MS Removal Tool

EnigmaSoftware.com has released a new removal and informational report on the emergence of the rogue anti-spyware program called MS Removal Tool.

MS Removal Tool is a rogue anti-spyware application which uses the same graphical user interface and tactics as its predecessor System Tool – another popular scamware program. MS Removal Tool is also similar to other well-known rogue anti-spyware programs, including AntiMalware GO, Windows Power Expansion, System Tool 2011, and many others. MS Removal Tool uses self-protection techniques such as block the usage of Windows utilities (Task Manager, Registry Editor, Command prompt, etc.) which can be used to remove this bogus program.

Typically, MS Removal Tool may use Trojans to infiltrate computers. Often these Trojans install on a computer by pretending to be video codec installations required to view online videos. Another technique used by rogue anti-spyware programs is to use browser hijackers to change computer users’ homepage and redirect them to fake online scanner webpages with links to download a fake anti-spyware installer.

Once MS Removal Tool has made its way into a computer, it will issue an array of fictitious warning messages and scan reports that claim the computer is infected with spyware. MS Removal Tool was designed to look and feel like a real anti-spyware program, but, in reality, it is not able to scan, detect and remove known online threats. MS Removal Tool is just a ploy to get PC users to make a hasty decision and purchase a fraudulent program. To purchase MS Removal Tool is to relinquish credit card information to cybercrooks instead of getting a functional anti-spyware application. If you did fall for MS Removal Tool’s scare tactics and purchased it, read this MS Removal Tool removal guide or contact your credit card provider and dispute the charges.

MS Removal Tool uses aggressive techniques to foil computer users. These techniques include the display of multiple pop-up alert messages. These messages include deceiving statements such as listed below:

"MS Removal Tool Warning
Intercepting programs that may compromise your private and harm your system have been detected on your PC. Click here to remove them immediately with MS Removal Tool."

"MS Removal Tool Warning
Your PC is infected with dangerous viruses. Activate antivirus protection to prevent data loss and avoid the theft of your credit card details. Click here to activate protection."

"MS Removal Tool
Some critical system files of your computer were modified by malicious program. It may cause system instability and data loss."

Beware of rogue anti-spyware programs that creep into your computer without your knowledge and protect your computer from falling victim to an Internet scam. Details on MS Removal Tool and how to detect it automatically can be found in EnigmaSoftware.com’s MS Removal Tool report.

Bill Gates Bashing Memoir

Friends since childhood, Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen have long been considered an "iconic" partnership in American industry. Allen left the company in the early 1980s, but the founders' relationship was typically thought of as quite amicable... until now. In his upcoming memoir Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft, Allen offers what's being alternatively called a "revisionist history," "sour grapes," and "the unvarnished truth" on Microsoft's early days. Allen's account, excerpted Wednesday in Vanity Fair, has stunned the tech world. Here, six takeaways:

1. Gates was always ambitious

Allen recalls meeting Gates in the late 1960s. He was a "gangly, freckle faced eighth grader" at an old Teletype computer. He was clearly "really smart," "really competitive," and "really, really persistent." Young Gates read Fortune magazine religiously and once asked Allen, "What do you think it's like to run a Fortune 500 company?" Already a budding entrepreneur at 13, Gates said maybe they'd have their own company together someday.

2. Allen was cheated out of his fair share

When it came time to figure out the terms of their partnership, Allen assumed it would be 50-50. Gates pushed for 60-40, noting that he'd put in more hours. Allen agreed, but later Gates said he thought 64-36 was more fair. Maybe that's the difference between being the son of a lawyer, like Bill, and the son of a librarian, like Allen. "I'd been taught that a deal was a deal," Allen writes, "and your word was your bond." Wah wah, says Frederick E. Allen in Forbes. Today, both Allen and Gates are "among the richest men who ever lived."

3. Gates was a tough boss

"Some said Bill's management style was a key ingredient in Microsoft's early success," Allen writes. "But that made no sense to me." Gates was unable to settle arguments rationally and could be an extremely demanding boss. Once, Gates seemed extremely puzzled by a programmer's request to take a day off after working 81 hours in four days. He insulted employees with put-downs like "that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard" and "I could code that in a weekend." It may have just been that Gates was more focused and devoted to the company than Allen, say Nick Wingfield and Robert A. Guth in The Wall Street Journal. "As Microsoft grew, it attracted more people like Mr. Gates who were single-mindedly focused on building Microsoft" and "willing to work around the clock, sleep in the office, and battle each other over strategy and technical decisions."

