with free mail, Internet, file management and system utilitiy tools -- plus much more.
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NEW YORK -- Microsoft Corp. has switched from McAfee Inc.&#39;s antivirus technology to Trend Micro Inc.&#39;s for its free Internet e-mail service MSN Hotmail.
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AOL just gave its customers more reasons to stop paying. In a strategy shift likely to accelerate the decline in its core Internet access business, AOL said Wednesday it would give away e-mail accounts and software previously available only to customers who paid as much as $26 a month.
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By Miguel Helft  Millions of people enjoy free Web-based software programs, but they have a drawback in that they are available to users only when they are online.
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August saw a 10 per cent drop in spam levels, according to email security company Messagelabs. The company said there was a sequential drop in spam with levels falling from 94.
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Update Slammed for touting unavailable but unlicensed content
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America Online said yesterday that it has seen a substantial decline in unsolicited e-mails this year, though some anti-spam experts said the company may be the only Internet provider experiencing such a drop-off.