...should read the article themselves.

"According to the firm, Microsoft Security Essentials was the best-performing free antivirus solution"

it's comparing free products.

i have avg free and it works great i just upgrade to avg internet security and love it also svg free and useing zonealarm free is very good for most people out there but as computer geek of trying to do stuff cheap still 1992 but is having a few different free program i like avg free, windows defender, zonealarm free, adaware free, spybot search&destory, and mcafee stinger. all free easy to use use along with ccleaner and defaggler you have a very good system. I have windows xp pro sp3 32bit. never had a problem i could not recover from useing theses free tools in last 4 years. avg does very good job and most people have dual or quad core system these day and at least 2gb of ram your not going to see any or very little performance lost with these tools

Thanks Nemowho.
Yep!,M$ knows their OS better than any Third Party & they created a FIRST CLASS AV app'n that's FREE....go suck eggs Norton & all the other crap bloatware 3rd party AV companies.

The exact point. After failing at this category (IMHO) ever since disasterous mutations of NAV in DOS (Remember MSAV in DOS 6, anyone?), Microsoft has finally gotten a free antimalware tool to work, and work fairly well. Hey, article-hit&run-glancers... IT'S FREE.

And @ Robin, What the feck ANYTHING has to do with whether this is "a level playing field" is absolutely beyond me. You're answering your own retarded question. Yes, Remond wrote the OS, and yes, they should be able to create a snap-in AV tool that doesn't bring your system down to a crawl. Inside knowledge leading to superior OS protection. Scandalous!

What are you lamenting exactly here? That poor Symantec and McAfee will now starve because Microsoft is doing what they should have done over a decade ago? Oh, poor third-party antimalware companies...my heart bleeds for them. You can bet dollars to doughnuts that all those pricks have coders in Croatia writing new variants of poison around the clock, so that their products can be touted as first to find and destroy the new evil code du jour. These companies came into power because the company producing the operating system failed to fulfill this security chasm. Now Microsoft finally steps up with a FREE tool that isn't dogshit, and you cry foul on an "unlevel playing field". Simply staggering...

I agree that MSE is and will be the best blacklist malware solution...MS know Windows better than anyone. All other such vendors should throw in the towel and move to creating a consumer whitelist solution with true security in mind and only than can we put this issue to rest!

Computer security consists of multiple layers. Different types of software and hardware from different venders working together in concert in an attempt to keep your system secure.
An anti-virus suite is only a tiny fraction of the security landscape. And it only partially protects you from "known" viruses and malware. The new ones will still slip through. ;)
.. That's where the other layers come into play. File integrity checkers, multiple firewalls, etc. AND BACK UP YOUR DATA TO A DIFFERENT COMPUTER that isn't connected to the internet.
;)

I used to have it's predecessor Windows Live One Care & although it doesn't 'Tuneup' your pc, MSE is an exceptionally good application, that cost NOTHING.
I use it, in combination with C'Cleaner & Perfect Disk 10 & that's all you need to keep it squeaky clean.
MSE also does something Live One Care didn't do & that's run in SAFE MODE,so, need to install an app'n like Spybot either.
So,although Charlie is consistently wrong,I feel that he is being slightly inconsistent on this occasion,simply because he nearly got it right,which is more than okay from where I am.

I've just cleaned a hard disk from something called Piker.atw. Security Essentials did not recognized it, so I downloaded trial version of Kaspersky to do the job.
But, to be fair, this is the first case which I could not solve with SE.

Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome.

How can you know what's in the comments? If you profess to not read the comments and then somehow manage to post a reply to the comments you never read in the first place how can you believe anybody will take you seriously? Or, for that matter, give a frakk what you have to say?

You're probably not insane, just childish and foolish.

In general real world tests we've found it better than almost anything out there at detecting things, and it's so clean at removing things. In comparisons against things like SuperAntiSpyware and most main AV products it utterly owns them. Against paid for applications it utterly smokes them also. We've had comparisons with Norton, Mcrappy, AVG (free and paid), and F-Secure....and it kicks the crap out of all of them.

As for Uncle, yes it may say that in the EULA, but on install it actually asks if you wish to allow it or not allow it access. Don't want to allow, then don't. They ain't holding a gun against your head. Personally though, it's great and good on MS for once!

Jack the Ripper makes the best wet-wipes for clearing up after another brutal murder. Presumably down to the wealth of experience that the competition cannot match and a little knowledge of the labyrinthine closed OS might help too.
I just wish they had enough knowledge of the OS to replace the fly screens on the windows with a bit of glass.

If you read the EULA, I would be giving Microsoft permission to take what ever information that they deem necessary to make my computer function better and to give that information to third parties, if need be. I'm not paranoid just a realist. I know that they get a lot of info from my computer without my OK and technically they can't use it against me, because the last thing they need is proof of illegal entry. But to give them permission for an open door access, NO WAY. That they could use against me. The EULA isn't very long ,but it gets to the point about free access to your computer. So I have to draw the line somewhere. It would be wise to read it also. It actually reads like it wasn't written by a lawyer.

Agreed - as a guy who spends a lot of time cleaning up infected systems, I can say with authority that MSE is quite good at cleaning rootkits and is also generally good at blocking all malware. I do prefer to use Combofix first but MSE does a nice job on its own when it has to.

I have certainly seen a couple of instances where some junk got by it but I can honestly say that, having cleaned thousands of systems this year, every package available misses stuff and allows systems to get infected from time to time.

