Another quick post to keep you up to date on what's happening in OneCare land. Today, we launched Windows Live OneCare safety scanner internationally. For Windows Live users, this safety scanner is a free, on-demand tool that conducts three different types of scans:

·         The Protection Scan checks for and removes things like viruses and malware. 

·         The Clean-up Scan checks the hard disk for unnecessary files and helps users decide which ones they can safely delete.  It also clears the PC’s registry of left over data. 

·         The Tune-up Scan helps improve the PC’s performance by defragmenting the hard drive.  

For those of you that have been using the Windows Live Safety Center beta, Windows Live OneCare safety scanner represents the next generation of the Safety Center service, providing an on-demand tool to enhance the safety of your online experience

As the subscription version of Windows Live OneCare grows in customer popularity (people have really responded well to its all-in-one, simple, and evolving value proposition), it became clear to us that OneCare could better support the Windows Live charter of bringing a consumer’s online world together by taking steps to unite our various safety features and services under one umbrella.

Windows Live OneCare will provide simple, powerful protection for Windows Live customers through both free and subscription features and services, including the subscription version of Windows Live OneCare, OneCare Advisor in Toolbar, and Windows Live OneCare safety scanner.  You can get access to all of the OneCare services in addition to other Live services at http://onecare.live.com .   

Windows Live OneCare is Going International

Here’s something I’ve been looking forward to announcing for a long time now. Many blog readers noticed in our initial announcement (around February of this past year) that our initial release was to the US only. Well, you spoke loud and clear that there was international demand for OneCare – and we heard you. Over the past few months we’ve been working very hard on the international versions of OneCare, and are now ready to tell you that we’ll have international betas available by the end of the year, if not sooner, in the following markets:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.

Stay tuned – we’ll be sure to follow up with more details soon.

Thanks for your support,

Yoav

Sorry I haven’t posted in some time, but we want to get you caught up on what the team’s been up to lately.  

We recently launched Windows Live OneCare Advisor, a free component of the Windows Live Toolbar that provides quick and easy access to the Windows Live Safety Center and an updated version of the Microsoft Phishing Filter to help protect consumers from online data theft.  Microsoft has offered free PC scanning and cleaning, via the Windows Live Safety Center beta, and phishing protection from the toolbar add-in for some time, but we wanted to bring this safety and protection together for consumers. With one click on the Windows Live Toolbar, users now have access to free tools for a healthier, more protected and better online experience. 

I also want to expand a bit on the inclusion of an updated version of the Microsoft Phishing Filter in OneCare Advisor. This service has quickly become a very popular offering for our Windows Live users, and we’re excited to announce some additional functionality. Customers who opt in to the Microsoft Phishing Filter in Windows Live Toolbar can now opt in to the Phish Detective feature. This technology helps generate leads on potential phishing sites by examining patterns of online activity by Windows Live Toolbar users. The technology works by identifying when a customer is reusing passwords on different Web sites. The passwords are encrypted and stored as anonymous codes on the user’s PC – just like when people ask a Web site where they have visited before to “remember” log in information for the next time they visit the site. If several of these encrypted passwords are suddenly entered on a site the filter doesn’t know, then it will run a check in case the site is a phishing attack. If a site is confirmed as phish (i.e. fraudulent), Microsoft can quickly block it – keeping you and the rest of the Internet safer from these types of threats.

Our phishing technologies were developed to help prevent customers from sharing their sensitive information with scammers on phishing websites. Privacy is a crucial part of this process, so we invited a third party to run an audit on the Microsoft Phishing Filter, which validated and confirmed our claims regarding how the service operates with respect to customer privacy.  Feel free to visit http://www.jeffersonwells.com/client_audit_reports/main.htm for the full report, and stay tuned – we’ll be sharing results from an updated audit in the near future – which will also include the new Phish Detective feature. 

The growing Windows Live OneCare portfolio is something we’re proud of.  Please, give the OneCare Advisor and Windows Live Toolbar a try (http://toolbar.live.com ) and keep the great feedback rolling in. I know I may sound like a broken record here – but we’ll continue to say it – we listen to our customers first and foremost. 

Thanks,

Yoav