Microsoft tackles piracy in China with free Windows 10

[thai tech]

Microsoft tackles piracy in China with free Windows 10



According to a report in Reuters, Microsoft is attempting to push into the Chinese computing market this year by offering free upgrades to Windows 10 to all Windows users, even if they have don’t have a genuine copy of the software.

It’s an attempted to get legitimate versions of Windows onto the hundreds of millions of PCs in China, where most of the software is not properly licensed.

Read more: http://tech.thaivisa.com/windows-10-free-in-china/7195/

[Seastallion]

On the one hand, a good business idea.....but on the other, a sneaky way to make millions more dependent on MS.

Just today I had to buy MS Office. No problem buying it in principle, except for the fact that the laptop was bought new 6 months ago with Windows 8 and MS Office ready installed.

Two days ago, Wifey says her MS Words needs activating and she can't use it...no problem, says I, forget MS, download Open Office...it can do everything MS Word can do, including edit your current files. and also save as a .doc.

Almost true. Open Office can indeed open and edit all her 6 months worth of school files, but all formatting is lost. Far too much work to re-do, so no option but to buy.

So, what MS did was let her create all her files for 6 months, and then say, "if you want to continue, pay, (fair enough) but if you want to edit your work, pay. Nasty.

Devious.

I highly recommend Open Office...you will never have to pay a cent, and you will never be beholden to the corporation, and it does do everything MS Word, Power Point Excel et al does.....but not revert old files unless they are straight forward text.

[Jingthing]

So why not in Thailand?

I have hated the Windows system in Thailand.

Mostly OEM and if something changes in your machine, big problem, and of course so many fakes.

[Seastallion]

So why not in Thailand?

I have hated the Windows system in Thailand.

Mostly OEM and if something changes in your machine, big problem, and of course so many fakes.

Yes, I wish it included Thailand.

The laptop before the one I mentioned above came with Windows 8......but as soon as there was a problem, it transpired the Windows was a copy and illegal and the shop was unhelpful.

I now boycott Vichusins, for my own personal reasons....if readers know what I mean, (with regard to defamation laws).

I hope you all join me in that

[Publicus]

Pirated Windows XL had been the most popular in the PRChina until Microsoft cancelled it mid-2013, sending 800 million PRChinese users in to a tizzy which is exactly what Msft wanted.

Because PRChinese then had to mass pirate Windows 7. Msft responded to that by successfully offering Windows 8, which the Chinese user thought very complex but good. That resulted in Msft succeeding in getting a lot of user attention, which set up the CCP Boyz in Beijing agreeing to the current negotiations over the new Windows 10.

The OP notes that Msft also offers Windows 10 via the CCP security company Qihoo 360, which the CCP government provides free to every user in the PRChina. The free Qihoo 360 antivirus etc security system used to make everyone happy with the government in this respect....until. Eventually everyone found out the free CCP 360 antivirus and security system is itself a virus that the CCP government built into the system to control the computer.

When I wuz recently in the PRChina I got some Chinese friends to bring a young computer tech nerd to remove the Qihoo 360 "Security" system from my desktop, which is a major project given the CCP has a built in system that resists the most determined efforts to uninstall it.

Safe Guards say no.

When another security software is chosen to protect the browser, it says no immediately.

We got it uninstalleld and I paid a private antivirus system in the US to protect my computer and the results were good, but not absolute due to CCP control over internet lines once they are inside the PRC. Using the CCP Qihoo 360 virus spy system, I was forever fighting a losing battle to purge malware, lots and lots of malware daily that prevented me doing a lot of things, such as post to TVF. (After we purged the CCP 360 system, however, my access improved significantly but not without some occasional virus problems.)

There has been some controversy surrounding Qihoo and its 360 security suite, such as it reporting other anti-virus software and search tools as being malicious (reference) and doing QQ (IM/chat) session hijacking (reference). Within the past year of Qihoo going public, there have been further controversies - including reports of the company spying, hacking, and leaking data (reference). And then there are the rumors that the 360 software includes spyware - and that they may have affiliations with PRC Gov't to track, monitor, and police user's online activity (reference).