Given that MSE is quite lean, I also look like a hero simply for uninstalling Norton, et al, and putting MSE in their place.

"How well does it do with rootkits?"

Put it this way. A colleague brought me his FX to take a look at because it was getting slow performance and started giving him fits. I tried to turn it on, it would lock up, not let him proceed after a bit. Various alerts and prompts that didn't make sense. Couldn't load safe mode, couldn't do anything. He had Webroot, was basically trapped in a corner.

I loaded Security Essentials. It found the virus right away - 4 of them, to be exact. 3 went down instantly. The 4th was a persistent little bugger that kept coming back over and over. Rebooted the machine, Security Essentials loaded before anything else and trapped it. I then proceeded to manually clean all references to it from the registry and startup options. I then let MSE go ahead and clean the rest of the computer with a full scan and left it installed. The computer runs like he first bought it.

For a FREE program, it's impressive. And the biggest benefit I find is its small footprint. That's what I dislike about Norton and AVG at least - they're burdensome.

I've never been a fam of MS nor am I one who bashes them. For those who spew their negative and ignorant comments about MSE, try taing the time to review all of the comparison article at AV-Comparatives.

You will see that MSE rated consistently in the top ten across most, if not all, tests. For a *FREE* product no one has the right to complain. Don't like it, don't use it. Simple.

Who cares if it's fast?
I for one buy my anti-virus anti-malware software...
How well does it do with rootkits again?

F-R-E-E Software.

Microsoft FREE Security Essentials scored 'Very Fast' AND 'Advanced +' putting it in the top echelon in both catagories.

Did you notice the FREE aspect of the article?

Granteed the Advanced + part wasn't linked to, so it required a modicum of intelligence and a few seconds of time to verify ... a reach too far for many here it would seem.

I honestly can't comment on the performance of the current version, but I was a Beta Tester for Microsoft for this software before it became available to the public and I recall having one MAJOR issue with it. The AV caused my sound (music/internet radio) to become distorted every time a web page would download. As soon as the page finished loading, the sound would return to normal, but it was very annoying and took me a long time to troubleshoot the problem. Perhaps it just didn't like my SB Extreme Gamer card inside my Vista 64. I do not know if that problem had been resolved or not. I might give it another try.

Is that like “best three-wheel car”?

Before writing an article on a products performance you might try getting your facts straight. Any facts straight. So far the only fact I see in your article is the fact that the Microsoft product was tested at all.

This product came in ranked at number 6 out of 16 products tested in the category of whether or not it slowed down a computer system. This had nothing to do with whether or not it actually worked at detecting anything at all.

At actual detection this product was tested twice. At proactive detection of new and unknown malware it came in ranked at number 6 out of 16.

At detection of malicious software, the main test of whether or not this product works, it came in at number 14 out of 16, or almost at rock bottom.

Of course these results were published quite some time ago, back on December 15th, so after 10 days it is hardly 'news' of any sort.

Microsoft clearly has a lot of work to do to even get to the level of other free software such as Avast, which beat it's product hands down.

Reporting that their product is the best, while obviously doing no actual research, smacks not only of laziness but of being a 'mindless fanboy' and a very poor excuse of a reporter. In other words: misleading and false information from Nick Farrell. Again. As usual.

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/11/av-compare.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

You Sir are a complete idiot. It's coz of idiot's like you I LOVE reading the comments & hope INQ keeps them forever!

Jay - why not just stop reading at the end of the article if you hate comments? Duh.

You Sir are a complete idiot. It's coz of idiot's like you I hate reading the comments & hope INQ disables them someday.

NickAntivir Rating

(Typing)Speed: Very Fast
Detection: Excessive False Positives
Documentation: Poor
Overall: Poor

I'm sorry to break this to you guys slamming it, but look around MS anti-virus gets great reviews from lots of sites, ive repaired many PC's with viruses that got through nortons and mcafee, put in this freebie in their computer and cleaned up what they let in, its a pretty impressive little program THAT DOES beat lots of pain AV programs and best of all you get it for free....

I switched from Avast to Microsoft's after some very NASTY malware got through avast. I've also switched to Google Chrome. I read a report a few months back where Avast had good performance but fair protection. Microsoft was one of a few with Good detection but Microsoft's had fair performance. I decided detection was obviously more important. Nothing could be worse than the turd that is Norton, is there? I got rid of it after constantly running low on memory and massive amounts of disk thrashing.

Let's see Intel buys benchmarking results and Microsucks buys software endorsements... so we should take their bogus claims and bought endorsements as gospel - or NOT!

Microsoft wasn't even close to the top of the performance list. Did you bother to read their report?

Microsoft did very well in detection also.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/dyn/dynamic2009.pdf

Try getting a Free version of Symantec and especially if you have more than one PC to protect.

I love the people who complain about FREE especially when the product competes and beats most so called top of the line paid products.

Microsoft and AMD bankroll this site what do you expect!

I wonder how much of the speed is down to Microsoft having an inside track on Windows? Do we have a level playing field here?

i second enginarc's question: how the hell did you come up to that conclusion ?
The test not only looks at performance impact alone, there were 10 winners of the test (one of them Microsoft). How does this make it "the best" ?

"The Vole was the only one to block and remove malware well, while hardly chewing up any resources at all."

well, I didn't see indicator on success during removing malware, how did you come that conclusion Nick F.?

the report is just about performance impact on the pc while the av software is running, not how successful it is.