Review: Microsoft Security Essentials
Security software is something everyone needs, and everyone hates. The recent trend towards expanding security tools to do EVERYTHING has led to some very bloated, slow, and troublesome products on the market. Well Microsoft themselves decided that Malware was giving the Windows Operating System a bad name and they needed to do something about it by releasing Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) which is based off their high-end Forefront software for businesses, and best of all it’s free!
There are other free Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware products on the market, many people have used Avast or AVG-Free including myself. Recently I have seen the quality of these and other products take a serious hit. I’ve seen many computers come in for repair that have massive spyware infections even though these products were installed and working. These products also have other shortcomings I’ve seen; Avast requires you to re-register for a free code yearly, and AVG-Free takes every opportunity to try and get you to upgrade to their paid product offerings often hiding the free software link at the bottom of a page full of links for the paid product.
Security Essentials updates both its definitions and the main program through the Microsoft update feature of windows so you know it is being upgraded regularly. It can also be scheduled to run nightly scans, a feature missing from many paid products, and the software has a very small resource footprint so it will not slow down your older PC. In testing I have found it to very effective at both finding and removing malware, both currently running and attempts to install new items.
Overall I would highly recommend MSE to anyone looking for a good security software, including those currently using a subscription based product. It can be downloaded for free HERE.
* Larger companies should look into Microsoft Forefront, it is based off the same engine as MSE but offers additional central management functions at a very reasonable price.
Categories Free Tools, Reviews, Security, Software, Spyware & Viruses | Tags:
Leave a Reply
By submitting a comment here you grant Unified Technology Solutions a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate or irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin's discretion.