McAfee marks the site and its affiliates as bad - containing spyware. It also shows an affiliation with a Chinese Gov't site: miibeian.gov.cn (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Department). One such sample that McAfee flagged in this report was also uploaded to VirusTotal ... 21/40 A/V vendors identified the binary as malicious.

http://research.zscaler.com/2011/05/is-360cn-evil.html

Problems accessing the Internet after uninstallation

There’s instances of people uninstalling the 360 browser and then being unable to access the Internet.

The CCP government free search engine Baidu is another CCP virus system designed to close out a thousand websites. Everyone has to use Baidu because for a couple of years now the search engines Google, Yahoo and others are banned, closed out by the Great Firewall of China. So the CCP search and arrest system Baidu identifies your searches to the CCP censors who cut it off when they don't like it, which is almost everything, everywhere that is not CCP in its origin.

Msft is teaming up with the Tencent QQ internet messaging system which is good. QQ is the PRChina equivalent of Hotmail or Gmail but is confined to within the PRChina only. So everyone uses QQ to email messages in an incestuous inside the PRChina only network.

Tencent is operating in Thailand, but only within Thailand and in the Thai language only, and has no access to its parent QQ in the PRChina. QQ is entirely incestuous but we can expect Msft to gradually breach this because Msft Windows systems are the best in the PRC for users secretly to use a VPN to access the outside world. I expect Msft to corrupt the corrupt CCP QQ system before very much time passes.

The CCP free browser hao.360.cn is another free but CCP virus-laden system.

http://www.digital-dd.com/qihoo-browser-war/

Edited March 18, 2015 by Publicus

[Seastallion]

Nice post Pub.

[JetsetBkk]

Nice post Pub.

I've been using Qihoo's "360 Internet Security" for nearly a year without any problems. It came 4th in this review and uses the BitDefender engine, which came 2nd:

17 Best Security Software of 2015

... so I really don't know what Publicus did to screw up his PC.

[NeverSure]

The OEM manufactures buy genuine Windows pretty cheap, configure it and pre-install it en masse via Sysprep and an .msi file. I bought a nice 15" Toshiba laptop last year with legit Windows 8 (which updated to 8.1 for free) for just US$399 all in. I don't know what part of that was the OS.

I have little sympathy for retailers who buy and sell hardware with pirated software, and the customers are just asking for trouble.

Microsoft told us at a seminar that the reason they will allow pirated software to validate with the common cracks is so that it will update and help avoid spreading malware around the world. MS could send out an update and/or make changes in their OS to where those known cracks would stop working. They aren't stupid.

Edited March 18, 2015 by NeverSure

[Publicus]

Nice post Pub.

I've been using Qihoo's "360 Internet Security" for nearly a year without any problems. It came 4th in this review and uses the BitDefender engine, which came 2nd:

17 Best Security Software of 2015

... so I really don't know what Publicus did to screw up his PC.

One's particulars have much to do with the fact a couple of hundred million PRChinese who know their experience, to include my own experience while I recently lived and worked in the PRChina, confirmed and verified by a good number of the Chinese I knew who would discuss it with me. They too purged the Qihoo 360 system from their pc despite the difficulty in doing so (Chee-hoo, sort of a backward sneeze sound).

First off, anyone singing the praises of the Qihoo 360 Security system would need to refute the specifics presented in my post, rather than to link to a banal survey report that does not consult or confer with actual mainland PRChinese people or expats in the PRC or who have recently lived and worked in the PRC..

Because if one is a PRChinese or a foreign devil in the PRChina and being a good Chinese communist or obedient expat by not visiting websites that, in the font of the "Red Army" censors are PROHIBITED, then the 360 system doesn't do anything. You have had the page with that giant bold word suddenly appearing in front of you, correct...or not correct. If not, why not???

If one is in the PRChina using a VPN to pierce the Great Firewall of China -- which is not a fairy tale -- then the Qihoo 360 system will react and it will react accordingly, consistently, persistently....more or less, as necessary or required.

