Windows Live OneCare beta users get 60% discount

Participation in a beta is usually its own reward, but hats off to Microsoft on this one. All Windows Live OneCare beta users receive a 60% discount on the yearly service, which will be fully priced at $49.95. If you hurry and install the beta before April 30, your first year subscription will only set you back $19.95, and that price covers up to three computers. You do have to purchase your first year by this date as well to take advantage of the special offer.

Windows Live OneCare is the all-in-one package that includes antivirus, antispyware, firewall, performance tune-ups, and file backup and restore functionality. I've used it on one of my PCs for some time and I've found it to be very effective and non-intrusive; so much so that I've removed similar utilities from Symantic and McAfee.

Comments

[Northern_Rebel]

This might not be a good investment if your planning on upgrading to Vista when it comes out. Vista has most of these features built-in.

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Good point, but things still seem to be up in the air with OneCare and Vista. See http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/securifythis/soa/Microsoft_OneCare_only_cares_about_one_/0,39033341,39252396,00.htm for additional info. Some pieces of OneCare will apparently be free and included, but others (antivirus, for example) will still require a $50 per year subscription. This may come down to folks deciding if a fully integrated product is what they want. If so, they'll likely pony up the $50; if not, they'll add various modules from other vendors.