4. Allen left because of Gates

In 1983, Allen decided to leave Microsoft because, he says, after his illness he realized "life was too short to spend it unhappily." He paints his decision as largely related to his unhappiness with Gates, contradicting previous ideas that it was more related to health. Gates told him it was unfair for him to keep his share in the company and made a "lowball offer" to buy his stock. Allen declined, kept his stock, and consequently became one of the richest men in the world. There's "no need to feel sorry for either Gates or Allen," says Frederick E. Allen in Forbes.

5. Gates plotted against Allen when Allen had cancer

In September of 1982, Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He went through several weeks of radiation treatment and was left feeling quite ill. Back in the office that December, he overhead Gates and Steve Ballmer, a friend of Gates' from Harvard who'd been brought on as a business manager (and is now Microsoft's CEO), complaining about Allen's lack of contributions, and plotting to cheat him of his fair share of the company. Current and former Microsoft bigwigs are questioning Allen's interpretation of key events, say Wingfield and Guth. "Mr. Allen, for instance, puts himself in meetings that people familiar with the meetings say he never attended."

6. Allen comes off as bitter

It's not surprising that Gates tried to screw Allen, says Frederick E. Allen. "Anyone who builds great empires is shrewd, canny, acquisitive, and at times stubbornly unyielding." The surprising news is that Allen has gone public. It has long seemed that the two were at least cordial, and there's a real streak of "bitterness" throughout the book, say Wingfield and Guth. Yes, but this is the story of "countless successful technology start ups," says Jennifer Valentino DeVries in The Wall Street Journal. "A close knit group of founders develops an idea, but eventually one person emerges as the leader and drives the company forward. Even in the best-case scenario, there can be bitterness."

Microsoft: explorer 9 is Better

Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 9 late Monday, claiming that it's the best browser for Windows because rivals "dilute" their energies on other operating systems.

"IE9 brings all the benefits of a modern PC, with Windows, to browsing the Web," said Dean Hachamovitch, the head of IE's engineering group, at the start of a webcast from SXSW (South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals.

"The browser is only as good as the operating system," said Ryan Gavin, senior director of IE, in an interview earlier Monday. "On a going-forward basis, the browser will be only as good as the OS and the device it's running on."

The message couldn't be clearer, because Microsoft knows Windows, and develops only for Windows, IE9 is the best browser for the operating system.

So much for rivals like Chrome, Firefox and Opera on Windows, or Safari on Mac OS.

Microsoft's tying of IE9 to Windows shouldn't be a surprise. In the past, the company has touted key features, like "pinning," that rely on Windows 7, and it's recently taken to citing Windows-only browser usage statistics, a practice that boosts its share numbers by dismissing other operating systems, notably Apple's.

But Microsoft turned up the volume on Monday.

"We want browsing the Web to be a great experience, so that people keep choosing Windows to do it," said Hachamovitch. explaining why IE is important to Microsoft.

"Web sites are going to need to tap into the power of the underlying hardware the same way that applications do," said Hachamovitch. "The way they do that is through the browser, and the way the browser is going to do that is through the operating system. So the world just changed."

Microsoft's claim that IE9 is the best browser on Windows rests largely on its hardware acceleration, technology that taps the graphics processor, or GPU, to handle some of the most processing-extensive chores, including composing the page. Microsoft has regularly trumpeted IE9's GPU-based acceleration, first highlighting that feature when it demonstrated the browser nearly a year-and-a-half ago.

Other browsers, notably the upcoming Firefox 4, also offer hardware acceleration on Windows, as well as a more limited form on Mac OS X.

But Hachamovitch took shots at rivals like Firefox and Chrome, another multi-operating system browser without naming names.

"Other browsers dilute their engineering investments across systems," Hachamovitch said. "Because we focus exclusively on one, IE can make the most of the Windows experience and the hardware."

Mozilla developers would surely disagree. In fact, some already have.

Last week, Robert O'Callahan, a New Zealand employee of Novell who works full time on Mozilla's graphics infrastructure, took exception to an earlier Microsoft blog that said IE9 "fully hardware accelerates the entire Web platform," and which cited scores that showed competitors lagged behind Explorer 9.

"Microsoft's message that IE9 is the apex of what a browser can do with the GPU is nonsense," said O'Callahan on his personal blog last Thursday. In a follow up post a day later he added, "Microsoft's PR about 'full hardware acceleration' is a myth." Mozilla technology evangelist Asa Dotzler was even more blunt. "Microsoft, stop making bull claims about hardware acceleration," Dotzler titled a post to his personal blog last week.