For the last few months I have been running the beta of Microsoft’s Security Essentials software. I have had no problems with it whatsoever and this past week Microsoft released the final version to the world.
What is Security Essentials you ask? Well, its a piece of software from Microsoft that protects you from viruses, malware and spyware.
And best of all – its FREE!
So no more paying an annual subscription for updates or running multiple pieces of software to do the job. Once installed, any updates are delivered via the Windows Update service ensuring you are always fully protected.
I think it’s a great product and a great addition to your home computer – give it a try and see what you think.
If you want to download Security Essentials, or find out more, click here.
Need to remind folks that this product does not run on WHS – it's a client application only (at this stage…..)
thanks Bodog – that's a very good point.
Andrew
Had 24 days left of Norton on Tiffanys laptop. Glad to have saved $39 and about 300MB of memory! We love Defender so Essentials will fit right in. Will not renew the other anti-virus as they come up.
Thank you!
thanks Tim – I was a big fan of Norton, been using it for years, but I have to say I am converted to Security Essentials, and not just because its free 🙂
Andrew
I did try out MSE just for kicks and found it to be very light weight and very good at stopping test virus. While technically I've never had a virus in years MSE did find problem with a music file a friend had gave me years ago that I never opened. What it found was a link in the file DRM section that had a link to a known trojan download site. So if I would have played the file it would have tried to trick me into DL the "rights" to play the file. Which of course would have done nothing but DL the trojan. I thought that was pretty impressive. I know for a fact other AV products have scanned this file over the years and none of them ever this in this file.
Sure MSE doesn't have all the bells and whistles that some of the other products do but that is also what keeps the impact on the machine so low. In my opinion all a person need is Windows Firewall, Defender and MSE behind a router and you will really have all the basic protection you need.
If anyone wants to test their AV solution there is a site that has a safe test file. It was pretty impressive when I went to this site with MSE on. As soon as I clicked to download the eicarcom2.zip file MSE popped in to action and made it known this was a bad file. Mind you I hadn't even saved it to disk yet, only the save as dialog had popped up and MSE was already taking action.
The test site is here: http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm
fasthair
thanks Fasthair 🙂
Andrew
So far, this is working great. Never used the features of the other products and they were so heavy slowing down my system. This is really light weight and does what it is supposed to do. I do have one question, How Server still sees my machine with no AntiVirus on it even though MSE is there. Also, I am running Windows 7.
Hi Nishal
Yeah, its a minor bug with WHS, and its known so it should be fixed soon.
Andrew