Microsoft Says Google Chrome is Malware

I’m not a conspiracy buff. For instance, when the twin towers fell on 9/11, it was the result of jets filled with fuel and by crashing into the towers this caused their collapse, and it was Al-quida behind it. Not the US government. Also, the US and NASA did put astronauts on the moon. Some nuts claimed that it never happened. And finally, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

That said, there was an interesting incident that occurred yesterday involving Microsoft and Google. Microsoft said that Google Chrome is malware, and caused the browser to be automatically removed from PC by the Microsoft Security Essentials Program.

What Happened?

On September 30, 2011 Google learned that the Microsoft Security Essentials tool began falsely identifying Google Chrome as a piece of malware (“PWS:Win32/Zbot“) and removing it from people’s computers.

When Google found out, the immediately offered an action fix to counter the problem.

First this involved updating the signature files in Security Essentials, this would entail that the Antispyware definition 1.113.672.0 or higher is installed.

Then users had to uninstall and re-install the Chrome browser. The fix is not difficult to implement or too time consuming. Moreover, not all computers were affected by the Security Essentials problem. If your version of Google chrome was working, then it did not take a hit from Microsoft.

The AntiVirus Problem

Microsoft worked along with Google, to resolve the problem and so far it has been successful. But it portends a different problem that may affect users in the future, and it involves Windows 8.

Microsoft is building an antivirus support program right into Windows 8. While on the surface this is a positive step, recall that last year McAffee mistakenly identified the svchost file as malware. The result was that Windows couldn’t even load up. Users had to reinstall their OS and applications. So is it a good thing or bad thing that in the future, Windows 8 will automatically have their own security program as part of their system? Protection is important, to be sure. But if it fails, like it did yesterday with Chrome, or like last year with McAffee the results could be catastrophic.

Mistakes Happen

Now as I said earlier, what Microsoft happened to pull with Google you could easily chalk up to a mistake. However, someone wrote the malware detection program at Microsoft. Moreover, realistically, didn’t they know that one program affected would be Google Chrome? Hm… Maybe not. But, nice going guys. Let’s keep it under the rug.

So did Microsoft conspire to bring down Google Chrome?