Ever heard of UAC, EMET, SmartScreen, Family Safety, or Microsoft Security Essentials? Those pause, block, limit...
By that token, any security software should be frowned upon. Not just HIPS.
UAC is made to not cause problems like HIPS products do, but I do agree it doesn't benefit most users because they will simply click "Approve" without even reading or knowing what they just approved.
EMET is an advanced tool not installed by default, it can cause the same exact problems as what HIPS products do.
SmartScreen, Family Safety, or Microsoft Security Essentials do NOT pause, block, limit (processes, services, drivers, handles, modules and threads). They simply block execution of malicious files only which is much different.
Again, what HIPS have you been using?
I have tried them all and I'm an advanced user who knows how to configure them correctly and I haven't found one that hasn't cause severe problems. With the exception of WinPatrol which is not a complete HIPS product.
If everyone was having the trouble running a HIPS as you are describing, nobody would use them! Even hardcore techy geeks will steer away from something that is guaranteed to give you the grief you are describing. The fact of the matter is, you only hear from the people with problems. With an installed userbase in the millions, I'd have to assume that what you are describing is rare.
Fanboys and paranoid users are like being in a cult, they would use them no matter what kind of problems they cause.
Even if the user base is in the millions, that is still only less than 2% of all PC users which isn't that much. And no these problems are not rare, they are very common where users want to admit it or not I'm sure every single HIPS users has experienced these problems one time or another. If you don't believe me then visit the support forums of each HIPS product, the Bug Report section is one of the largest part of the forums. And those are just the one that got reported. Most users don't visit support forums and don't file bug reports. They just simply uninstall and move on and never look back.
Current HIPS applications are pretty easy to use. No further problems keeping them updated/maintained than any other application.
I will admit many have become more user friendly but still have issues, I don't know how many reports I have read about failed upgrades, installation and uninstallation problems, products blocking or sandboxing trusted programs, no network access, etc.
And I'd love to hear how this is supposed to shorten the lifespan of the components of your system.
It is a very easy principle, the harder components have to work to function then sooner they will finally wear out.
With a basic real-time AV, files are scanned on a system memory cache which doesn't cause components to work harder it causes increased RAM and CPU cycles which Windows and components were designed to handle.
With HIPS, CPU cycles are broken down into (processes, services, drivers, handles, modules, tokens, memory and threads) in real-time without a system cache. Each time something tries to run on your system it has to be broken down into these sub-categories and checked. Windows and components were not designed to handle this.
One single program can have 100 sub-categories that need to be checked each time it runs. This includes programs on your safe list as well. Let's say you have 60 processes running in your Windows Task Manager, each one has 100 sub-categories, of coarse some will even have more. That breaking down of the CPU cycles causes more wear on system components. Even though your HIPS maybe running low on RAM and CPU cycles. On a high end system you may not notice but on a low budget system, you should experience system lags and CPU cycle spikes in your Task Manager. What actually causes the wear is when the checking of sub-categories takes place, everything pauses for a second or more without running on a system cache. Over time this will lead to a shorten lifespan of your PC. This can apply to just about all the hardware components in your system.
If Microsoft can avoid these problems, then they would came up with something better than UAC. Right now SmartScreen, Family Safety, Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft Malicious Removal Tool Updates really are the best thing Microsoft can do to offer user friendly security without any system problems.
Thanks.