Not so good communist PRChinese I knew during several years in the PRC experienced the same as I did and, as I did, got a VPN to penetrate -- again -- the Great Firewall of China reinforced by inter alia the Qihoo 360 system.

You need specifically to refute this, recalling that Tencent QQ is the incestuous within the PRC only internet email system that the PRChinese use because the CCP Boyz in Beijing have made it into a central feature of being Chinese and of patriotism for the PRChina.....keeping in mind this an EU translation of Mandarin Chinese into some kind of English...........................................

Suppose you walked into a store called QQ. You point to a QQ shoe brand and you say, "I want this!" The QQ salesperson will bring this pair of QQ shoes to you with both hands.

That's natural, right?

But that's not how reality works.

Let us say that you chose to have a 360 display window to be placed around the QQ store. You point through the display window to a QQ shoe brand and you say, "I want this!" So the 360 salesperson brings over a pair of shoes to you with both hands.

You leave with the shoes without carefully inspecting them. Well, sorry, you lost out. Because if you inspect the shoes carefully, you will be astonished to find that this is a pair of 360 brand shoes!

Yes, the great and smart 360 has made a decision for you: you want 360 and not QQ! This is "hijacking."

Well, you may find the above scenario to be unthinkable. But you ought to take a look at the following screen captures:

Here is your QQ screen on a normal computer. If you click on the "Safety" button at the bottom, you reach QQ's safety page.

However,

But if you had installed 360's "Koukou Bodyguard," then something else happens when you click on QQ's "Safety" button. You get directed to QQ's "Koukou Bodyguard" page instead!

If you are familiar with the history of Google and Baidu, you will know that QQ was far from the first victim. Within the 360 browser, if you search either Google or Baidu, you end up with the results from a different search engine. Isn't this awesome?

Did 360 tell you (whom 360 claims to protect) about what is going on? I am afraid not.

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/201011a.brief.htm#002

Refute it.

And refute the technical features and aspects of my post above that you deny.

[JetsetBkk]

Nice post Pub.

I've been using Qihoo's "360 Internet Security" for nearly a year without any problems. It came 4th in this review and uses the BitDefender engine, which came 2nd:

17 Best Security Software of 2015

... so I really don't know what Publicus did to screw up his PC.

<snip>

I wish I could understand half of what you are trying to say. Maybe you could try writing in plain English.

Meanwhile Qihoo 360 Internet Security is doing a great job on my PC and is receiving rave reviews.

Maybe you were in China too long?

[Rancid]

Or maybe the NSA are sponsoring it to ensure they have a software platform they can easily spy on.

Read the Chinese government were developing a linux system for the very reason they thought windows was a serious security concern.

[Seastallion]

Or maybe the NSA are sponsoring it to ensure they have a software platform they can easily spy on.

Read the Chinese government were developing a linux system for the very reason they thought windows was a serious security concern.

Not beyond the realms of reason.....at all.

[Publicus]

Or maybe the NSA are sponsoring it to ensure they have a software platform they can easily spy on.

Read the Chinese government were developing a linux system for the very reason they thought windows was a serious security concern.

The CPP Boyz in Beijing are the world's biggest internet pirates and thieves. Windows had been the best host of piggyback VPN systems that pierce through the Great Firewall of China out to the to the world at large, Google being second and the rest such as Torch, Firefox always ineffective.

Real world factors are that the PLA hacks the Pentagon and US defense contractor corporations to improve its own nefarious military designs and purposes. Msft has announced will start phasing out Windows and one principal reason may be that it too had been compromised by the censoring dictators in Beijing. The real world says that the United States needs to and must stay ahead of these miserable sobs.

[Publicus]

Nice post Pub.

I've been using Qihoo's "360 Internet Security" for nearly a year without any problems. It came 4th in this review and uses the BitDefender engine, which came 2nd:

17 Best Security Software of 2015

... so I really don't know what Publicus did to screw up his PC.

<snip>

I wish I could understand half of what you are trying to say. Maybe you could try writing in plain English.

