Microsoft Security Essentials - any opinions yet?

Darat · 29th September 2009, 01:45 PM

Microsoft has just released the final version of Microsoft Security Essentials, and it looks like it is available pretty much world wide, and it is free.

Being in the UK I've not had a chance to look at this until now and given that I will shortly need to renew my "subscription" to my usual anti-virus/anti-malware software I was wondering what folks here think of it?

oldhat · 29th September 2009, 02:46 PM

I'm downloading a copy right now. It's about time they did something like this.

GreNME · 29th September 2009, 03:01 PM

I'll be downloading a copy tonight for my Win 7 desktop (to replace MS OnceCare), and I'll let you know how well it performs in terms of CPU usage and general interface. If I get the opportunity (time) to slap together a VM for testing, I'll give it a bit more of a malware test.

oldhat · 29th September 2009, 03:41 PM

Cool, it comes with scheduling. That's hard to find with freeware.

I've been spending too much money on anti-virus software with disappointing results at work.

Has anyone seen any benchmark results for this software yet?

GreNME · 29th September 2009, 03:57 PM

Paul Thurrot's take on it

PCWorld article (they say the scan is slow)

Computerworld review (some good, some criticism)

After having read those three I'm definitely installing it tonight.

oldhat · 1st October 2009, 12:44 PM

This thing is great, I'm going to install it on a few computers around the office in a couple of weeks after I read some more reviews/bug reports. 1.0 freaks me out a bit.

GreNME · 1st October 2009, 08:37 PM

So far, so good. I haven't seen any performance degradation, and considering Win 7 (and Vista) already have a decent anti-spyware and firewall, this pretty much rounds out the necessary protection for a computer with no discernible overhead. I already put it on my laptop as well. I'll give it a shot on some work systems that aren't mission-critical and test them out too, though I'll use my VMs for any actual malware testing.

I'd say if you're thinking about going for it, make sure you meet the minimum system requirements and give it a shot. My three-year-old computer at home exceeds the requirements, if that gives any indication, so meeting them shouldn't be hard.

moopet · 3rd October 2009, 01:30 AM

Originally Posted by GreNME

Paul Thurrot's take on it
...
After having read those three I'm definitely installing it tonight.

I just read that review and it seems to make some rather strange points. I don't know how well this guy is repeating the MS line, because I haven't looked it up, but he seems pretty keen - he certainly repeats phrases about MS's amazing security record a lot.

Most critically, it claims that users currently don't activate or extend or even really know about the bundled anti-virus products which most manufacturers are bribed to put on new machines. It is designed to address that. But it will never be bundled with a machine, people will have to find out about it and visit the MS site, find a download and install it themselves. If they can't do the former, how can they do the latter? This sounds like extremely poor reasoning.

In short, without trying it myself I have no opinion. I do know that OneCare, which it's supposedly based on, was pretty bad (my experience goes up to about a year ago, so it could be wonderful and shiny and full of unicorns by now, but hey) in that it didn't find a lot of problems the other packages did, wasas obnoxiously obtrusive as Norton, McAfee et al, and could be disabled rather too easily. MSE seems to be much less gaudy and bloated, which is good.

Given a choice, I think I'd still prefer my malware solution to come from an independant, third-party organisation. Historically MS's efforts have been rubbish (see Defender) or disorganised (see MSRT) or simply way too late (see a cartoon calendar with animated red Xs appearing on it float above my head)

GreNME · 3rd October 2009, 09:06 AM

Originally Posted by moopet

In short, without trying it myself I have no opinion. I do know that OneCare, which it's supposedly based on, was pretty bad (my experience goes up to about a year ago, so it could be wonderful and shiny and full of unicorns by now, but hey) in that it didn't find a lot of problems the other packages did, wasas obnoxiously obtrusive as Norton, McAfee et al, and could be disabled rather too easily. MSE seems to be much less gaudy and bloated, which is good.

