Microsoft and the Phishing Filter

For some time, Microsoft has been promising that their new version of Internet Explorer Version 7, will contain a Phishing Filter that will help you identify fake web sites so you don't give personal data to a web site that isn't what you think it is. If you are not familiar with the term "Phishing" is a practice where crooks try and trick you into giving up personal information so they can steal your identity and/or your money.

One way they do it is to put up fake web sites that purports to be a real website. For awhile, I used to get fake e-mail's supposedly from my bank directing me to a web site in order to give them my personal information. Fortunately, the e-mail was so badly done that I knew it was a fraud instantly...and my bank sent out warnings saying they would never ask me to input this kind of information.

Anyhow, phishing scams have become much more clever and a fair amount of people have suffered identity theft. In order to help out, Microsoft has decided to make their phishing filter available to the public for free even though IE7 is not yet available. This temporary filter, so to speak, will work in IE6, but there is a catch.

The filter only comes packaged in as an add-on to the MSN Toolbar Kit. This toolbar is similar to other toolbars put out by Google and Yahoo. It defaults to an MSN search engine, but you can change the default search engine (for instance if you prefer Google). It also adds tabbed pages, similar to those found in Maxthon and Opera, and performs desktop searches. The phishing filter now is part of the package and is designed to prevent you from entering personal information into a fraudulent website.

To learn more about the tool, head to the Microsoft MSN Toolbar Kit web page. To learn about the Phishing Filter, you need to access a separate Microsoft web page and, if you desire, download it only after you have installed the MSN Toolbar Kit.

More on Microsoft

Our favorite software company may be headed for more trouble with government anti-trust folks around the world. The company announced that it will include its anti-spyware software as part of the its new Windows Vista operating system when it is released. This is exactly what got them in trouble a few years ago when they started including a web browser and other utilities for free as part of their operating system. This effectively put many companies out of business and Microsoft was punished for this, although not a severely as they should have been.

Currently, Microsoft's Anti-Spyware is available for free as a beta test software. By including it for free as part of the operating system, they are trying once again to put their competition out of business and inviting all kinds of litigation.

As you may recall, I was initially impressed with Microsoft's Anti-Spyware, but later became disenchanted when I discovered that my current spyware, Sunbelt's Counterspy, found 63 spyware products on my computer that Microsoft missed. Microsoft's product also became suspect as it stopped identifying one particular company's spyware products as being dangerous at the same time that Microsoft started negotiations with that same company to buy them out.

As big as this company is, they sure seem to make some very controversial business decisions designed to invite trouble.