Meanwhile Qihoo 360 Internet Security is doing a great job on my PC and is receiving rave reviews.

Maybe you were in China too long?

The CCP Boyz in Beijing monitor, censor, punish its people and the Qihoo 360 so-called security system is a central part of this constant and endemic maltreatment and distrust of its own people. I have posted that the PRChinese themselves that I knew advised me of this.

So try not to start pissing matches you can't deal with or finish.

You have been owned.

[Matej]

It's not only for China. Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for all users worldwide.

It should be released this summer, so get ready!!!

http://bit.ly/18JTkhZ

[JetsetBkk]

The CCP Boyz in Beijing monitor, censor, punish its people and the Qihoo 360 so-called security system is a central part of this constant and endemic maltreatment and distrust of its own people. I have posted that the PRChinese themselves that I knew advised me of this.

So try not to start pissing matches you can't deal with or finish.

You have been owned.

I'm not going to waste my time digging around some Chinese conspiracy sites. By the way, some of your links don't work. Yes, we know about Baidu and Hao, and Tencents fight with Qihoo.

Your original post was fine, right up to the "until":

"The free Qihoo 360 antivirus etc security system used to make everyone happy with the government in this respect....until. Eventually everyone found out the free CCP 360 antivirus and security system is itself a virus that the CCP government built into the system to control the computer."

Then you went into hyper-conspiracy mode.

I will trust Western reviewers rather than anonymous internet posters:

Techradar: Best free antivirus software 2015: 1. 360 Total Security

Independent labs including AV-Test, AV-Comparatives and Virus Bulletin regularly rate Qihoo 360 as one of the top two antivirus products.

PC Pro: Best free antivirus 2015: 2. 360 Safe

Employing twin antivirus engines and a friendly, intuitive interface, 360 Safe provides the best protection of any free package we've tested.

PC Advisor: Best security software of 2015 UK: 4. Qihoo 360 Internet Security

Although the Performance score, which shows the resource hit, is a bit low, this wasnt reflected in our own, admittedly simpler, test.

If your friends in China have problems with it, well that's tough luck on them - it's working fine here.

[Publicus]

Yeah, it's tuff nugies for my friends in the PRChina from while I was there that they seek others sources than the CCP Boyz in Beijing, just as I necessarily did and as I supported them in their own interest to do so.

I helped 'em access and register with Facebook which is banned in the PRChina. I assisted 'em to access Google search in Hong Kong because it's banned in the PRChina. My Chinese friends in the PRC asked me to help 'em with a lot more, such as how to access other websites banned in the PRC, such as Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo Search and Email, Gmail, the NYT, Bloomberg, CNN, BBC, almost all foreign films, all media of entire foreign countries such as in India, Japan, Taiwan, to name a few.

Here in text is a tiny partial list of blocked websites in the PRC. Try to access them regularly and see how friendly your Qihoo 360 SECURITY system is:

Social media

Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Google Hangouts, Google Blogspot, WordPress.com, Line, KakaoTalk, TalkBox, selected Tumblr sites, FC2, Soundcloud, Hootsuite, Adultfriendfinder, Ustream, Twitpic, Instagram

Newspapers and media

New York Times, New York Times Chinese, Bloomberg, Bloomberg Businessweek, BBC Chinese, Chosun Chinese, WSJ, WSJ Chinese, Flipboard (international version only), Google News, YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, LiveLeak, Break, Crackle, selected international Wikipedia pages, selected Chinese Wikipedia pages, Wikileaks

Search engines

Google, DuckDuckGo, Baidu Japan, Baidu Brazil, Yahoo Hong Kong, Yahoo Taiwan

Work and productivity

Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Slideshare, iStockPhoto, Google Drive, Google Docs, Gmail (inc Gmail’s IMAP, SMAP, and POP servers), Google Translate, Google Calendar, Google Groups, Google Keep

Online tools

Flickr, Google Play, Google Picasa, Feedburner, Twitter URL shortener, Google URL shortener, Bit.ly, Archive.org, Pastebin, Change.org, 4Shared, The Pirate Bay, OpenVPN

https://www.techinasia.com/list-of-websites-blocked-in-china-by-great-firewall/

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-15615952

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2014/12/30/banned-china-8/8.html

To which I would add YouPorn....any and all porn sites.

