[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Microsoft Security Essentials: Basic, Automatic Protection here

[BGG001]

I like it. Very small foot print. Sure, it's very basic and doesn't have very advanced features, but it doesn't need them. It's designed to be set and then let go to do what it does, and it does it well.

Also, it's noteworthy that you may get a warning message that Windows Defender has been disabled at first, when the program starts scanning, it'll go away. (MSE replaces Defender).

[JakeB]

Is it better than AVG free? That seems to work well to keep the Windows side of my Mac free from threats.

[BGG001]

Easier to deal with, I'd say so. Better? I don't know honestly. It's hard to benchmark an AV, for the most part they all do about the same job. I was just on another article where someone said they got rid of AVG free and MSE found 2 backdoor trojans.

Any AV will do the job. The point of MSE is to cover those who don't know about AVG free or Avast Home Edition. You should probably give MSE a try, and also Avast a try. When it comes to AVs, for the most part, it's all a matter of preference. (Some actually ARE better than others, but MSE is untested at this point).

...Although, if you want to go all out, look at ESET NOD32. It's small, feature rich, and quick...not free unfortunately.

[revjkramer]

The article, though it may be common sense to most, does not cover whether MSE has real-time security. Remember, some people are novices and they would like that clarified for them. Other than that, good overview of the product.

[DTNick]

@revjkramer: Author here... MSE does have some real-time protections. It's supposed to catch known malware that attempts to install itself on your PC, as well as flag apps behaving suspiciously (behavioral malware detection).

[jpmalonesr]

Maybe I am missing something but Live Onecare has a 2 way firewall, does Security Essentials offer one as well?

[bob3160]

What your missing is that this is free.

One Care wasn't.

Vista and Windows 7 already have a built in 2 way Fire Wall.

[mach171]

The fact that Microsoft Security Essentials is a free app is a nice plus. Wish they would have included some of the features that OneCare has. One Care did everything automatically. This included virus protection, software updates & network backup. Would be nice if some of these features would show up in the Essentials package at some point.

[carocuth]

:_| HELLO???!!!! Not available in Canada....what the.....????

[novamaz]

In trying to find this software, I eventually got to the site: only to discover not all countries have this available to them. It said:
"This beta is available only to customers in the United States, Israel (English only), People's Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only)."

[BGG001]

Yeah, international laws can be tricky...generally between the US and Canada, software isn't an issue though.

[BGG001]

You're going to have trouble legally acquiring the beta. Microsoft kept it limited to 75,000 people. I managed to get one, came back to it the next day, after I realized that it was limited I ran back to get a 32-bit version for Vista/7 and the 2 versions for XP...needless to say I was too late. Not endorsing this idea, while I may not believe it is correctly illegal, but you could acquire it that via torrent if you wished. Again, I don't endorse the idea.

[HarryW]

Is it compatible with Norton 360? Or will there be conflicts?

[BGG001]

The idea is you don't need Norton 360 or any other antivirus. Security Essentials does the job by itself.

Plus, if you are currently running more than antivirus, I'd recommend not doing that for it slows down your computer, and actually makes your computer less secure.

[samlopez]

It is nice, fast and small footprint.

It does need a result tag to tell when it was last run,

with time and date.

[samlopez]

It runs with McAfee AV and Comodo Firewall
It needs time and date when it was last run. so you won't run it unnecessarily.

[b4id8u]

How does more than antivirus (anti-spyware, intrusion prevention) make a computer more insecure???

[BGG001]

If two antivirus programs conflict, they will be slowed down enough to not catch malware immediately or simply may not find it until it's already spread. My friends' parents have a computer with at least 3 antivirus programs and they get more viruses than I've ever seen.

This is different than having an antivirus program that's there purely for scanning (Malwarebytes for example) and a program there that will catch stuff before it happens (Norton). I'm talking about having two programs constantly watching, like Norton and Microsoft Security Essentials, at the same time.

All you need is an antivirus and a firewall, not 15 antiviruses and 12 firewalls; it only causes problems.

[samlopez]

Norton is not compatible to other antivirus or firewalls.

I have run into that problem more than once.

I have used McAfee Antivirus for it's on access aplication
and it works with Comodo firewall, MS Security, Spybot and Adaware.