Microsoft Security Essentials - Any Use It?

Is anyone using Microsoft Security Essentials as their anti-virus software? Thoughts or comments? I'm considering it, because it's free and I hear it's pretty robust and uses little system resources.

 

I have been using it for a couple of weeks and it`s not bad, it can use quite a bit of cpu usage when scanning and can take a while for a full scan.

Give it a go and see what you think.

 

I moved to MSE from Kis 2010 because on a SSD KIS is painful 2010 is a mess.

 

I use it, I like it.

 

using it for my three computers. i like it.

 

I use it on my desktop (W7 x64) and laptop (XP x86), without problems, but with satisfaction.

 

I've been using it on my college notebook, however, I rather use a more dedicated product like Avira on my desktop where I do all my downloading and such.

Seems like a solid product to me.

 

So how is Microsoft Security Essentials "Less dedicated"??

 

avast for great justice

 

I've been using it since it was first released as a non-beta. Liked it, I normally don't get viruses anyways so can't comment on its detection performance.

 

I recently updated 7 machines in a local office with it. Some of the machines had NO antivirus (yikes) some had out of date Norton, some had AVG. The MSE found viruses on one of the AVG machines and one of the Norton machines that should have been found by both of these products! (Even the out of date Norton should have found it because the particular virus was WITHIN the last virus definition's scope.

To say the least I was surprised.

Gary

 

Did you upload the Virus`s to virustotal.com to make certain they were not false positives.
.

 

I'm starting to move my systems across to it. I have found it to be adequate enough for activities done on them and of course visiting sites that have already been proven by the paid for AVs helps a lot.

I only have a few more systems that have paid subscriptions but only because they have a year or so left. But once MSE keeps its quality at that point, I'll be 100% that way.

 

My husband has been using it on one of his notebooks for a few weeks now and loves it. I may give it a try soon myself.

 

scan removable drives is not on by default , but can be enabled in settings.

 

Can anyone compare it to Avira AntiVir Personal? I currently use that but I might switch to MSE when I reformat in Dec.

 

Since I was working at a client's site and on the clock, no I didn't bother.

Gary

 

The only comparison I can offer is MSE found a virus on my USB drive where Avira had scanned it several times before. That sold me, use it on my machines and so far, am pleased.

 

Wow! For once a Microsoft product gets some good reviews. I'll give it a whirl. I've been using avast free edition for some time now, but this MSE looks like a complete package.

 

I would not go that far, you should still use spybot and super anti spyware and other on a regular basis.

 

Well, Microsoft Security Essentials is a complete package...

 

I tested it when it first came out. Purely subjectively, it was less resource intensive than the current version of Nod32, closer to the older versions. More in-depth tests I've seen have shown very good hit rates. I wouldn't be able to convince myself to buy an everyday antivirus so long as it stays at this quality, except where management consoles are required.

Now, to the person who replaced other antiviruses which had missed viruses, no antivirus is perfect. No matter what every day scanner you use, you should have a separate product which you run a full scan with every month or two.

 

Microsoft Security Essentials(MSSE) is merely a Complete Antivirus.
On top of that, it's FREE. Currently, I have it running on my Desktop and Laptop.
Might install it on my Old Desktop(remove avira) and install it on my Cousin's Laptop too.

 

I put MSE on my father's laptop today and I found two trojans that should have been found by AVG free. My father is the type that does not do scans and I am not sure if AVG does scheduled scans but MSE does so I set it for him.

 

Been using it since it was released out of Beta, and while it has not found anything on my laptop, it's found things on the other computers I've used it with.

Now if only it worked with Cisco's Clean Access Agent.

 

Well, I guess I'll have to try it out and see what I think. Thanks for all the input guys, this is great discussion.

 

Tested this on my laptop and it used a LOT of resources. I don't remember the .exe, but it was related to they malware scanner from MS Security Essentials. Ran the scans and it found nothing. Uninstalled it later that day. Wasn't too pleased with the ram usage. I'll stick with Avira.

 

Just to be provocative:
What do you call "a lot of resources"?
If its CPU load then something is wrong - and RAM usage within reason is pretty much irrelevant.

 

LOL? His "a lot of resources usage" is 30-50MB(so little) of RAM usage by MSSE?
Or he wants Avira Antivir Personal 9 which is 15-30MB of RAM usage which I think it's really LOW.

