Kaspersky Accuses Microsoft of Playing Dirty with Antivirus Apps in Windows 10 UPDATE!!!

Info! Company calls for investigation against Microsoft

UPDATE! Russia has officially opened a case against Microsoft after Kaspersky's complaint. A statement from the European Commission is not yet available.

Security company Kaspersky is accusing Microsoft of abusing its position with Windows 10 and forcing users to abandon third-party security solutions in its latest operating system, all with the goal of growing the userbase of Windows Defender.

Founder Eugene Kaspersky took to the company’s blog to explain how Microsoft is hurting security companies, eventually calling for an investigation against the software giant in Russia and the European Union.

First and foremost, Kaspersky says, Windows 10 disables incompatible security software when installing OS updates and replaces them with Windows Defender. And while at first glance this might seem like the right thing to do, what people didn’t know is that Microsoft is now giving developers only one week to test their security solutions and make them compatible with new OS version, down from no less than two months. This helps Microsoft push Windows Defender on a Windows 10 system, Kaspersky explains.

Then, even if an antivirus product is installed and running on a system correctly, Windows Defender shows up every once in a while to to display a warning that encourages users to turn it on and uninstall third-party protection.

Antivirus vendors are also struggling to deal with another restriction introduced by Microsoft in Windows 10 which limits their option of warning users about their licenses expiring in the first three days after expiration. The notification is only displayed in the Windows Security Center, Kaspersky points out, and nobody sees it.

“It’s a big deal because this is the crucial period during which a significant number of users seek extensions of their security software licenses. And if a user forgets to renew a license, then Microsoft deactivates the existing AV, and turns on Defender,” he says.

Windows Defender provides only basic protection

Kaspersky then goes on to explain that Windows Defender isn’t even that good to be so aggressively promoted by Microsoft, pointing to interdependent antivirus tests that put it at the bottom of the pack.

“Thing is, Defender is far from the best protection you can get. In fact – just the opposite. The trend is clear: Microsoft is gradually squeezing independent developers out of the Windows ecosystem if it has its own application for this or that purpose,” he writes.

Kaspersky claims that several security companies complained of all these things, but nobody had the courage to say them publicly, so that’s what it’s notifying Russian and European authorities to look into the matter and force Microsoft to comply with competition rules. “We’ve taken the decision to address official bodies in various countries (including the EU and Russia) with a request to oblige Microsoft to cease its violation of anti-competition legislation and to remove the consequences of that violation. Specifically: To oblige Microsoft (i) to provide new versions and updates of Windows to independent developers in good time so they can maintain compatibility of their software to Windows; (ii) explicitly inform the user of the presence of incompatible software before upgrading Windows and recommend the user to install a compatible version of the software after the upgrade; (iii) always explicitly ask the user for his/her approval to enable Windows Defender.” Microsoft is yet to issue a statement on this, but we’ve reached out to the company for comments and will update the article when a response is received.