As the Beomaster 5 is an embedded Windows machine that is connected to the internet, I'm asking myself:

What about viruses?

Is the Beomaster 5 protected against this?
Actualy I'm considering an external device for internetradio and operate the Beosound 5 offline just for digital audio in WMA losless format.

I don't want my living rooms audiosystem infected by a virus ;-)

 

The vast majority of viruses come in when the user visits dubious web pages with a vulnerable browser, or opens dubious emails. As long as you don't use your living room's audio system for that, you will automatically be safe for the most part...

The rest are worms or other attacks that go through vulnerable services in the operating system or the applications that are running on it. If you have a firewall or NAT enabled in your broadband router or whatever it is that brings the friendly interweb into your home, it is practically impossible to get infections that way (unless you go looking for them, see paragraph 1).

I don't know if the BM5 has the firewall of the OS enabled - probably has - but it will help as well. So does that fact that it is not regular XP, and so it won't be running many of the services that would be enabled in the full version.

If you go mucking about with the OS yourself, installing new applications or other features not supported by B&O, you will of course be on your own regarding how safe the end result will be.

My Beosound 5/BM5 is online always as I frequently listen to internet radio.  Having a firewall enabled on your router is the way to go.  Where I use to work, we used imbedded XP and never had virus problems.

That sound's reassuring :-)

But I've compared the Beosound 5 internetradio with a standalone Internetradio and there are many differences regarding the available stations.
There are some stations that I can not find on the Beosound 5 :-( 

TWG:

That sound's reassuring :-)

But I've compared the Beosound 5 internetradio with a standalone Internetradio and there are many differences regarding the available stations.
There are some stations that I can not find on the Beosound 5 :-( 

Therein is the one small problem with Beosound 5.  B&O maintains their own internet radio data base.  There is no option to add a station that is not in their list.  The only way I have been able to get a station added is to send an email requesting a station.  It hasn't really been a big problem though.  I even listen to the local stations on Beosound 5 instead of my Beocenter 2.

The BM5 comes with anti-virus software installed on it.  It is guaranteed to be updated automatically during at least 5 years, under the condition that the device remains connected to Internet.

But as mentioned before, with a decent broadband router with firewall, you don't really need anti-virus software.  Certainly not on such a dedicated device.  I even don't have anti-virus software on my regular PCs.

Alain