While the words “free” and “Microsoft” aren’t exactly synonymous, the Redmond WA, company is looking at turning over a new leaf as it hopes to infiltrate your system with one more piece of its software – all for free.

LiveOne Care never really caught on, whether it was the $50 USD price tag, or the fact that it seemed to mimic that free “protection service” you can get from most ISPs (which you should also avoid at all costs), the fact of the matter is that there is plenty of great AV and system protection software available to users these days.  You don’t have to go to far to find quality free offerings, and if you are willing to pony up the cash, there are some widely acclaimed European companies who are considered the best in the biz for under $30/year

Recently a  company spokesperson confirmed that they are in fact, currently setting up for a Beta release of an anti virus program, codenamed “Morro” which should hit their website for download in the near future. The service is said to improve where most other free anti virus programs fail and primarily focusing on low usage of system resources. It it also said to protect against other nuisances such as spyware, rootkits and trojans.

Microsoft discontinued their LiveOne Care service this past November after it unquestionably flopped. LiveOne Care was a paid service, versus the now free service, it brings up the question as to where the revenue will come from. Traditionally most freeware anti virus solutions are subsidized through ads included with the installation, limits on service which are released with a paid subscription or other “catches”.

It will be very interesting to see what kind of impact this freeware software has on other anti-virus developers – not just competiting freeware – but paid services as well. With over 90% of computers running the Microsoft OS, they have a very large audience to directly offer this program to through such avenues as Windows Update.

• Question!  (- Source: Dwight Schrute)
• If you read this far and weren’t scared off by the word “free” – What anti virus software do you currently use?