Interesting. I've been using OneCare since version 1 and haven't considered it bad at all. While the first iteration was weak on heuristics in testing and the integration wasn't really much better than other 3rd-party offerings, subsequent versions of it grew by leaps and bounds in terms of performance as well as accuracy. In fact, I believe that AV Comparatives had it graded as "advanced" earlier this year, though I don't believe that OneCare ever had the top listing in any of the years it's been compared. I will say, though, that OneCare's performance overall was never good enough to place it above the long-standing big names in A/V, but OneCare did create a huge splash on the market-- prior to OneCare being sold, I can't think of any commercials antivirus that was available for a single-license cost that could be installed on more than one home computer (explicitly allowed in OneCare's EULA). In fact, I'd go as far to posit that the reason Symantec and McAffee changed their licensing model to allow for up to 3-5 home computers to have their retail software install was in direct response to OneCare's doing so since it came out in 2006.

Overall, since the MSE engine is pretty much the same as was in OneCare-- this is something I've had confirmed by more than just online articles-- that means the antivirus engine isn't going to be the outright leader in A/V testing or performance comparisons, but it looks to be good enough for the average user out there and its being a free (non-advertising and able to be scheduled) offering is going to hopefully make it so more computers out there are actually protected on a basic level. At work, I'm definitely more impressed with the commercial offering from Kaspersky in terms of performance and central management, but for the typical home user I have no problem letting people know they can grab this for free if they're looking for a low-cost option (and coupled with Defender it offers pretty good coverage for no cost).

29th September 2009, 01:45 PM	#1
Darat Lackey Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: South East, UK Posts: 47,685	Microsoft Security Essentials - any opinions yet? Microsoft has just released the final version of Microsoft Security Essentials, and it looks like it is available pretty much world wide, and it is free. Being in the UK I've not had a chance to look at this until now and given that I will shortly need to renew my "subscription" to my usual anti-virus/anti-malware software I was wondering what folks here think of it?
	__________________ If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918-2008

29th September 2009, 02:46 PM	#2
oldhat Muse Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 993	I'm downloading a copy right now. It's about time they did something like this.
oldhat Muse Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 993	__________________ "I predict a complete rollover in Congress in 2010 to the Republicans. Bank on it. Laugh, but file it away in the back of your mind." -Beerina

29th September 2009, 03:01 PM	#3
GreNME Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Folsom Prison Posts: 6,411	I'll be downloading a copy tonight for my Win 7 desktop (to replace MS OnceCare), and I'll let you know how well it performs in terms of CPU usage and general interface. If I get the opportunity (time) to slap together a VM for testing, I'll give it a bit more of a malware test.
	__________________ _{Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts}

29th September 2009, 03:41 PM	#4
oldhat Muse Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 993	Cool, it comes with scheduling. That's hard to find with freeware. I've been spending too much money on anti-virus software with disappointing results at work. Has anyone seen any benchmark results for this software yet?
oldhat Muse Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 993	__________________ "I predict a complete rollover in Congress in 2010 to the Republicans. Bank on it. Laugh, but file it away in the back of your mind." -Beerina

29th September 2009, 03:57 PM	#5
GreNME Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Folsom Prison Posts: 6,411	Paul Thurrot's take on it PCWorld article (they say the scan is slow) Computerworld review (some good, some criticism) After having read those three I'm definitely installing it tonight.
	__________________ _{Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts}

1st October 2009, 12:44 PM	#6
oldhat Muse Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 993	This thing is great, I'm going to install it on a few computers around the office in a couple of weeks after I read some more reviews/bug reports. 1.0 freaks me out a bit.
oldhat Muse Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 993	__________________ "I predict a complete rollover in Congress in 2010 to the Republicans. Bank on it. Laugh, but file it away in the back of your mind." -Beerina

