Windows 8 Satisfies The Need For Speed

I’m a speed sensitive kind of guy – when it comes to computing, that is. Late last year, to satisfy my need for speed, I installed a Solid State Drive – running Windows 7 Enterprise – in place of a Western Digital HDD, as a boot drive.

The benefits of running with an SSD were immediately noticeable – faster boot times, faster system shutdown, faster application load times (including games), along with faster sleep and hibernation modes.

In the meantime, Windows 8 Consumer Preview was dropped on my doorstep – and, since there is some degree of SSD optimization built into Windows 8, taking the opportunity to race with this new engine was a natural fit.

It’s been quite a race – Windows 8 is perceptibly faster on my hardware than on the same configuration running Windows 7. Not milliseconds faster – but, measurable faster. Still, there’s little real value in a single user’s Windows 8 running experience. Hardware is a variable – system configurations are variable – usage factors need to be considered, and so on.

So, rather than write a full report on my personal experience running Windows 8, I gave Sandro Villinger from TuneUp Software (the developers of TuneUp Utilities 2012) a buzz to get his take on Windows 8.

Thank goodness for Skype – a planned 15 minute call to Germany turned into a 2 hour conversation – much of it focused on the state of Internet journalism. A conversation so satisfying, that it led me to craft an article on a number of issues raised in conversation, which I’ll post in the next few days.

But, I digress.

As it turns out, Sandro and his team had tested Windows 8 extensively – not just on a single system – but, on a mix of hardware which included Desktops, Laptop/Tablets, and a low powered Intel Atom Netbook.

Sandro has generously shared his extremely comprehensive report with me – which I’ve posted below. If you’ve had any questions regarding Windows 8 performance capabilities, then Sandro’s report is just what you’ve been waiting for.

Enjoy the read.  

A Close Look at Windows 8 Performance: Winners and Losers

Don’t let the shiny new Metro interface of Windows 8 fool you—the new operating system (OS) has been improved not just with a spanking new outfit but also in the performance department. For instance, Microsoft’s future OS needs to work with both high-end PCs as well as small-factor devices like ARM and low-powered Intel tablets, which is why its overall footprint needed to be reduced drastically.

As VentureBeat noted, “Windows 8’s secret feature [is] resurrecting old PCs.” Microsoft promised that Windows 8 would run equally well or better on low-powered machines than Windows 7. This is a bold statement, but the real question is, did the company deliver? In this blog post, we’ll explore that with early benchmarks, showing if and how much Windows 8’s performance compares to Windows 7’s on the very same machines.

Windows 8 has been optimized from the ground up to work great with low-powered mobile devices. But how fast is it really? Our lab tests will give you the answers.

Our Test Beds: A Broad Range

To get comparable results, we put Windows 8 through a variety of tests on several very differently equipped systems. We used:

• Two Desktop PCs: We installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on both a 2007-era desktop PC (Core 2 Duo, 2.66 GHz) and a recent Alienware gaming rig (Core i7 930, 8 GB RAM).
• Two Laptops/Tablets: We also tested a low-powered Core i7 1.8 GHz, 4 GB RAM 13” laptop, which includes a 256 GB SSD, as well as an Asus EP121 tablet sporting a Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 64 GB SSD.
• Netbook: We used a very common Samsung NC10 netbook running a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom and 2 GB of RAM.

We didn’t install any tools on those machines except for the applications that we frequently use for benchmarking. As usual, we performed all tests three times to get a good idea of the results. As usual, we put both OSs through the typical rounds of analyzing boot time, raw processing power and application launch speed. However, since this is a Consumer Preview, we just want to give a quick impression rather than perform a full-blown review—we’ll save that for later!

#1 – Boot Time Performance

Windows 8 is widely known for booting up extremely quickly. I used a stopwatch to determine how long it took until the desktop under Windows 7 and the new Metro user interface under Windows 8 was visible. The results will blow you away.

On all machines, Windows 8 was able to surpass its predecessor—right out of the gate, the new OS booted much more quickly. Once the final version hits, we’ll go through our usual paces of running Windows Performance Analyzer to determine if and how much background activity during boot was reduced.

#2 – Processes on a Fresh System

Last September, Microsoft boasted about less processes and reduced RAM consumption. Obviously, the less things that are running in the background, the better performance and longer battery life will be, as idle times are much higher. Right after we clean installed both Windows 7 and Windows 8, we compared the usage.

What we found was not necessarily a big achievement, but an achievement nonetheless. We saw a decrease of five processes as well as a drop in RAM usage by about 100 MB. In your day-to-day routine, this won’t be of particular help. What is helpful, however, are the drastically reduced idle activities. On Windows 8, Microsoft managed to reduce overall background activity noticeably—both on the software and on the driver side. By default, the bare OS’s processes and services rarely cause any noticeable spikes.

