Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer (yes, you read that correctly – FREE) anti-malware solution for your computer. It helps protect against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. It’s available as a no-cost download for Windows XP SP2 and higher, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
Why should I download Microsoft Security Essentials?
- Comprehensive protection—Microsoft Security Essentials helps defend your computer against spyware, viruses, worms, Trojans, and other malicious software.
- Easy to get, easy to use—Because Microsoft Security Essentials is available at no cost, there’s no registration process that requires billing or personal information collection. It installs after a quick download and Genuine Windows validation and then stays automatically up-to-date with the latest protection technology and signature updates.
- Quiet Protection—Microsoft Security Essentials doesn’t get in your way. It runs quietly in the background and schedules a scan when your computer is most likely idle. You only see alerts when you need to take action.
- Automatic Updates
What are others saying
“When put against AV-Test’s “WildList” collection of 3,194 recent, common viruses, bots, and worms, Microsoft Security Essentials detected and removed each and every one of the malware samples. How does this compare to other security products? AV-Test coordinator Andreas Marx notes that “several other [antivirus] scanners are still not able to detect and kill all of these critters yet.” In addition, Microsoft Security Essentials put up a perfect score with zero false positives–it didn’t flag a single clean file as being malicious. AV-Test also took an initial look at Microsoft Security Essentials’ rootkit detection, testing it against a few rootkit samples, and found “nothing to complain about.” – Nick Mediati, PC World, 06/25/2009
Microsoft Security Essentials security status
Microsoft Security Essentials has a clean, simple home page that shows the security state of your computer.
A green icon means that the security status of your computer is good. Microsoft Security Essentials is up -to- date and is running in the background to help protect your computer against malware and other malicious threats. When your computer has an issue that requires your attention, the look of the Microsoft Security Essentials home page changes based on the issue. The status pane turns either yellow or red depending on the situation, and an action button appears in a prominent location on the page with the suggested action.
A yellow icon means that status is fair or potentially unprotected and that you should take some action, such as turning on real-time protection, running a system scan, or addressing a medium-severity or low-severity threat.
A red icon means that your computer is at risk and that you must address a severe threat to protect it. Click the button to take the recommended action and Microsoft Security Essentials will clean the detected file and then do a quick scan for additional malicious software.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we have to give Microsoft some credit for dealing with critisim of security face first and at a price you can not beat.