Microsoft Enters The PC Security Industry

[Hooch Tan]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/microsoft-security-essentials-anti-virus-software-is-now-live-an/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/...is-now-live-an/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"For those not in on the beta or following Microsoft's exciting forays into freeware, the software promises to cover all the security basics and fend off viruses, spyware and other malicious software, and Microsoft even assures us that it'll "run quietly in the background" and only intrude on your life when an action is required."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1254330709.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Microsoft's Security Essentials has only been in beta for three months, but apparently is now ready for public consumption.&nbsp; It is free (for home and non-commercial use), available for <em>most</em> current versions of Windows and is being promptly frowned upon by other PC security vendors like Symantec.&nbsp; It is great to see Microsoft taking a more active approach in protecting Windows based computers, especially with the huge number of compromised computers out there causing untold amounts of harm and skimming everyone's personal information.&nbsp; Reviews have been coming in and so far the objective ones have been fairly positive.&nbsp; Of course, there are a wide variety of free and non-free solutions available, but this just gives people one less reason to not have their PC secured.</p>

[Chris Gohlke]

Has anyone else tried this? My Vista machine has never frozen and once I installed this, it promptly locked up within a few minutes of start up every time. Went through about 20 iterations of this, then uninstalled. Problem went away. I was running AVG prior to this and did use their removal tool to make sure I got the whole thing removed.

[ctmagnus]

No issues here. I was not running any third-party security software previously, though.

The biggest reason I installed it was to get rid of the annoying yellow shield in the system tray. Now I have an annoying green curling stone-resembling icon in its place. :(

[Jason Dunn]

Has anyone else tried this? My Vista machine has never frozen and once I installed this, it promptly locked up within a few minutes of start up every time.

I installed this on an HP Slimline computer that I'm donating to a family that needs it, and it installed and ran flawlessly. I'm quite impressed by it actually. This HP computer previously had a trial version of Norton Antivirus installed on it I think.

[Jason Dunn]

The biggest reason I installed it was to get rid of the annoying yellow shield in the system tray. Now I have an annoying green curling stone-resembling icon in its place. :(

You mean the warning about not having AV software installed? That can be turned off. And as for the new green icon, just hide it via Customize Notifications area. Or upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out, then all your notifications go away. :D

[Felix Torres]

I'm running it with no issues.
Previously, I had a crapware oem install of Norton that screwed up my Media Center connectivity and needed a special download to fully uninstall.
No big fan of Norton or MacAffee so an alternative is welcome.

[ptyork]

Been running it since the first beta on my Vista x86 and Win 7 x64 boxes. It was an odd beta. They released the software and then took it away for a few weeks. Luckily I'd downloaded all of the versions the first day and the database updates still functioned, but it was odd. Anyway, it's very stable and seems much lighter on resources than Avast (and WAY WAY WAY lighter on resources than the McAfee crap they force on us at work).

No idea how "good" it is since it could be running pong in the background for all I know. I've been running some form of AV for 10 years and haven't even gotten even a warning in at least 2. Really, it is all about being wary of the double-click. I can't imagine paying for AV these days. Too many decent free options (AVG, Avast!, and now MSE). Doubtless there are paid options that have marginally better heuristics, but since this is just a piece-of-mind thing, I'm more inclined to go for lightweight and free.

[Hooch Tan]

For those who want to know more before jumping in, Ars Technica has put up a first impressions of it at:

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/first-look-microsoft-security-essentials-impresses.ars

They come away reasonably impressed. Few resources and frequent updates. I'll be installing it on one of my test PCs tonight to try it out. While I'm sure it is okay, I'd rather stay with what I got right now (Avast/Comodo) since it works. But if it uses fewer resources, I know some people who could definitely use it.

[Bob Christensen]

Has anyone else tried this? My Vista machine has never frozen and once I installed this, it promptly locked up within a few minutes of start up every time. Went through about 20 iterations of this, then uninstalled. Problem went away. I was running AVG prior to this and did use their removal tool to make sure I got the whole thing removed.

I also was running Vista and AVG prior to installing MSE, and, like you, used the AVG removal tool. I've had no problems--yet. Also installed it on an XP machine and it seems to be doing its thing without any issues.

[Chris Gohlke]

Must be something weird with my machine. Maybe there was a blip with the install. I'll wait a week or two (hopefully they'll have a new build) and try again.

[crimsonsky]

On my Lenovo S10 netbook it is working just fine. I was using Avast! before, but this seems to be much less resource intensive. I can't help but wonder when the day will come when MS builds this into the OS.

[Chris Gohlke]

I loaded it on my Acer Aspire One today with no problems. I think I forgot to remove Spybot from my Vista machine, so that might have been the cause of the problem I was having. I'll try again and report back.

[doogald]

On my Lenovo S10 netbook it is working just fine. I was using Avast! before, but this seems to be much less resource intensive. I can't help but wonder when the day will come when MS builds this into the OS.

It was, of course, this very thing (bundling what had been products into DOS/Windows) that got Microsoft into the consent decree in 1993. It's funny that the same people who were all over Microsoft during the anti-trust case ten years ago are celebrating how great it is that they are making an excellent security product now . . .

[Chris Gohlke]

It was, of course, this very thing (bundling what had been products into DOS/Windows) that got Microsoft into the consent decree in 1993. It's funny that the same people who were all over Microsoft during the anti-trust case ten years ago are celebrating how great it is that they are making an excellent security product now . . .

The big difference now is that it is not bundled and installed by default. Although, I think you could make the argument that security software is so essential, and needs to be installed immediately that the public benefit of an integrated product outweighs the potential monopoly.

Also, I reinstalled after removing spybot and still the same lockups.

[Jason Dunn]

It's funny that the same people who were all over Microsoft during the anti-trust case ten years ago are celebrating how great it is that they are making an excellent security product now . . .

Indeed...though I don't think Symantec or anyone else has a legitimate complaint unless Microsoft starts to include it within Windows. They can go as far as making it an optional Windows Update component and stay clear of any problems IMO. What will be really interesting is if companies such as Dell and HP start to bundle the MS AV product instead of the bloated piles of crud from McAfee, Symantec, etc. To be fair, the newest Symantec product looks pretty decent!

[doogald]

According to Microsoft's current consent, they could actually bundle as long as they allowed the OEMs to remove the feature (perhaps to install something else.) I believe that the consent decree was recently extended to 2011.

[Phillip Dyson]

I'm currently running Eset's Nod32 on my laptops at home and love it. Though its not free. Its an annual subscription.

Perhaps I'll recommend this to my Mom.

Is there any information about how this compares to the commercial offerings?

[doogald]

I'm also interested in one thing: with OneCare, when any update downloads were interrupted, it would restart the update from scratch, rather than picking up where it left off. It's not a big deal for people with broadband, but my mother-in-law still lives in where she must use dial-up (even 3G modems do not work any faster than dialup there), and I had installed OneCare, only to find that it was constantly out of date, as each time she disconnected, she lost the update it was pushing. I'd love to know if this product does this differently (i.e., it can restart downloads at the point where connection was lost.)

[Jason Dunn]

Is there any information about how this compares to the commercial offerings?

I think we'll have to wait for the people who collect virii to test it out and see how good it really is...I'm not one of those people. :D