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back to article BigFix drops freebie patch advisory service

BigFix is to cease support for the long-running consumer version of its Fixlet Central security patch advisory service from the end of August. The service, which dates back to the early 1990s, is one of the longest-running free IT security software services of its type. Tens of thousands of users worldwide used it to stay on …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The market has moved on

    This service was useful but 99% of companies over patch anyway because they have little or no understanding on what is the most relevant threat facing them. Very few critical patches have actual malware that is taking

    People so often panic when something catches a journalist's eye and over fix - case in point the recent Firefox URI handling issue - which even made the BBC - there is NO malware whatsoever using it http://www.securitymob.com/my_smob/alert_info.asp?alert=65280 but the press would have you believe that the sky is about to fall in.

    Moral of the story - don't hit the wrong target by basing your patching strategy on enumerating badness.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AOL and Kaspersky?

    http://www.activevirusshield is now a tie up between AOL and McAfee

    Matthew

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why not offer it to the community?

    If the reason that this freebie product is being discontinued is due to BigFix assigning its resources elsewhere within the organisation, why not make the source code freely available under the GPL so that the community can continue to make updates available.

    BigFix didn't make any money directly from this product, so there'd be no loss of revenue, but it would continue to keep their name in the IT press.

    Come on, BigFix, prove to us that you are interested in the consumer and do the decent thing.

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