1st October 2009, 08:37 PM	#7
GreNME Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Folsom Prison Posts: 6,411	So far, so good. I haven't seen any performance degradation, and considering Win 7 (and Vista) already have a decent anti-spyware and firewall, this pretty much rounds out the necessary protection for a computer with no discernible overhead. I already put it on my laptop as well. I'll give it a shot on some work systems that aren't mission-critical and test them out too, though I'll use my VMs for any actual malware testing. I'd say if you're thinking about going for it, make sure you meet the minimum system requirements and give it a shot. My three-year-old computer at home exceeds the requirements, if that gives any indication, so meeting them shouldn't be hard.
	__________________ _{Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts}

3rd October 2009, 01:30 AM	#8
moopet binary decision maker Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Scotland Posts: 662	Originally Posted by GreNME Paul Thurrot's take on it ... After having read those three I'm definitely installing it tonight. I just read that review and it seems to make some rather strange points. I don't know how well this guy is repeating the MS line, because I haven't looked it up, but he seems pretty keen - he certainly repeats phrases about MS's amazing security record a lot. Most critically, it claims that users currently don't activate or extend or even really know about the bundled anti-virus products which most manufacturers are bribed to put on new machines. It is designed to address that. But it will never be bundled with a machine, people will have to find out about it and visit the MS site, find a download and install it themselves. If they can't do the former, how can they do the latter? This sounds like extremely poor reasoning. In short, without trying it myself I have no opinion. I do know that OneCare, which it's supposedly based on, was pretty bad (my experience goes up to about a year ago, so it could be wonderful and shiny and full of unicorns by now, but hey) in that it didn't find a lot of problems the other packages did, wasas obnoxiously obtrusive as Norton, McAfee et al, and could be disabled rather too easily. MSE seems to be much less gaudy and bloated, which is good. Given a choice, I think I'd still prefer my malware solution to come from an independant, third-party organisation. Historically MS's efforts have been rubbish (see Defender) or disorganised (see MSRT) or simply way too late (see a cartoon calendar with animated red Xs appearing on it float above my head)

3rd October 2009, 09:06 AM	#9
GreNME Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Folsom Prison Posts: 6,411	Originally Posted by moopet In short, without trying it myself I have no opinion. I do know that OneCare, which it's supposedly based on, was pretty bad (my experience goes up to about a year ago, so it could be wonderful and shiny and full of unicorns by now, but hey) in that it didn't find a lot of problems the other packages did, wasas obnoxiously obtrusive as Norton, McAfee et al, and could be disabled rather too easily. MSE seems to be much less gaudy and bloated, which is good. Interesting. I've been using OneCare since version 1 and haven't considered it bad at all. While the first iteration was weak on heuristics in testing and the integration wasn't really much better than other 3rd-party offerings, subsequent versions of it grew by leaps and bounds in terms of performance as well as accuracy. In fact, I believe that AV Comparatives had it graded as "advanced" earlier this year, though I don't believe that OneCare ever had the top listing in any of the years it's been compared. I will say, though, that OneCare's performance overall was never good enough to place it above the long-standing big names in A/V, but OneCare did create a huge splash on the market-- prior to OneCare being sold, I can't think of any commercials antivirus that was available for a single-license cost that could be installed on more than one home computer (explicitly allowed in OneCare's EULA). In fact, I'd go as far to posit that the reason Symantec and McAffee changed their licensing model to allow for up to 3-5 home computers to have their retail software install was in direct response to OneCare's doing so since it came out in 2006. Overall, since the MSE engine is pretty much the same as was in OneCare-- this is something I've had confirmed by more than just online articles-- that means the antivirus engine isn't going to be the outright leader in A/V testing or performance comparisons, but it looks to be good enough for the average user out there and its being a free (non-advertising and able to be scheduled) offering is going to hopefully make it so more computers out there are actually protected on a basic level. At work, I'm definitely more impressed with the commercial offering from Kaspersky in terms of performance and central management, but for the typical home user I have no problem letting people know they can grab this for free if they're looking for a low-cost option (and coupled with Defender it offers pretty good coverage for no cost).
	__________________ _{Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts}