Microsoft’s Must-Have Software Release

by Dave Methvin, InformationWeek, Sept 29th.

While all the focus has been on Windows 7 lately, there’s another piece of Microsoft  software coming out this week that could make an even bigger difference to the Windows world: Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). Athough I think MSE will be a great solution for most people, not everyone will be happy about this software.

Microsoft has been easing security features into Windows for more than a decade. They added Windows Firewall in XP Service Pack 2 (and improved it in Windows 7), then added Windows Defender anti-spyware protection in Windows Vista. There’s also the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool that is delivered about once a month as a batch scan and clean through Windows Update. However, none of those have offered the comprehensive real-time protection that MSE promises to provide for free.

I’ve been using MSE on several systems since the beta was released in June, and have been very impressed. The software is unobtrusive and thrifty on system resources. MSE is based on the same engine as Microsoft’s corporate Forefront antivirus client. That product performed very well on a recent Virus Bulletin test. In that same test, several major antivirus companies failed because they did not detect prevalent threats that are in the wild. Why pay for an AV solution that fails when you can have a good one for free? Article

DCL: If it really works it won’t be free for long!