Microsoft security essentials

[Deleted]

what do you think of it is it any good and if you do not use it please state which one you do use with a reason why you like it, so i can make a descision on changing or not

[Killora]

-shrug- I use MSE. Works fine.

[Deleted]

Been using MSE for quite a while now it works perfectly fine.

[Flame6]

Places like gizmodo recommend it because it rates up there in terms of high security and is just load and forget.

[chazus]

No software is perfect. Anything that MSE misses that some other thing does, some other thing will miss something else. If you already have MSE, just stick with it. It's free and good.

Avoid Norton, McAfee, and Panda.

Notably though, Viruses are really not all that much of a problem these days. It's Malware, which most virus scanners do not look for. Get Malwarebytes. Good stuff. Run it every couple weeks.

[Deleted]

I've used MSE in the past, it works OK but for some reason it caused my download folder to take ages to open, so I got rid of it.

Avoid Norton, McAfee, and Panda.

The new Norton's actually pretty good. It's up there with the best again.

[yurano]

From what I've read, MSE's detection and removal are pretty lacking. The upside to MSE is its extremely low false positive rate, low resource usage and the fact that its unintrusive.

I think detection/removal are more valuable than the minor benefits MSE's advantages bring. As such, I use Avast Free.

[Killora]

From what I've read, MSE's detection and removal are pretty lacking. The upside to MSE is its extremely low false positive rate, low resource usage and the fact that its unintrusive.

I think detection/removal are more valuable than the minor benefits MSE's advantages bring. As such, I use Avast Free.

Outside of the fact Virus' are a rare occurance in todays internet, MSE has a pretty good detection and removal. Just, most infections now days are malware.

[yurano]

Outside of the fact Virus' are a rare occurance in todays internet, MSE has a pretty good detection and removal. Just, most infections now days are malware.

If you do anything worth protecting on your computer, detection is very important. Financial documents, online banking/shopping, WoW accounts, rather not let your computer be part of a botnet, etc.

According to Avast, I'll stumble upon an attack site every once in awhile through legitimate Google searches, no not for porn.

If you think getting attacked is a rare occurrence, think again: http://www.invincea.com/2013/02/popu...d-by-invincea/

Some hardcore computer user is going to drop by and argue that Noscript, common sense and Malwarebytes are sufficient to protect yourself. I would counter that Noscript is quite intrusive for most websites (eg. Reddit) and that if you think your common sense is sufficient, you might be suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Unless the MSE's advantages appeal heavily to you (false positives, resource usage and intrusiveness frustrates you to no end), I would go with an anti-virus with better anti-virus capabilities. There are plenty of free options available that have better detection.

I personally like Avast! Free because its the least intrusive (you can turn off all the notifications and bells/whistles via settings) while having all of these nice features like Avast local proxy (which is probably what catches attack sites).

I also use Spybot S&D for its immunization feature which blocks known attack site addresses.

[vesseblah]

If you do anything worth protecting on your computer, detection is very important. Financial documents, online banking/shopping, WoW accounts, rather not let your computer be part of a botnet, etc.

All of those work today by using zero-day exploits that no AV products can catch. That's the ugly truth of whole computer security industry nobody wants to talk about because it would mean more people moves to free products that offers same level of insecurity as paid products. That's why I chose MSE because it's very low system impact and does not spam advertisements like Avast/Avira.

[neanoa]

I prefer it because it's simple, free, and relatively light. Most AV software tends to be or become bloated with all kinds of additional features that I'm not looking for.

[yurano]

All of those work today by using zero-day exploits that no AV products can catch.

Heuristics.

That's why I chose MSE because it's very low system impact and does not spam advertisements like Avast/Avira.

Avast hasn't advertised a single time since I've installed it 6 months ago. There's an unintrusive ad in the Avast control pane.

[Elim Garak]

Heuristics.

False alarms

[vesseblah]

Heuristics.

Detection rate of heuristics against zero-day exploits in browsers, pluggins or OS is around 20% even in best commercial products. Things like Flame, Stuxnet and Dugu went undetected for more than year by every single heuristic scanner until somebody accidentially stumbled on them.

[yurano]

Detection rate of heuristics against zero-day exploits in browsers, pluggins or OS is below 50% even in best commercial products. Things like Flame, Stuxnet and Dugu went undetected for more than year by every single heuristic scanner until somebody accidentially stumbled on them.

I still prefer 40% detection for 0-day heuristics over 30% detection. Plus, you picked 3 military grade viruses used by the US to engage in cyber warfare in the Middle East.

I've read that MSE also scores pretty low for malware removal.

Unless things have changed, MSE only scans on download and not on file/program open. This is a big deal if you catch something 0-day and MSE updates a few days later.

[Elim Garak]

Unless things have changed, MSE only scans on download and not on file/program open. This is a big deal if you catch something 0-day and MSE updates a few days later.

Can you please stop spreading misinformation?
MSE always had and still has Real-time protection which scans processes, installs and run attempts.

[yurano]

False alarms

Modern AV's don't false alarm much at all. I don't see why this is such a big deal to people.

Can you please stop spreading misinformation?
MSE always had and still has Real-time protection which scans processes, installs and run attempts.

In the past, MSE's real time protection did not rescan a previously OK'd file after a virus definition update due to scan caching.. If you ever come across a 0 day virus that MSE hasn't caught yet, wait for the update and see if this bug still exists.

[Incognito Noctix]

I use MSE along with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, which works really well.
Though I hear other free options have recently been a better choice, like AVG. I was never a fan of that in the past however, but it might be good nowadays I guess.

[Elim Garak]

In the past, MSE's real time protection did not rescan a previously OK'd file after a virus definition update due to scan caching.. If you ever come across a 0 day virus that MSE hasn't caught yet, wait for the update and see if this bug still exists.

You are confusing RT protection with Manual/Scheduled Scan. Please stop.

---------- Post added 2013-02-16 at 04:49 PM ----------

Modern AV's don't false alarm much at all. I don't see why this is such a big deal to people.

The moment you enable Heuristics (even in the minimal mode) - you are doomed to deal with false positives.
And it is a big deal because it sets a dangerous preconception in your mind that your AV MAY be wrong. So the only thing that protects you from Viruses - is your human judgement: "Ah, it must be false positive! Click! OMFG!".
It also can go the other way and you would delete every suspicious file. That is not good either.

[Twoddle]

I still prefer 40% detection for 0-day heuristics over 30% detection. Plus, you picked 3 military grade viruses used by the US to engage in cyber warfare in the Middle East.

I believe some Microsoft security certificates were stolen and used to give full trust which enabled the virus to run. It's all about trust, once that trust is breached at the root level all bets are OFF.