Category: windows Phone 7

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AVG respond to Windows Phone App Removal


Microsoft recently removed the AVG Anti-Virus app from the marketplace over concerns about it’s actions, and now the AV company have responded:

Yuval Ben-Itzhak from AVG says:

“I wanted to take a moment to clarify and respond to some of the questions and comments raised in social media forums.”

“AVG believes that the Windows Phone 7 OS will continue to increase in popularity and, as it does, it will become a high value target for thieves and hackers.

For this reason, we made a strategic decision to deliver a security product to this platform in its very early days – as we did with Android.  Our objective is to start Windows mobile users off on the right foot and help them create a safe and secure community.”

“We worked closely with Microsoft on the development of this product.  Our teams were trained by Microsoft and our software was provided to the company for review and certification prior to release. We did implement a number of requested changes provided to us by Microsoft.”

“All of the data we collect is used solely to offer users an exceptional security service with state-of-the-art GPS tracking.

  • We will not sell your data to anyone.
  • We do not share or otherwise disclose your data to anyone without your permission.
  • We do not mine your data for patterns.
  • We do not use your data to target ads.
  • We do not access your location data without your permission.”

He lists the features of the app as including:

  1. The Safe Web Surfing function helps protect users from social engineering attacks that are intended to drive them to take wrong decisions while online
  2. This protection engine checks the safety of a URL in case the user tries to access a malicious web site.
  3. The Safe Search function allows users searching the web to avoid malicious web sites.
  4. Our file scanning engine scans media files, mp3s, video and play lists and checks against a blacklist of bad files. This is a result of several “proof of concepts” disclosed in public.

However, from everything I’ve seen online, it all it does is scan some EICAR strings and the word “Hebrew” …which seems at odds with the above?

The full post can be found here:

http://blogs.avg.com/product-news/avgs-response-community-feedback-windows-phone-7-app/

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AVG Windows Phone App removed from Marketplace


Microsoft’s marketplace is steadily filling up with new apps but unfortunately, not all are awesome. This is the most high profile WP7 app removal I’ve seen (possibly the only one so far?) and perhaps surprisingly, it involves AVG. The perennial free AV makers, once the choice of IT bods the world over, recently released an Anti-Virus app for Windows Phone 7.

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When it’s existence was first noted people such as Justin Angel & Rafael Rivera (the latter part of the Chevron WP7 jailbreak team) started to investigate it’s worthiness…and it didn’t go well for AVG!

Justin tweeted:

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and Rafael’s blog post says this:

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This prompted Brandon Watson, responsible for apps & developers for WP7, to investigate internally at Microsoft and then say this:

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So it’s an anti-virus app that doesn’t actually protect from viruses, servers ads and send your location, along with unique identifiers, back to AVG…WTF?!

I’m keen to see what AVG say about this. Was it a proper corporate decision or a rogue AVG developer acting alone?

Thanks to WinRumors, Justin Angel & Rafael Rivera.

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Windows Phone 7 can’t access Marketplace


I came across an odd issue with Windows Phone 7 yesterday. The device, an HTC HD7, just could NOT access the Marketplace in any way…updates failed, new apps couldn’t be downloaded etc. The error it gave was:

“The Windows Live ID service is unavailable”

I checked various settings but everything seemed in order. Wifi & 3G were working, the marketplace worked on other WP7 devices, Hotmail still worked on the phone etc so I was at a loss.

After some head scratching, a solution was reached – which I’d like to share with you all just in case it crops up.

Go into Office and OneNote.

Select “All”.

Hit the “Sync” button on the bottom bar.

That will bring up a username/password prompt for the Live ID used with the device.

Even though the fields will be pre-populated (probably), re-type the password just to be sure.

Hit “ok” and BOOM – you’ll have access to the Marketplace Smile

I don’t really understand what the issue is to be honest. I could understand if ALL things that used your Live ID failed but the fact that Hotmail still worked seems odd.

If you’ve got any ideas as to the potential cause – let me know!

Cheers

Rich

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Windows Phone at WPC 11


Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 had some good sessions on Windows Phone 7, a couple of which I was able to attend amidst my hectic schedule of sessions & meetings Smile and this is a rundown of what I saw.

First up, in one of the morning keynotes we saw the Lync client running on Windows Phone 7:

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I realise that’s not the greatest picture you’ll ever see but you get the idea Smile

I attended the Windows Phone 7 session, led by President of Windows Phone Division, Andy Lees.

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There wasn’t a huge amount of new content but it did contain some great demos of Mango features such as Local Scout and Bing Audio music tagging, as well as the amazingly slick way that WP7 handles people and messaging. Here are some pictures of my favourite slides:

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There was a pretty rapturous response to the majority of the demos from the 100’s of people in attendance, and there was a great energy in the room, both from the presenters and the Microsoft partners.

Microsoft have made some great changes to the Mobility competency to make it more worthwhile and effective for partners to develop apps for the Windows Phone platform. I had a chance to speak with Andy Lees after the session and it seems there are some good things coming further down the line for Microsoft partners. Not just for those that develop apps but also partners that work with licensing and products such as Sharepoint & Office 365.

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