405K

Direct link

Summary: Scare campaigns from Microsoft have another new example added to them, this one involving Web browsers

MICROSOFT IS DOING it again. It uses fear as a business model:

Microsoft Launches Misleading Scare Campaign

The new TV campaign was launched last week but appears to have come to our screens in full force this weekend when Microsoft flooded virtually all major cable channels ranging from locals sports broadcasts to the Food channel with what the company euphemistically calls a “confidence” campaign. To us, it looks like a scare drive to convince people to download IE8.

Microsoft proponents too are writing about this and Microsoft's sheer hypocrisy can be seen in another article from one week ago:

Scaring computer owners is big business

[...]

Microsoft's program wipes out what is known as "scareware" -- pop-up ads that scare users into purchasing fake anti-virus software, USA Today reported Monday.

How about companies that scare users into installing software after "fake" allegations? Well, sort of like Microsoft is doing right now.

Suffice to say, Microsoft still "sabotages" Firefox, as we noted a few days ago. There are many more articles about it but not enough scrutiny (maybe because Microsoft did this several times before, so there is complacence). That too is a form of scare, possible an illegal one (but Mozilla is more diplomatic than litigious). ⬆