#3 – Application Start-up Times

Application start-up times give us a good indication of the OS’s ability to pre-load data and quickly manage smaller file chunks. To test this, we “trained” Windows’s own SuperFetch feature by loading Outlook 2010 every morning at exactly 9 a.m. and keeping it running on both the Windows 7 SP1 and the Windows 8 OSs all day long. After a couple of days, Windows had adapted. Then, we were able to use the trusty AppTimer, which automatically launches applications and measures start-up times down to the millisecond.

Now, how long does it take? We only performed this test on the Core i7 1.8 GHz laptop.

There was a difference in so called “cold” and “warm” startups – cold refers to the first startup of the application right after boot, and warm refers to subsequent launches that are all completely loaded from memory and, thus, faster. The differences were hardly noticeable, but there was a clear trend towards Windows 8 loading applications a tad slower; however, this could be attributed to hard disk controller drivers.

#4 – Office Performance

To test day-to-day performance, we used the dependable PCMark 7 benchmark tool that automatically performs tasks such as website rendering, virus scans, photo manipulation and video editing. It should easily prove how well Windows 8 can handle both CPU and hard disk heavy tasks.

We found mixed results. While Windows 8 achieved quite a leap in performance on the faster machines, the lower-end devices, especially the netbook, actually suffered a bit. This ran noticeably slower during the tests, which was also noticeable during day-to-day usage.

#5 – Gaming Performance

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. benchmark is a very well established test program designed to measure frames per second in DirectX games. As usual, we performed all tests three times and averaged the results.

The gaming front seems to profit from Windows 8’s reduced memory usage and apparent optimization to DirectX. But, those results should be taken with a grain of salt: Windows 8 installed some more recent beta drivers that were not available for Windows 7 SP1.To compensate for the effect, we downloaded the most recent beta drivers for nVIDIA and Intel onboard graphics. Overall, the netbook suffered a small amount again, while the faster machines gained quite a bit of performance.

#6 – Overall Verdict: Good Improvements, Some Losses

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview runs well on higher-end devices, but we were surprised to see that it lost some performance on lower-end machines—the very exact devices that it’s supposed to run well on. However, I’ll wait for the release candidate to make a final judgment. We may have an odd combination of unfinished drivers and code and bugs that may affect benchmarks (which is exactly why I only used a handful of my tests to get a general feel for new OS’s performance).

Overall, Windows 8 is going in the right direction. However, judging bare operating systems can only reveal so much.We’ll find out how it really works when we’re able to test third-party applications and the Metro-style apps. Do these negatively impact performance over time? We’ll find out in part two of our Windows 8 performance series.

A Close Look at Windows 8 Performance: Winners and Losers (Part 2)

In last week’s blog post, we performed some early performance benchmarks and compared Windows 7 SP1 with the recently released Windows 8 Consumer Preview. While speed improved in some scenarios, other aspects suffered a bit. However, the important thing to remember is, performance doesn’t just depend on the underlying operating system (OS); it also relies on the applications that run constantly in the background.

Third-Party Applications: Still a Problem

I’ve now been productively working with Windows 8 for a couple of weeks! I have been using this OS day in and day out and have installed all of my applications.

While I was surprised by the system’s initial responsiveness, overall speed reduced after installing about 80 programs, which consisted of Skype, Live Messenger, SnagIt and games and office applications. It didn’t slow things down to a crawl, but it introduced quite a bit of lag and noticeably less performance—so I found myself again having to use tools such as TuneUp Program Deactivator, Autoruns, Startup Manager and Windows’ own service tools to turn off certain applications. This isn’t out of the ordinary though. It’s a fact of life, and Microsoft will likely stay away from this department, despite the fact that the company has introduced quite a nice Task-Manager that shows the impact of start-up applications.

Closed Apps Still Run in the Background

Having worked with Windows 8 on both a desktop and a tablet, in addition to switching between a variety of apps, I noticed a bit of a lag when handling apps. First, switching between apps had a delay of between one second and several seconds. Second, the system slowed down in “classic desktop” mode although no applications were running.

Microsoft promised several times on its Engineering 8 Blog that inactive applications would be frozen and couldn’t consume PC resources. When looking at the multi-tasking switcher on the left, I was proven right. Windows 8 actively held about six apps at a time before apparently closing them. What I found instead, however, annoyed me a bit. The so-called frozen applications remain in the background.

While only the most critical of those apps were active in the background (Mail, Messaging, Music, etc.), all other apps just sat there consuming memory. Overall, I had about 500 MB worth of apps sitting in memory and not doing a whole lot. That’s not as bad as some browsers, but it’s still not quite as effective as it could be.

Why is this happening? The memory is actually consumed by the frozen state of the app. This means that once an app is closed (which is done by a swiping gesture from the top to the bottom of the screen), it can be resumed instantly. Even though this is a good feature, most users likely aren’t aware that this instant resume may have a detrimental effect on performance—and there are applications that most people only start once, use for 10 minutes and don’t touch again. So why keep those apps =running in the background?

