Microsoft Security Essentials: Grab Your Copy Now

By on September 29, 2009 in News, Software

Starting today, you can download the released  version of Microsoft Security Essentials, the replacement for Microsoft’s OneCare.

A snippet from the announcement:

REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 28, 2009 — Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft Corp.’s new no-cost, core anti-malware service that helps protect consumers against viruses, spyware and other malicious software, will be available tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 29. Microsoft Security Essentials, independently certified by West Coast Labs, is backed by the company’s global security response team and is built on the same award-winning core security technology found in the company’s security solutions for businesses. It requires no registration, trials or renewals and will be available for download directly from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials.

I have been using the Beta on my main workstation since it was released.  Combined with, first Vista, and now Windows 7, I have noticed no ill effects with MSE.  No system slowdowns, it has a small memory footprint, and I’ve had no viruses.

How does it compare to the paid and other free versions?

Hopefully, one of the virus program testing labs can provide some pertinent comparison information.  At least it is nice to have another option out there.


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About Jim Clark

Hello. I’m from the heartland of the U.S. Lots of corn and beans, although Iowa is a lot more than just farmland. It also has a few computer enthusiasts (no, not me!). I’ve been around PCs since I got my 1st PC XT aloooong time ago. WGS is one of the first sites I found centered around WHS. And the best. Every once in awhile, I do get away from the KB and enjoy time with and my wife and our 4 kids. And I do have a day job.
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  • http://intensedebate.com/people/urmaster urmaster

    This new version can be installed on the beta but it seems to make no difference.

  • http://www.intensedebate.com/people/urmaster urmaster

    This new version can be installed on the beta but it seems to make no difference. It was great before and is just as great now.

  • Michel

    Will that Anti-virus will evey be offer for the "home sever" to close the loop?

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jim_Clark Jim_Clark

      I sure as heck hope so!

  • sce

    Will definately give it a try! Thanks for that. :) Didn't know something like that exists. Have been using Avast Free Home Edition for years as it's the best free AV solution on the market, but this looks like good competition. :) Thanks.

  • reddragon72

    It's not that great. I installed it on all 6 PC's in my house and wound up with all 6 infected, when one of my kids found there way to a site and went click happy. The virus which got passed MSE infected that machine then went on to infect 3 other machines. On all 4 machines MSE found the virus and said that it had taken care of it, but it was a trojan that opened a port and called all it's friends to party. All and all 6 of 6 machines wound up infected. My WHS machine has Avast on it and low and behold had intercepted 278, that's right two hundred and seventy eight, virus/trojan/keyloggers(5 of those). needless to say the home server was saved by Avast and allowed me to return the PC's to a pre invasion event. Also on a side note, when my PC was infected the infection managed to spread its self to my work PC VIA Live Mesh, but my work PC was saved by Mcafee.

    MSE may seem like a fine virus scanner, but it is to SLOW to catch a bug until it is to late! I have went back to my Avast load out that stops a virus and even infected site visitations before an outbreak can occur. I will never put MSE on another machine regardless of how nice it is and how it doesn't seem to slow down your system. And if I was you all I would head to an online virus scanning site ASAP and check your PC out.

    And for those that said it doesn't matter that the machine would have been effected anyways. I took down the site that my kid visited and Avast actually has that site blocked. Had Avast actually been up and running my kid(who told me that they had tried to goto that site before but was stopped, no not a porn site either a site for smilies and crap for IM) would have never been able to do so much damage.

    MSE might be fine for those who know not to visit sites or click on odd popups but for those that have kids, DO NOT put this on there machine, and be very wary of letting them use a machine that is running it. I find MSE to be to slow to respond and remove the threats, and it does not block them or see them till they are actually on the machine and active.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Jim_Clark Jim_Clark

      I would say that gives one a pretty decent idea of how "good" MSE is. I do not believe MS was looking to better existing solutions, they were mostly wanting to get some the huge numbers of computers out there w/o protection to have an easy installable option.

      Altho I would have hoped for better protection than you apparently got.

      • reddragon72

        They are, and it is a noble idea. I rate kids and new/casual PC users in the same group. Neither know better then to not click on that browser popup for a "helping" program that says your PC is infected. And it just seems to me that MSE is only looking in memory and the occasional file download, but not anything executed from the net. There is a hole there somewhere and it is exploitable with any security suit that doesn't check the incoming connection on the fly, and I'm positive now that MSE does not do this.

        I want to see what the labs say. Maybe my incident was a fluke, but I highly doubt it… it is a problem.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/urmaster urmaster

      That sounds horrible sorry to hear that but it’s a good job your server is safe. I may use a dial up (or subnet a computer off) and give a machine a shot with two different installations of windows with other security products. This should give me an idea of how good MSE is.

  • Kiwi

    No spyware/malware/virus protection can stop the human factor from inadvertently causing infections, without a strong arm approach e.g. blocking sites. I have my computers set up so that users that don't understand what they may be risking are unable to install programs or activeX – another strong arm approach.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/urmaster urmaster

      This is what im planning on doing once I deploy win 7 across my network.

    • reddragon72

      Yes the kiddos are setup on a standard user account, but as with any virus program there are work arounds. People setup viruses to do damage and or collect data and if they let a little thing like "Vista/7 security prompts" stop them then they didn't do there job right or program them good enough. If those prompts where good enough to stop malware then why the need for an anti virus program to begin with. Trust me it seems that the only block is to stop the kiddos before they goto the site, or receive that IM message from a friend with an attachment. And MSE is not in that position to stop those things. MSE is for someone like me and you that knows not to click on that really cool link, but for kid's/noobs/casual users this will not do and does not offer enough defense, and that is the crowd that MS is targeting. Scary…

      • fasthair

        Just what was the name of this malware?

        fasthair

  • Michel

    Hi Reddragon did you send your infection to MS with their report feature?

    I would like to think that they could and should act upon on your finding?

    Michel

  • Omen

    I find this hard to believe that this happened to reddragon72. Unless you can provide the name of the Malware, what OS and SP are the computers on the network is running, which computer OS was the one that got infected first, what kind of account was the person using when they got infected, if your using a router with NAT protection enabled and UPNP disabled?

    I used 2 computer for a year without AV, and the only one that got infected was my XP SP2 machine when someone decided it was fun to go to Myspace and update their profile. A quick jump into my DDWRT router and add myspace and all other social sites to the block list and it never happened again to this very day. My Vista SP1 machine still do not have any AV on it and have yet to be infected by regular use.

    • fasthair

      Omen I wanted to call BS too but was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. That is why I asked for the name of the malware. But since he hasn't responded with a name I think we know the truth.

      I also never run antimalware and I never have virus problems. It just takes a little common sense and some securing up your PC and shares with strong passwords.

      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….

  • fasthair

    Continued…

    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

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