Microsoft Security Essentials is of course provided to you by the same company that likely wrote your operating system. With that in mind, they ought to know what they are doing!
Installation and first impression
As soon as the program is installed it will update itself so you don’t need to worry about your protection being out of date.
Features
Whilst MSE is a little light on features it does still have a lot to offer, including:
- Antivirus protection
- Windows firewall integration
- Rootkit protection
- Network inspection system
System Requirements
Microsoft Security Essentials has the following system requirements:
- Windows XP SP3 / Vista SP1 / Windows 7
- 500 Mhz processor & 256 MB RAM for XP / 1000 Mhz processor & 1 GB RAM for Vista and 7
- 200 MB of hard drive space free
- An internet connection
- A genuine copy of your Windows operating system
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+ Plus Points
- It doesn’t cost anything
- Scheduled scans cap CPU usage at 50%
- Independent tests show detection rates that are good rather than stellar
- Minus Points
- Its simplicity means that there are less features on offer than in many other free antivirus programs
- Ad hoc scans, at least on my machine, took much longer than any other AV program I’ve looked at this year
- Free only extends to 10 PCs for business users
It’s super lightweight, easy to use, and will update and scan without you ever knowing it was there. Its interface is dead simple to use, so you can set up schedules and change your settings when you want, but you really don’t need to do much. Set it up, forget it, and stay protected. It’s amazing it took antivirus apps this long to get this simple.
2 Comments
I have used Symantec for a few years now, but I have no idea if it’s any good. I haven’t had problems (that I know of) with viruses, etc., so I guess it’s working, but it would be nice to stop paying for it if a free option were available that did the same thing.
If your not having any problems with your system by all means don’t mess with it, I like to say if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. But I will tell you I have had many customers who fell in love with Security Essentials they just didn’t know something like this existed. I love it most because it doesn’t use any system resources and its pretty speedy at scanning at catching any malicious software.
I like to pair it with malwarebytes just run both in safe mode if your ever infected and it repairs about 90% of computers that get infected.