To OP, RAM is cheap. Why considered? In addition, you always have Page Files and Virtual Memory from HDD to help you.

 

I miss the right click taskbar icon options in MSE, which are present in Avira.

 

KIS uses even less when idling... (less than 10MB I think - only when idle)

Only Startup takes 10 seconds in good cases or even twice as long on a SSD and I have to wait for programmes to load...

50MB or RAM for an Antivirus isn't bad - if its were 20MB vs. 150MB + then maybe that would be worth a consideration.

This makes me think...
Is it possible that there is some correlation between computer performance and "Security Softeware" RAM usage?

 

MSSE idling at 6-7MB of RAM usage only.
I think 30-50MB RAM usage is while updating or scanning.
I hate long start-up speed. But SSD is too expensive for me. But it's performance is great!

 

No it doesn't, you are not seeing MSE's " AntiMalware Service Executable (msmpeng.exe)" which for me is currently using 56MB along with "MSE User Interface (msseces.exe)" using 5MB.

 

Sure, if you're really low on RAM. On the other hand, the hit on the hard drive can be very significant.

 

I was thinking along the line of More RAM used = faster performance (HDD related)
less RAM used less performance.

Not sure what you mean...

 

He probably mean the HDD as Virtual Memory.
I think he mean something like,
When RAM is not enough, the System will started to use or write on the HDD as Virtual Memory. While HDD speed is not as fast as RAM, so, the performance of the Laptop is reduced.

Yep.. MSSE have 2 processes, 1 is MSSECES and another is MSMPENG. Total RAM usage of idling is 62MB. While 0% on CPU usage.

 

I was suspecting paged out memory - then thought about it and it didn't fit...

OK

Well, on my old lappy with 1GB that mattery (originally 512MB) not on my Vaio with 3GB useable though.

 

Yeah, I believe one of those was using a lot of resources. I already uninstalled it, so can't check.

 

I mean that an ondemand scanner tends to drag out HDD read/write operations, and make a very noticeable perceived performance hit. It tends to slow things down that you're directly working on at that moment, and also make a sizeable performance hit on disk intensive operations both directly and indirectly.

 

Ah OK.
But that's not on demand is it, when it constantly looks at the HDD?

 

It's great. Been using it since beta and the final release is even better. It sits silently in the background, uses very (and I mean very) little resources, and it seems to be updating very well on my 7 x64 setup - during the beta days I went through a few builds that had issues with updates, sometimes didn't update for days unless manually updated, nothing like that on the final release. Love the UI, it's simplistic and not in your face. It's not intimidating for beginners yet it has all the settings one would need.

As far as reviews on the product, I haven't come across anything bad about MSE. And since it's based on OneCare it should have one of the lowest, if not the lowest false positives of any AV.

I used to use Norton IS 2009, ESET ESS and Avira (all three are very good and among the best IMO) but I never renewed my licences for any of them and now I'm only using MSE. If MSE doesn't do some serious damage to paid AV solutions, I don't know what will.

 

AV Comparatives came out with results that included the Beta version if MSE, impressive stuff, probably scaring the pants off Symantec and McAfee.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/11/av-compare.ars

Also, MSE is based on Microsoft Forefront (their enterprise AV solution), not the defunct OneCare. Still implies that it has very low false positives (at least related to Windows OS files).

 

Yeah, that's just me being dumb. I meant realtime.

 

I am trialing it on my Acer CULV notebook. It consumed 100% CPU for a while. I'm letting it run overnight to see if once it's done with what it has to do it won't hog my resources any more. Hopefully it's just a one time thing.

 

It was probably running its initial full scan, and if I recall, it does a good job of giving way to whatever else you're doing.

 

I remember reading MSE is capped to only use half of your processor speed when scanning, so it really shouldn't be doing that, check if Windows Defender is turned on, if it is, disable it.

I've used MSE since the beta, fantastic software, sure it might not be the be-all-end-all AV solution, but I say if you need anymore protection than this, you're better off educating yourself on computer security.

 

So Defender is not required if you're using MSE?

 

Yepp it replaces it (for Spyware).

 

MSE automatically disables Windows Defender during installation. If not disabled, you can disable it.

 

I believe the MSE installer will disable it automatically.

Gary