Try any of the banned sites on a regular basis....any of 'em. The PRChinese can't access Google for example because Google is our friend.

Gianni Girolami • 3 months ago

To work in China without a VPN is one irritation after the other, as indeed so many sites we rely on for news and insights are inaccessible... Often residing in China for business and pleasure, I have a direct experience with these blocked sites. People hit hardest by this firewall are indeed the Chinese people, missing a great deal of information we have access to outside China. This disadvantage for Chinese is an advantage for us, as we have access to all information non-Chinese as well as Chinese.

https://www.techinasia.com/list-of-websites-blocked-in-china-by-great-firewall/

[Matej]

A small prognosis of the future political development in China.

Who knows, maybe Fareed Zakaria is right.

To make a long story short, any serious efforts of dictators, authoritative regimes, non-liberal regimes and so on to tranfrom developing country to modern western-type economy(economic reforms) creates a pathway to build, retain and transfer wealth to broader mass of people, which has to lead to pressure for political and social reforms. (middle class wants to be part of political life)

That means, as China gets richer the group of six in Beijing should be weaker and weaker.

We can watch live this process in Singapore(compare before Lee Kuan Yew's era and now), in Malaysia and in many states. I'm not sure whether this is happening in China. Tiananmen 1989 vs Hong Kong 2014 ... who knows, maybe I should look more carefully.

In Russia we see opposite process. As Russia gets poorer, Putin's regime becoming more aggressive ... and Beijing wants to pay less and less for russian natural gas.

[Seastallion]

It's not only for China. Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for all users worldwide.

It should be released this summer, so get ready!!!

http://bit.ly/18JTkhZ

Yes, upgrade from legit copies. I don't think the cracks allow upgrades, just operation.

[cooked]

I took my hitherto perfectly working O\PC to a small repair shop here with a problem with popups appearing suddenly. They solved the problem by backing up all my stuff, getting rid of Windows authenticated and putting in a pirate Windows complete with PUPs, Baidu, about 5 different programs for playing and burning CDs... I eventually got the blue wall of death and had to buy a new PC.

OpenOffice: after 13 years OO I got rid of it as it was crashing all the time, was getting 'recovering recent file now' messages. Using LibreOfffice which has no problems up to now.

[JetsetBkk]

It's not only for China. Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for all users worldwide.

It should be released this summer, so get ready!!!

http://bit.ly/18JTkhZ

Yes, upgrade from legit copies. I don't think the cracks allow upgrades, just operation.

Depends what you call a "crack". There are lots of Windows installations that run the original - i.e. legit - copies of Windows, are activated, receive updates automatically, and are declared "genuine" by the Microsoft web site: http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/validate/ and yet have cost the user nothing apart from time.

There are already two references to this on Thaivisa: 1, 2

Edited March 23, 2015 by JetsetBkk

[Brit_Doggie]

@Seastallion

Offce is free my friend easily found on the likes of pirate bay including working keys for all versions from 2003 all that is needed is to download A file sharing application such as vuze and download torrents galore.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Brit_Doggie

[JetsetBkk]

@Seastallion

Offce is free my friend easily found on the likes of pirate bay including working keys for all versions from 2003 all that is needed is to download A file sharing application such as vuze and download torrents galore.

2003 is the best! (Can't handle that dämned ribbon.)

[MaxYakov]

Nice post Pub.

Yeah, great description of how you pirated software. Why am I not surprised? What are your other great thefts?

[MaxYakov]

Yeah, it's tuff nugies for my friends in the PRChina from while I was there that they seek others sources than the CCP Boyz in Beijing, just as I necessarily did and as I supported them in their own interest to do so.

