LostInTechnology

Microsoft Security Essentials Review

Posted on 18. Jul, 2009 by UzEE in Software, Windows

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Free and quality products are hard to come by these days. In fact, most of the time, if something is free, it frequently has bugs or a limited feature set.  Leave it to Microsoft to come out with a good free product.  Wait, Microsoft?

Microsoft Security Essentials, a free antivirus by Microsoft, is a good product, but it does fall in the category of having a limited feature set. While it lacks many features that other paid security suites (Norton, McAfee and Kaspersky) offer, it doesn’t mean this lightweight beast from Redmond should be ignored.

Overview

Microsoft Security Essentials or MSE for short, replaces Microsoft’s subscription based OneCare service. It will be available for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 both in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. While currently in a closed beta, Microsoft did release the antivirus to a limited audience about two weeks ago.  It immediately caught the attention of technology journalists for being a lightweight and effective solution against malware.

MSE lacks corporate features like a firewall, phishing and web filters, parental control, etc, but it does focus on fighting malware that may infect your PC from the internet or through removable media (here is a quick way to prevent that). On the flip side, it gives the antivirus a very small footprint that wont bother you in tasks like gaming or playing movies. It also removes the price tag found in other more powerful security suites.

Features

Gaps in Security Essentials’ feature set are filled by other technologies that are built right into Windows, like Windows Firewall, Parental Controls, Automatic Backups and System Restore to name a few. Online threats are countered by modern web browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer or Google Chrome that have excellent security features built in like private browsing and phishing filters.

This removes the redundant layers of protections that normal users don’t require. In fact, most computer users would only need the protection services offered by Security Essentials unless they are doing some time critical tasks like hosting web applications or something.

MSE is simple to use and has a very straight forward interface. The installer only validates your copy of Windows (and that is the only requirement) and installs the software. You don’t need to register or anything. The home screen gives you access to all the important information you need like protection status and scheduled scans. This is the screen where you can start new scans which range in the usual Quick, Full and Custom flavors with the later allowing you to specify exact folders to scan.

The scanning engine is fast and very effective. It easily took care of all the malware I encounter daily and was strong enough to easily make me switch to Security Essentials from Norton 2009 Suite on my computers. It also has the lowest false positive alerts rate in any antivirus product I have used.

Once it discovers any malware, it will present you with dialog offering detailed information about the infection and its recommendation to resolve the issue. This is the best virus alert dialog I have seen, because most antivirus products would take you online to view this information.

You can view your detailed threat history and quarantined items under the History tab. You can remove or restore the threats (I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing that unless you really intend to mess up your PC) discovered by MSE. You can also access the Exception and Exclusion list under this tab which is a rather odd place to put it. It should have been only under the Settings tab because that is the first place where I (or everyone else) would look.

The Settings tab, while not the most intuitive to use, does get the job done by categorizing preferences. You can setup Scheduled scans, default actions for different threat levels and a more expanded exclusion list here as well as some advanced features like creating restore points before scan and participating in Microsoft’s SpyNet program.

Conclusion

Security Essentials will be out by the end of this year for everyone with a Genuine copy of Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or 7. But you can still get your hands on the program thanks to Softpedia who still happen to carry around a beta copy of the product.  Overall, it is a really good and light weight solution for anyone looking for a free antivirus.

(By) Uzair Sajid (UzEE) is a technologist and a freelance blogger who also authors The Technopath.

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