Of course, a restart purges the memory of all app states, but many users go a long time without ever shutting down or restarting their PCs. In fact, Microsoft has designed Windows 8 to be more of an “Always On Standby” experience—they hide the restart and shutdown buttons in the charms menu and encourage users to use their power buttons to go to standby.

Is this really a problem? Well, it all depends on the usage of the user. If you’re just using three or four of your favorite apps, this doesn’t concern you. A hundred MB won’t make a huge difference. If you’re using a wide array of Metro-style apps and switch back to your classic desktop applications, this might affect performance. Having half a gig of apps sitting in memory just waiting for you to start them again is detrimental to performance. I wish apps would actually close if you perform the aforementioned swipe gesture.

Again, it’s very early to talk about these things. Windows 8 is in its Consumer Preview stage, but I am not sure if Microsoft really is considering giving back more control to the user who actually wants it. We’ll keep you up-to-date on this.

Sandro Villinger’s professional background – IT Journalist/Consultant

Managing Editor: Hewlett-Packard HPIO Germany

PR Manager/Technical Consulting: TuneUp Software GmbH

Publications US: IDG ITWorld, HP Input/Output, TuneUp Blog

Publications DE:  ComputerBILD, PC Pr@xis, MS Press, Windows-Tweaks.info

OPSWAT’s March 2012 Security Industry Market Share Analysis

Windows XP is dead-dead-dead. After all, Windows XP is a has-been in the world of operating systems – now 2+generations behind – and, eating dust. Or, so say all the pundits.

If you’re an XP user, as I am, then you can take some solace from OPSWAT’s latest quarterly report (released today), bolstered by more than 353,000 data points, which clearly shows Windows XP continues to hold substantial market share. In fact, according to OPSWAT’s data – Windows XP remains the most popular Windows operating system in both North America and worldwide, with slightly under half of computers using XP.

I’ll point out – I also run with Windows 7 and, Windows 8 Consumer Preview (a super system once one has crossed the “I have to learn some new stuff” barrier) – both of which are considerably safer overall than XP. So, I have no ax to grind – but, I do have an XP horse in the race. There’s little doubt of course, that XP will eventually disappear from the scene – but, not quite yet.

Windows 7, and rightfully so, continues to blaze ahead in the race to displace XP from its preeminent market position and, as shown in the following OPSWAT graphic, now commands better than 46% of the operating system market both in North America, and world wide. Windows Vista on the other hand, is barely on the horizon.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

Additionally, the OPSWAT report takes a close look at world wide and North American Antivirus vendors market share and, the gathered information in this latest report shows virtually no shift in market penetration from previous reports. In the world wide market place, the same Top 10 players, as expected, continue to hold substantial positions.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

In the North American marketplace, the same high penetration ratios exist although, the players shift position – with Symantec jumping into first position overall, from its sixth position worldwide.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

Microsoft, as shown in the following graphic, continues to gain ground with a fairly dramatic shift in growth.

As in previous OPSWAT reports, free security solutions remain at the top of the market with the highest numbers of installations. The top three products in North America, and worldwide, are available free for download.

OPSWAT’s analysis of the peer to peer application market share surprised me somewhat, since it showed LimeWire continuing to hold a market share -despite a court injunction prohibiting the use of the application, dated October 26, 2010.

On the other hand, there was no surprise in seeing µTorrent maintaining its lead over the competition in the public file sharing application market – as the following graphic indicates.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

The full report which is chock fill of absorbing statistics is available here.

So, who is OPSWAT?

If you’re a techie, then you’re very likely familiar with AppRemover, a free powerful anti-malware, antivirus application remover, and Metascan Online, a free online file scanner – both from OPSWAT. Beyond this direct connection however, you might not be familiar with OPSWAT.

From the site:

OPSWAT is the industry leader in software management SDKs, interoperability certification and multiple-engine scanning solutions. Our solutions are simplified and comprehensive, solving complex development problems to reduce time and costs for your engineering and testing teams.

OPSWAT offers software manageability solutions to streamline technology partnerships between leading technology solutions and software vendors. By enabling seamless compatibility and easy management capabilities, we make connecting your solutions with other software applications effortless.

Our innovative multi-scanning solutions deliver optimized anti-malware protection that increases detection rates without sacrificing performance with slow and cumbersome scans. Because no single anti-malware engine can catch every threat, we combine multiple engines to scan simultaneously, significantly improving the probability of detecting a threat.

Webmasters Struggle With Hacked Sites – A Commtouch, StopBadware Report

I’m often asked why I host this Blog on WordPress.com – why I don’t self host, and maybe make a few dollars, while I’m at it, by running ads. So, I’ll start with the back-end first.