I helped 'em access and register with Facebook which is banned in the PRChina. I assisted 'em to access Google search in Hong Kong because it's banned in the PRChina. My Chinese friends in the PRC asked me to help 'em with a lot more, such as how to access other websites banned in the PRC, such as Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo Search and Email, Gmail, the NYT, Bloomberg, CNN, BBC, almost all foreign films, all media of entire foreign countries such as in India, Japan, Taiwan, to name a few.

Here in text is a tiny partial list of blocked websites in the PRC. Try to access them regularly and see how friendly your Qihoo 360 SECURITY system is:

Social media

Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Google Hangouts, Google Blogspot, WordPress.com, Line, KakaoTalk, TalkBox, selected Tumblr sites, FC2, Soundcloud, Hootsuite, Adultfriendfinder, Ustream, Twitpic, Instagram

Newspapers and media

New York Times, New York Times Chinese, Bloomberg, Bloomberg Businessweek, BBC Chinese, Chosun Chinese, WSJ, WSJ Chinese, Flipboard (international version only), Google News, YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, LiveLeak, Break, Crackle, selected international Wikipedia pages, selected Chinese Wikipedia pages, Wikileaks

Search engines

Google, DuckDuckGo, Baidu Japan, Baidu Brazil, Yahoo Hong Kong, Yahoo Taiwan

Work and productivity

Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Slideshare, iStockPhoto, Google Drive, Google Docs, Gmail (inc Gmail’s IMAP, SMAP, and POP servers), Google Translate, Google Calendar, Google Groups, Google Keep

Online tools

Flickr, Google Play, Google Picasa, Feedburner, Twitter URL shortener, Google URL shortener, Bit.ly, Archive.org, Pastebin, Change.org, 4Shared, The Pirate Bay, OpenVPN

https://www.techinasia.com/list-of-websites-blocked-in-china-by-great-firewall/

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-15615952

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2014/12/30/banned-china-8/8.html

To which I would add YouPorn....any and all porn sites.

Try any of the banned sites on a regular basis....any of 'em. The PRChinese can't access Google for example because Google is our friend.

Gianni Girolami • 3 months ago

To work in China without a VPN is one irritation after the other, as indeed so many sites we rely on for news and insights are inaccessible... Often residing in China for business and pleasure, I have a direct experience with these blocked sites. People hit hardest by this firewall are indeed the Chinese people, missing a great deal of information we have access to outside China. This disadvantage for Chinese is an advantage for us, as we have access to all information non-Chinese as well as Chinese.

https://www.techinasia.com/list-of-websites-blocked-in-china-by-great-firewall/

You'd better watch it. One of these days you might be banned ... permanently from boarding a return flight.

[JetsetBkk]

Update from MajorGeeks.com: PCMag rates free AV protection

The tests used Microsoft Security Essentials as a base line. If a product can't do better than the baseline, it's got real problems.

Here are the results:

Panda Free Antivirus 2015 with four and a half stars. Panda Free Antivirus 2015 scores on par with the best commercial antivirus tools, both in our hands-on tests and independent labs tests.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition (2014) with four stars. Its tiny main window and unobtrusive style are great if you want a strong, silent, and free antivirus solution.

Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free with four stars. Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Free shields your browsers against exploit attacks, even never-before-seen zero-day attacks.

360 Internet Security 2013 with three and a half stars. It performs its essential antivirus functions well, but an over-enthusiastic behavior-based detection system flags good and bad programs alike.

Oh dear. 360 Internet Security only 4th.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/pcmag_rates_free_av_protection.html

.

[impulse]

"You're either the customer....or you're the product" I forgot who said that, but it's proven true.

If you aren't paying for an O/S, then you ain't the customer.

My fear is Microsoft going all Android on us and constantly bombarding us with all kinds of bloatware and "custom tailored" offers we can't turn off or just uninstall (just like on my Android products), along with selling our deepest secrets to their affiliated vendors who want to know how many times we use the word "sad" so they can sell us anti-depressants. Or whether we're a good risk for life insurance, or whether we can really afford that house we're applying for a loan on...

May not happen right out of the blocks, but as soon as they hit critical mass, make no mistake. They will monetize Win 10.

Edited April 2, 2015 by impulse