Just how good is Microsoft Security Essentials?

panyan said:
the one thing that stops me from trying MSE is that i have heard that because of peoples hatred of microsoft, they are making viruses specifically designed to defeat MSE
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They're all targeted to a certain extent. I think your source was a little paranoid.

Gzero said:
Found it was lacking and let a my wow account get hacked despite regular scanning before and after the event. Strangely Malwarebyte found what I think was the offending trojan and have now switched to avast home edition, I'm a cautious (and only I use that pc) pc user and never click dodgy links/attachments so figuring it might have from a dodgy advert as I only used curse for wow addons.
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I think it's unfair to blame A/V. Nothing is 100%. You need to be more careful, keep on top of patching software, etc.
 
Never had a problem with MSE, that and the Win7 own Firewall has served me well for a while, haven't had a virus for many many years.

Oh yeah and common sense will be need too.
 
It's good, very lightweight and updates silently. AVG was starting to become a bit bloated and annoying a couple of years ago, MSE has been a great improvement.
 
KIA said:
They're all targeted to a certain extent. I think your source was a little paranoid.



I think it's unfair to blame A/V. Nothing is 100%. You need to be more careful, keep on top of patching software, etc.
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I haven't changed any of my habits since and nothing has happened (nothing new picked up nor any detected hits). Everything was and is kept up to date as can be, like I said, no dodgy links or software used, yet 2 pc's had the same trojan file found on them.

I'm blaming the AV as it's supposed to protect against such threats and yet an anti malware program could spot it. Thankfully the only info it stole was an email login and the wow account with it. Nothing lost thankfully.
 
I'm on NOD32 as well - recommend MSE to all my friends who don't want to pay for AV software, but I'm not moving. As above though - I still rely on other software like malwarebytes to give additional layers of protection.
 
Used MSE for ages, been good to me.


It does make me wonder sometimes what people do on/with their rigs that requires them to have some fancy, resource hogging anti virus program running.

As said before, isnt a lot of it just common sense?? If you visit overclockers.co.uk are you going to get a virus? No. (well I'd hope not! ;) ) How about play.com, No. Adobe.com? No. See the theme?

If you keep downloading from and visiting dodgy sites, visiting *adult* sites, downloading pirated software and clicking on those links like: click-here-for-free-money.com! (I made that up) then you deserve to get viruses and spyware!
 
neoglow said:
Used MSE for ages, been good to me.


It does make me wonder sometimes what people do on/with their rigs that requires them to have some fancy, resource hogging anti virus program running.

As said before, isnt a lot of it just common sense?? If you visit overclockers.co.uk are you going to get a virus? No. (well I'd hope not! ;) ) How about play.com, No. Adobe.com? No. See the theme?

If you keep downloading from and visiting dodgy sites, visiting *adult* sites, downloading pirated software and clicking on those links like: click-here-for-free-money.com! (I made that up) then you deserve to get viruses and spyware!
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Or msn, or yahoo, or the times...

Mainstream sites are targeted too, also kid sites are popular because kids are more likely to just click yes.
 
I install it and forget about it. No idea if it's working properly, but it sits in the background, doesn't annoy me and doesn't try fleecing me for monies every year/six months.
 
It doesn't hog resources, it doesn't nag and I haven't had a virus, actually I don't think I've ever had a virus anyway, but with MSE I haven't been nagged or irritated by pointless software, unlike Norton, AVG and especially Macafee.

I've helped out a few people who have had their systems compromised and it is almost always a browser hijack anyway. Firefox+Noscript+Ad blocker pro is probably more important than anti virus.
 
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Mr Krugga said:
Who cares about your post, this one refers specifically to MSE and let's keep it at that.


I use MSE + Windows Firewall + UAC + a bit of common sense. It's lightweight and prevents from common viruses.

Spybot Search&Destroy and Malwarbytes' AntiMalware for rootkits and malware.
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What does the thread title say?

**********The All New Official OcUK Anti-Virus Program Thread - KEEP ALL AV QUESTIONS IN HERE**********

Take it MSE doesn't apply to that thread then eh? ;)
 
I've used it since the beta days and I've never had cause to doubt it really, it just sits there and does it's thing and doesn't shout about it, pretty fast and lightweight too, which is nice.
 
I installed it on Win XP after all the rave reviews on here but I am looking for something else. I have problems with a process called msmpeng that is part of mse and it often starts and hogs 60% plus cpu. I also can't find a way of getting mse to update automatically. I turned off auto scan so I don't know whether it is linked and won't update unless the auto-scan is also on.

Has anyone got a recommendation for an alternative? I used to use Avast but found it was getting a bit heavy. Briefly tried Avira free but can't remember why I stopped using that tbh. It may have been the nag screens. I use Linux the vast majority of the time so I just want a light, free antivirus that I can turn off when I want. I see Comodo has a couple of free versions as well.
 
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