Microsoft Security Essentials

[mr. nails]

here.

anyone know anything about it? is it good?

[Cabalo]

I've been using that stuff on a win7 installation, and though it never detected any virus, it seems to not take a toll on the system.

[karachidude]

hello cabalo,

u can try KIS or NIS on the Win7 installation,they are top notch,i have keys,i will send them

[3RA1N1AC]

it's alright, for a free antivirus prog. or rather, quite GOOD for a free antivirus prog, though perhaps not as good as a paid one.

problem with antivirus programs in general is that there's never a single one that will stop every possible malware infection. if you only use one, there's always something out there which it might not be able to identify... so the safe-ish bet is to use more than one and hope one will be able to stop infections that the other one doesn't, and vice versa.

in my personal experience, microsoft software essentials has been able to identify quite a few infected files that i intentionally downloaded from iffy websites, as well as files that websites tried to insert onto my comp through browser exploits. so... does it stop certain kinds of infections? yes it does. is it as good as other antivirus programs? i dunno, maybe or maybe not.

[backlash]

I've been using it since I installed windows 7 a month or so ago. It's been great - low resource usage and it has detected viruses on older files I had on an external drive that I connected. I'll never put a norton/symantec application on my computer again!

I definitely recommend it.

[anon]

problem with antivirus programs in general is that there's never a single one that will stop every possible malware infection. if you only use one, there's always something out there which it might not be able to identify... so the safe-ish bet is to use more than one and hope one will be able to stop infections that the other one doesn't, and vice versa.

I really wouldn't advice having two AVs' real-time protection enabled at the same time. It can lead to problems. Having more than one installed is fine as long as they're not "fighting" to scan all the files that are read or written to in your computer at the same time.

Of course, the best protection is common sense Be careful with what you download, don't run bogus programs like "crack.exe", protect your flashdrives, etc.

[RainmakerRaw]

I've been using that stuff on a win7 installation, and though it never detected any virus, it seems to not take a toll on the system.

That's because it doesn't do anything. I've tested most of the mainstream antimalware solutions quite extensively, and MSE is one of the worst at on-demand detection. The AV Comparatives reports since MSE's release agree with me across the board. MSE has struggled to hit 60% detection in my tests, and doesn't get much higher than 85% on AV-Comparatives.

I had it let through a major, very well known (old) trojan on a real life machine a few months ago. I submitted the sample to MS (wondering why they didn't already detect such a well known script), and their email reply basically told me it was tough s**t, if I wanted decent protection I should pay for their enterprise version.

That told me all I needed to know about MSE. My subsequent testing only confirmed my original opinion. As someone said above, layered security is your best bet. Absolutely your most powerful weapon online is Common Sense Security Suite... After that, a hardware router/firewall is a great idea.

Software side, a secure patched OS (preferably *nix :p) is a big help against exploits. Then for Windows clients add in an antimalware suite, preferably with HIPS. Good free solutions include Avira and Avast 5, and on the paid-for scene those two again, plus Kaspersky 2010/2011, GData, BitDefender...

Threatfire is a great free HIPS program, which is light on resources. I use it on machines where the 'client' doesn't want to pay for AV - paid for suites tend to have HIPS where the free alternative doesn't.

[Stabber]

I highly recommend it , i've been using it on windows xp , it even managed to detect malware that nod32 didn't .