It’s not about money – far from it. I write this Blog to have a little bit of fun; to help keep my mind sharp (often a failing exercise    ) – and, to be part of a community which recognizes the need to educate computer users that the Internet is not all sweetness and light.

That’s the back-end – but, it’s the front-end that’s most important. WordPress does all the heavy lifting. All elements are taken care of: setup, upgrades, spam, backups, and site security. Site security might be last in the previous sentence but, it was the most important factor in my decision to use WordPress as my blogging platform.

Just a few of the security reasons:

Potential harmful activity is constantly monitored.

Blog PHP code can’t be modified.

Plugins can’t be uploaded.

JavaScript embed codes and CSS, are restricted.

I’m not suggesting that WordPress can’t, or won’t be hacked (nothing on the Internet is invulnerable to cyber criminals) – but, should sites hosted by WordPress.com fall to  the bad guys, those of us who rely on WP, will at least have a fighting chance to recover. This is not always the case for self-hosted sites.

Recent statistics indicate (surprise, surprise) – cybercriminals are increasing their targeting of websites for identity theft, virus distribution, and spamming. And, according to a newly released survey (Compromised Websites: An Owner’s Perspective), from Commtouch and StopBadware – in which webmasters were queried on their fight against hacking – almost half of the survey participants (who had been hacked), had no idea until they received a warning from their own computer’s protection technology.

More particularly, according to the Commtouch/StopBadware report – “about half of site owners discovered the hack when they attempted to visit their own site and received a browser or search engine warning.”  Not a very effective method of discovering one’s site has been hacked. As opposed to WP’s – “Potential harmful activity is constantly monitored.”

Highlights from analysis of the survey’s responses include:

Over 90% of respondents didn’t notice any strange activity, despite the fact that their sites were being abused to send spam, host phishing pages, or distribute malware.

Nearly two-thirds of the webmasters surveyed didn’t know how the compromise had happened.

Twenty six percent of site owners had not yet figured out how to resolve the problem at the time they completed the survey.

Forty percent of survey respondents changed their opinion of their web hosting provider following a compromise.

The report includes several examples of hacked websites, as well as the spam emails that may trick users into visiting these sites. In addition to analysis and quotes from site owners, the report provides tips to help webmasters prevent their sites from being compromised.

The following graphic illustrates why cyber criminals target web sites.

Courtesy – Commtouch

The full report is available for download (PDF format) at:

Commtouch

StopBadware

Are You A Sixty-Nine Percenter?

Hopefully, you are not a member of the sixty-nine percent club. If you’re not, then you have not been a victim of cyber criminals – unlike the two thirds of online adults (69 percent), who have been a victim of cybercrime in their lifetime.

According to the United Nations telecommunications agency (January 2011), the number of Internet users now exceeds the two Billion mark, worldwide. It’s easy to see then, that cyber criminals have a virtually unlimited playground in which to ply their trade. And, they do just that – with a vengeance.

Symantec, in it’s recently released Norton Cybercrime Report 2011, makes the point that every second 14 adults become a victim of cyber crime – which translates into one Million+ Internet users who are duped by the detestable sleazebag members of the cyber criminal community – every day. Let’s take it a step further – if we annualize this number, we end up with a shocking 431 Million cyber crime victims.

Graphic courtesy of Symantec

The sheer number of victims is appalling, but the hard monetary costs involved are stunning.

Global cost of cybercrime – from Symantec:

With 431 million adult victims globally in the past year and at an annual price of $388 billion globally based on financial losses and time lost, cybercrime costs the world significantly more than the global black market in marijuana, cocaine and heroin combined ($288 billion).

At $388 Billion, cybercrime is more than 100 times the annual expenditure of UNICEF ($3.65 billion).

I’ll borrow a concept from the Real Estate industry for a moment, and that is – the concept of, “highest and best use”. The use of money can also be described in this way, and the following graphic illustrate how cybercrime can impact this concept at a societal level. It’s rather telling, what those diverted dollars, if employed elsewhere, could accomplish.

Graphic courtesy of Symantec

It’s important to understand that cyber criminals are not selective – it doesn’t matter where you reside – the entire Internet community is fair game.

Graphic courtesy of Symantec

While an installed Internet security suite (or a stand-alone AV application), won’t eliminate all cyber crime risks, it is effective in reducing risk exposure to manageable, and acceptable levels. One has to wonder why 41 % of those surveyed (as illustrated in the following graphic), connect to the Internet while running out-of-date security software.

Graphic courtesy of Symantec

It’s common practice for members of my group to query clients on the state of Internet security, the protective measures they have instituted to ensure both their own safety, and the safety of their systems, while connected to the Web – so, I’ll not take issue with the statistics in this graphic. Except to say – they may be underestimated.

Within my group, we find that a significant percentage of polled clients have little interest in Internet security, and fail to understand the vulnerabilities and issues that surround computer system security.

Common responses to queries include:

Security applications are too confusing and hinder my “fun” by slowing down system response time.

I didn’t know I shouldn’t click the ‘YOU ARE A WINNER!!!!’ banner.

My anti-malware application has let me down – how was I supposed to know I was downloading a bad program!

I’m not sure how my machine got infected – it just happened.

I like to download from Crack sites and Peer-2-Peer networks. So what?

I got a popup saying I was infected, so I clicked on it. What else was I supposed to do!

I didn’t know I was supposed to read the End User License Agreement – I don’t even know what that is.

I thought I had Windows update activated.

What do you mean I should update ALL my applications?

What’s a Firewall – never heard of it?

On the face of it, it might appear as if these types of responses are somehow not very typical. Unfortunately, these responses are not only typical, but characteristic of the majority of the home computer users’ my group comes into contact with every day.

Given this abysmal performance  the following is worth considering –  “In the past, the Internet consisted, mostly, of smart people in front of dumb terminals. Now, the reverse situation dominates”. It may seem a little facetious – but is it, really?

More and more it’s obvious to me, that relying on computer users taking responsibility for their own security and safety, is a non-starter. It’s just not happening. Personally, I hold out little hope that this will ever happen.

In the circumstances, it’s well past time that the “controlling interests” develop a rational approach to the underlying security issues surrounding the Internet – failing which, cyber crime will continue to flourish, and successful attacks on computers over the Internet will continue to proliferate.

Equally as important, in my view – we need a concerted effort from law enforcement, at every level, to actively pursue those who continue to cause havoc on the Internet.

Despite the fact that cyber crime could not be a more pressing problem – one which gives rise to significant human and financial costs – the naysayers, and the “can’t be done” proponents have the field, for the moment. But, only because we, as a society, allow it.

It’s time you demanded a much more aggressive response to cyber crime from those who are charged with ensuring your safety and security – whether it be in the “real” world, or the “virtual” world of the Internet. It’s time that you let your voice be heard. It’s time to emulate Peter Finch and state – “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

If you’re interested in the full Norton Cybercrime Report 2011, it’s available here in multiple languages.

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AVAST Still The Leader In The AV Market Says OPSWAT’s Latest Quarterly Market Share Report

In the lucrative antimalware market, AVAST Software is still running ahead of the pack with a 16.61% share worldwide. Microsoft is no slouch in the run for worldwide market share but still has some catching up to do to catch AVG, and Avira, who control second and third place respectively.

According to OPSWAT’s latest quarterly market share report, released yesterday, overall worldwide market penetration by the top 15 antimalware vendors, has remained virtually static – based on data from OPSWAT’s  June 2011 report. Except that is, for Lavasoft (the Ad-Aware people), who broke past the top 15 vendor barrier.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

On the North American front, Microsoft retains its leading position with a 16.33% share of the market (Microsoft’s free Security Essentials, remains at the top of the North American market) – followed closely by Symantec at 15.28%, and AVG at 14.32%. AVAST continued to push ahead in the ranks, jumping up slightly, to capture 13.28% of the North American market – just behind AVG.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

Report Wrap-up:

In North America, fifty-two different antivirus vendors, and 141 antivirus products, were detected in this report. The top five vendors in North America combined to control 66.22% of the market, about 2% more than in OPSWAT’s June report.

The top five vendors in the worldwide market increased their share as well, but only slightly, to 59.87%.  Sixty-four vendors and 226 products were detected worldwide.

As in our previous reports, free solutions remain at the top of the market with the highest numbers of installations. The top three products in North America and the top four products worldwide are available free for download.

Looking at the top ten products in North America, only Symantec and AVG have more than one product ranking, which helps them to become the 2nd and 3rd leading vendors in North America. Microsoft is able to dominate the market as a vendor due to the large number of installations of just one product, Microsoft Security Essentials.

In the worldwide market, only AVG has more than one product ranking in the top ten. AVAST and Avira have individual products that top the chart with more than 10% share, resulting in their positions at the top of the worldwide antivirus market along with AVG.

The full report which is chock fill of absorbing statistics is available here.

So, who is OPSWAT?

If you’re a techie then you’re very likely familiar with AppRemover, a free powerful anti-malware, antivirus application remover from OPSWAT. Regular readers here will also be familiar with the latest freebie from OPSWAT – Metascan Online – a new service which is similar in many respects to VirusTotal.

From the site:

OPSWAT is the industry leader in software management SDKs, interoperability certification and multiple-engine scanning solutions. Our solutions are simplified and comprehensive, solving complex development problems to reduce time and costs for your engineering and testing teams.

OPSWAT offers software manageability solutions to streamline technology partnerships between leading technology solutions and software vendors. By enabling seamless compatibility and easy management capabilities, we make connecting your solutions with other software applications effortless.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

Is Windows XP Dead? Not According To OPSWAT’s June 2011 Quarterly Report

To quote Mark Twain, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I suspect, if Windows XP were capable of speech, we just might hear the same observation repeated regarding its own demise.

Sure, Windows XP no longer holds the overwhelming market share it once held – which, according to Computerworld, reached a high of  83.6% of all operating systems in November 2007. But, statistics in OPSWAT’s latest quarterly report, to be released today, might surprise those pundits who frequently pontificate that XP is dead – dead – dead. We’ll, it just isn’t so!

There’s little doubt of course, that XP will eventually disappear from the scene – but, not quite yet. In the meantime, according to OPSWAT, XP continues to hold a better than 50% worldwide operating system market share at 55.84%, followed by Windows 7 at 38.81%. Vista trails the pack, with a dismal showing of 4.72%.

BTW, I’m not here to dispute the fact that Windows 7 is considerably safer overall than XP – that would be simply ludicrous. But, it’s equally as ludicrous to ignore the fact (as so many self described “experts” do), that XP continues to command a huge market share. 

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

Additionally, the OPSWAT’s report takes a close look at Worldwide and North American Antivirus vendors market share and, the gathered information may hold some surprises for those who assume that the security application marketplace is controlled by a select few major developers.

The following graphic reflects North American market penetration only. Worldwide statistics are available in the full report.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

Report methodology: Usage data for security applications on Windows systems.

The data was collected using OPSWAT’s AppRemover and Am I OESIS OK? tools, which utilize the detection capabilities of the OESIS Framework to collect information regarding the applications installed on endpoint computers.

More than 43,000 data points were compiled for this report.

The full report which is chock fill of absorbing statistics is available here.

So, who is OPSWAT? 

If you’re a techie then you’re very likely familiar with AppRemover, a free powerful anti-malware, antivirus application remover from OPSWAT. Beyond this direct connection however, you might not be familiar with OPSWAT.

From the site:

OPSWAT is the industry leader in software management SDKs, interoperability certification and multiple-engine scanning solutions. Our solutions are simplified and comprehensive, solving complex development problems to reduce time and costs for your engineering and testing teams.

OPSWAT offers software manageability solutions to streamline technology partnerships between leading technology solutions and software vendors. By enabling seamless compatibility and easy management capabilities, we make connecting your solutions with other software applications effortless.

If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.

OPSWAT’s Latest Quarterly Report Breaks Down Antivirus Market Share, Windows Usage By Version, And More

If you’re a techie then you’re very likely familiar with AppRemover, a free powerful anti-malware, antivirus application remover from OPSWAT. Beyond this direct connection however, you might not be familiar with OPSWAT.

So, who are OPSWAT, and what do they do?

From the site:

OPSWAT offers software manageability solutions to streamline technology partnerships between leading technology solutions and software vendors. By enabling seamless compatibility and easy management capabilities, we make connecting your solutions with other software applications effortless.

As a Blogger, information gatherer, and distributor, there is an additional area of OPSWAT’s expertise that I find invaluable, and that is – the regular reports which the company releases on vendor market share for antivirus, hard disk encryption, backup clients, and peer to peer applications.

In its latest quarterly report, (to be released later today), OPSWAT has focused on Worldwide and North American Antivirus vendors market share, with additional data breaking down Windows usage by version and, bonus data on Peer to Peer application usage.

Here’s a few teasers from this report:

The avast! Antivirus product line has helped AVAST Soware maintain its position as the top antivirus vendor worldwide for the last two quarters, despite a slight drop to 16.19% global market share in this report.

Avira GmbH and AVG Technologies are second and third in global market share with 13.22% and 11.47% respectively. In comparison to the worldwide data from our December 2010 report, Avira GmbH shows a considerable increase of 4.96%, which could result from a higher percentage of the current data originating from countries where they have a stronger hold on the market.

The only other worldwide market share increases were by AVG, with a 1.76% gain from the December report, Lavaso, with a 0.82% rise, and Comodo, with a minimal increase of 0.06%.

Worldwide Antivirus Market Share

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

North American Antivirus Market Share

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

The following graphic might hold some surprises for those who insist that Windows XP is dead. If you were to Google “Windows XP is dead”, for example, you might be surprised to see 25 Million search results.

I’m continuously amazed at the gullibility of consumers, particularly here in North America, who are so easily convinced to discard workable solutions in favor of “the latest and greatest”.

As one who continues to happily run Windows XP on an older machine, I must admit to a certain sense of satisfaction when more than half of Worldwide users continue to resist Microsoft’s planned obsolescence cycle.

And yes, I’m quite familiar with the so called “security issues” inherent in running XP. What I find curious is – on the one hand we (those of us involved in system security), extoll users to develop situational awareness while on the Internet, while on the other hand, there’s a tendency to lay the blame for system intrusion based, in large part, on older operating system deficiencies. Marketing gone mad, anyone?

Windows OS Usage – by Version

Click on the graphic to expand to original.

Graphic courtesy OPSWAT

P2P Application Market Share

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Search Engine Results – More Malware Surprises Than Ever!

Regardless of the fact that many of us are seasoned web surfers, and we tend to be cautious, we’re not likely to question a search engine’s output – and, we should.

Barracuda Labs 2010 Annual Security Report, released just days ago, should be an eye opener for those who blindly assume all search engine results are malware free. In fact, search engine malware has doubled since we last reported on this security issue in 2009.

Barracuda Labs most recent study, reviewed more than 157,000 trending topics and roughly 37 million search results on Bing, Google, Twitter and Yahoo. Overall research results indicated that cyber criminals have bumped up the level of search engine malware, as well as expanded their target market beyond Google.

Key highlights from the search result analysis include:

In June 2010, Google was crowned as “King” of malware, turning up more than twice the amount of malware as Bing, Twitter and Yahoo! combined when searches on popular trending topics were performed.

As malware spread across the other search engines, the ratios were distributed more evenly by December 2010, with Google producing 38 percent of overall malware; Yahoo! at 30 percent; Bing at 24 percent and Twitter at eight percent.

The amount of malware found daily across the search engines increased 55 percent from 145.7 in June 2010 to 226.3 in December 2010.

One in five search topics lead to malware, while one in 1,000 search results lead to malware.

The top 10 terms used by malware distributors include the name of a Jersey Shore actress, the president, the NFL and credit score.

There’s little doubt that the manipulation of search engine results, exploiting legitimate pages, and the seeding of malicious websites among the top results returned by search engines in order to infect users with malware, is a continuing threat to system security.

When a potential victim visits one of these sites the likelihood of the downloading of malicious code onto the computer by exploiting existing vulnerabilities is high.

Let’s take, as an example, a typical user running a search for “great vacation spots” on one of the popular search engines.

Unknown to the user, the search engine returns a malicious or compromised web page as one of the most popular sites. Users with less than complete Internet security who visit this page will have an extremely high chance of becoming infected.

There are a number of ways that this can occur. Cyber-crooks can exploit vulnerabilities on the server hosting the web page to insert an iFrame, (an HTML element which makes it possible to embed another HTML document inside the main document). The iFrame can then activate the download of malicious code by exploiting additional vulnerabilities on the visiting machine.

Alternatively, a new web page can be built, with iFrames inserted, that can lead to malware downloads. This new web page appears to be legitimate. In the example mentioned earlier, the web page would appear to be a typical page offering great vacation spots.

One more common method is the insertion of false dialogue boxes, fake toolbars, and more on sites; all designed to load destructive malware which could include rootkits, password stealers, Trojan horses, and spam bots.

Unfortunately, since Cyber-crooks are relentless in their pursuit of your money, and in the worst case scenario your identity, you can be sure that additional threats are being developed or are currently being deployed.

So what can you do to ensure you are protected, or to reduce the chances you will become a victim?

Install an Internet Browser add-on such as WOT (my personal favorite), which provides detailed test results on a site’s safety; protecting you from security threats including spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, and online scams

Don’t open unknown email attachments

Don’t run programs of unknown origin

Disable hidden filename extensions

Keep all applications (including your operating system) patched

Turn off your computer or disconnect from the network when not in use

Disable Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX if possible

Disable scripting features in email programs

Make regular backups of critical data

Make a boot disk in case your computer is damaged or compromised

Turn off file and printer sharing on the computer

Install a personal firewall on the computer

Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software and ensure it is configured to automatically update when you are connected to the Internet

Ensure the anti-virus software scans all e-mail attachments

Be proactive when it comes to your computer’s security; make sure you have adequate software based protection to reduce the chances that your machine will become infected.

Fact: Consumer confidence in the reliability of search engine results, including relevant ads, is seriously misplaced.

You can download the full Barracuda Labs 2010 Annual Security Report (PDF), at Barracuda Labs.

Update: March 5, 2011. The following comment illustrates perfectly the issues discussed in this article.

Funny you write about this today. I was reading about the spider issue Mazda was having and wanted to know what the spider looked like so I Googled it, went to images and there it was. There was also a US map that had areas highlighted, assuming where the spiders exist, and before I clicked on the map I made sure there was the green “O” for WOT for security reasons.

I clicked on the map and BAM I was redirected instantly and hit w/ the “You have a virus” scan malware. I turned off my modem then shut my computer off. I restarted it and scanned my computer w/ MS Security Essentials and Super Anti Spyware. MS Essentials found Exploit:Java/CVE-2010-0094.AF, and Trojan:Java/Mesdeh and removed them. I use WOT all the time, but now I’m going to be super cautious.

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Spam Falls To ONLY 33.5 BILLION Spam Emails Daily – January 2011 MessageLabs Intelligence Report

If you haven’t gotten an email lately for a “performance” enhancer like Cialis, or Viagra here’s why –

According to Symantec’s MessageLabs Intelligence Report for January, 2011, pharmaceutical spam recently dropped to 59.1% of all spam – down from it’s all time high of 85% of all spam, back in May 2010. Still, that’s small comfort when you consider that spam currently accounts for 75.7 percent of all email traffic. What a waste of the Internet’s finite resources.

The report points out that “the decline is the result of both a halt in the spam-sending activities of three botnets – Rustock, Lethic and Xarvester – and also unrest among pharmaceutical spam-sending gangs following the closure of pharmaceutical spam affiliate, Spamit”.

This respite however, is likely to be short lived. MessageLabs Intelligence Senior Analyst, Paul Wood pointed out ‘”there are likely other factors at work, such as consolidation and restructuring of pharmaceutical spam operations ……….  we expect to see more pharmaceutical spam in 2011 as new pharmaceutical spam brands emerge and botnets compete for their business.”

A snapshot of the threat landscape over the last month:

Spam: In January 2011, the global ratio of spam in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was 78.6 percent (1 in 1.3 emails), a decrease of 3.1 percentage points since December.

Viruses: The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic from new and previously unknown bad sources was one in 364.8 emails (0.274 percent) in January, a decrease of .03 percentage points since December. In January, 65.1 percent of email-borne malware contained links to malicious websites, a decrease of 2.5 percentage points since December.

Endpoint Threats: Threats against endpoint devices such as laptops, PCs and servers may penetrate an organization in a number of ways, including drive-by attacks from compromised websites, Trojan horses and worms that spread by copying themselves to removable drives. Analysis of the most frequently blocked malware for the last month revealed that the Sality.AE virus was the most prevalent. Sality.AE spreads by infecting executable files and attempts to download potentially malicious files from the Internet.

Phishing: In January, phishing activity was 1 in 409.7 emails (0.244 percent), an increase of 0.004 percentage points since December.

Web security: Analysis of web security activity shows that 44.1 percent of malicious domains blocked were new in January, an increase of 7.9 percentage points since December. Additionally, 21.8 percent of all web-based malware blocked was new in January, a decrease of 3.1 percentage points since last month. MessageLabs Intelligence also identified an average of 2,751 new websites per day harboring malware and other potentially unwanted programs such as spyware and adware, a decrease of 21.5 percent since December.

Reading this type of report (or at least the highlights), is certainly educational, and can be a major step in expanding that sense of threat awareness that active Internet users’ require.

The full MLI Report is available here in PDF.

Symantec’s MessageLabs Intelligence is a respected source of data and analysis for messaging security issues, trends and statistics. MessageLabs Intelligence provides a range of information on global security threats based on live data feeds from control towers around the world scanning billions of messages each week.

About Symantec:

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

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Consumer Statistics Survey – 50% Of Computer Users Lost Data In 2010

According to a survey conducted online by ConsumerStatistics, between December 1, 2010 and December 4, 2010 – most of us are concerned, to some extent, about the loss of family photos stored on our computers. It seems the “concern”, is more than justified.

Of the 6,149 people in 128 countries who participated in the ConsumerStatistics study, 67 per cent reported having experienced the loss of digital photos, and additional files, through a Hard Drive failure, accidental deletion, a malware attack, theft, or exposure to a natural disaster including fire, flood, and so on. I found it most surprising, that just under 52 percent reported the loss of  irreplaceable data within the last year.

Survey methodology:

Survey conducted online between 12-01-2010 and 12-04-2010.

Survey methods include: Email, focus groups, surveys, social media.

Here’s a sample question from the survey: How often do you backup your home PC?

Survey Highlights:

89.1% of home PC users do not perform regular backups.

67.1% of home PC users have lost pictures and files on their home PC. 51.4.% within the last year.

69.2% of home PC users are most worried about losing their digital pictures.

Survey Summary:

The survey conducted found that people do neglect doing proper backups for their home PCs, and put their valuable data at unnecessary risk.

Over 89% of the respondents do not perform regular backups, and of these people, 76.6% have suffered from data loss. Yet, 91.3% of respondents surveyed believe that backups are important.

As a technologist, the survey stats are not a all surprising – data loss is inevitable; and it happens much more frequently than an average computer user might suspect.

As regular readers of this site are aware, there is a cornucopia of free backup solutions, readily available for download on the Internet, which range from the uncomplicated and easy to use, to the more complex specialty solutions designed for power users.

A good example of a simple backup solution can be found in this article –

Free EASEUS Todo Backup – Easy Backup For The Rest Of Us, posted here January 7, 2010. Additionally, a site search here for “backup solutions”, will return 20+ articles on free desktop and online backup applications.

Failure to mitigate the risks associated with the lack of regular backup, defies common sense. Experience tells me that you will experience data loss. Recovery of that data, while not entirely painless, will be possible – if you have prepared for the inevitable.

The ConsumerStatistics study makes for interesting reading, and I encourage you to read the full results here.

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