Microsoft Security Essentials

MYstIC G

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According to Lifehacker version 2 is out. V1 knocked the spots off all the other free anti-virus / anti-malware software out there in my opinion. Here's hoping that V2 does the same.
 

SAS

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Just installed it now, impressed even more now. AVG looks like will be removed from my system very soon. I've been keeping it, but with the AVG 2011 update forcing you to uninstall MSE and now MSE releasing this update...

But is it a sensible move to rely souly on MSE? :/
 

Kryten

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I have been for a little while and have found it extremely effective in dealing with the typical driveby infections from otherwise decent sites. I've little other reason for getting infection otherwise, but after having installed it on a couple of "high risk" machines (i.e. users are not particularly technical, love installing smilies, screensavers etc despite my protests) it appears to have stood up to that quite well. The reason for changing those in the first place was AVG wasn't up to the malware side of things.
Reasonably impressed so far.
 

Bob007

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I've pretty much switched to it for everything. All my new builds go out with it. All repairs get it on. My house machines all use it. Sadly it might be a little to good from a money prospective as i get very little back with the normal crap ware on it you'd expect most of the time and most of my repeat repairs seem to be something more serious.

I think its currently the best in the free department and lets hope that holds out.
 

Roo Stercogburn

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McAffee have for some time now had client-side problems as its pretty bloated and is sucking up way too many resources for the job it does. I replaced it on a few machines with MSE and so far have been quite impressed.

So far MSE has missed one worm though which led to some netstat investigation. I'm reasonably impressed but I don't think any AV solution is going to be completely perfect so I'm happy enough for now.
 

ford prefect

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I was a bit dubious about it at first, but I'm pretty impressed with it, it seems as good as AVG or Avast.
 

fettoken

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It is superb, really. Detects online threats better than anything else i have had. Such as AVG and Symantec. Makes porn surfing easier !
 

Wij

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The only worry is that we could start to develop a PC protection mono-culture :/
 

cHodAX

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The only worry is that we could start to develop a PC protection mono-culture :/

That is a very good point, back in the early days of Windows nearly 2 decades ago the only virus protection most mortals has access to was Microsofts own AV which was beyond useless and never updated. They didn't need to update because there was no real competition and even when there was a problem they just downplayed it or outright ignored it. The lesson learnt is never totally rely on one provider for anything.
 

Chilly

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This is one of the problems when you trample on a free market in something as important as AV. I like that MS are doing this, but IMO they should be charging roughly market rate for it - to keep the competition alive and thriving.

On the other hand, making it free means the huge sea of wankers who never pay for anything will actually use it and generally reduce the amount of aids out in the internets.
 

nath

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This is one of the problems when you trample on a free market in something as important as AV. I like that MS are doing this, but IMO they should be charging roughly market rate for it - to keep the competition alive and thriving.

As far as I'm aware, the only AV that's worth any money is NOD32, all of the others are useless and have always had better free alternatives so I'm not sure that's valid.

Anyhoo, when your average joe buys a computer from PC World it comes bundled with Norton or McAfee for 60 days at which point it says their whole family will be eaten by hackers if they don't renew. Almost every client I go to has no idea that there's free software available that's actually good, or even better than the pay for stuff.
 

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