Microsoft's Free Anti-Malware Product is Out Today

So how long until the Justice Department steps in and breaks up Microsoft?

"When the Beta launched, neither Symantec nor McAfee batted an eyelid."

"Janice Chaffin, Symantec's Consumer division president, said that Morro is basically a stripped down version of OneCare"

attacking a free product seems like worry to me. it should come with Windows 7 for the old people that don't know that they can get free AV protection from Panda, AVG, and a dozen other products that don't rape your wallet like Norton.

Providing a stripped down version for free? I suppose it is better than nothing. However, I for one would rather go with either a more reputable free option or a paid subscription. No stripped down protection for me.

As for the microsoft comment: Doubtful. MS knows how to walk the line rather well by now. In any case, they aren't the worst corporation out there by far.

They better be worried I have switched ALL my computers at my house to security essentials. it is the ONLY antivirus that i have EVER had that was able to clean up a computer hevily infected. it kicks nortons, symantec corporate, mcafee, avgs, and any ones butt the only other antivirus i would recommend would be webroot. As long as Microsoft hasnt messed up this version then i will continue to ONLY use security essentials

kapersky is even worse imo. I've found it well worth the price though.

hey anythings better than norton and mcafee these days

One Care to rule them all

hoping for a test on tom's to see how it fares vs. other free solutions such as AVG Free, MBAM, etc.

i'm open-minded at this point. hey yes it's free software from M$, but they have actually delivered a number of neat and useful free tools (e.g., SyncToy).

well i can say this about norton it has saved my machine on more than a few occasions. but i will give the microsoft one a try to see how it is. plus its always good to have multiple scanners.

Quote: Janice Chaffin, Symantec's Consumer division president, said that Morro is basically a stripped down version of OneCare. "A full Internet security suite is what consumers require today to stay fully protected,"

Or just run Linux or buy a Mac, enough said.

Hopefully since it comes from M$ itself, they can give the best real-time protection since they *should* know their OS the best.

Regular:
If I buy a Mac or run Linux and manage to get a virus, would you reimburse me plus some kind of 'fee'?

If you get a virus in Linux, it's only cause you purposely went looking for one.

This could just be part of a larger marketing movement by Microsoft to maintain market share against Apple. I wouldn't be surprised to see, "I'm a PC" TV ads featuring Windows 7 with "Automatic Malware Prevention."

Or wrote it yourself.

I half-expect a lawsuit to be filed tomorrow by Norton and McAfee with the eventual outcome being a vote option to uninstall Microsoft's free anti-Malware product and including links to Norton's and McAfee's sites for their offerings.

It's funny in that McAffee has been for a long time one of the worst security programs out there, full of holes, and endlessly slow consuming about 3 to 5times the resources some competitors did.

My experiences with McAfee stem from around 1999.. 10 years ago, but they where so bad, I never used it again. I don't know if they've gotten any better since.

"Try Morro! It's Morronic!"

Sorry, I couldn't hold that one. Seriously, I'm gonna try it out tonight at home. I use AVG so expect the same "basic" protection. "A full Internet security suite is not what I require", but I understand that it might not be the same for the average user.

They haven't. I've been forced to you various forms of it at work and school and it is a pig compared to anything I use at home.

The pay-to-scan anti-virus companies aren't worried because they have Best Buy and other stores on there side. Why would Best Buy advertise that you DON'T need anti-virus for a PC when they can sell you one saying the free solution is crap. Not to mention they are embedded in countless companies that are so slow to change things they are still using IE6.

I think that none of them work very well; eventually you're going to get something and when it happens, you might as well get it for free.

I'm also going to troll in favor of Kaspersky, Bitdefender and Nod32 as my favorite solutions. I tried to rely on free products for a while but there is always something the keeps me from encouraging others to use them, you need to know WHAT has been striped down from the full version to known how much you can rely on it, now, I know I cant, I know many of you here can... but certainly not everybody...

Also, I have to tip my hat to MS who launched a very bad product 3 years ago but, without anybody noticing, have ramped it up to slightly above average (Slightly above Symantec and mcafee) in less than 2 years. Check how one care scored on Virus bulletin and West coast labs... you might be surprised.

I don't know what all the fuss is about. This is just history repeating itself.

McAfee and Norton are definitely resource hogs, but they do work. (used both but now use Avast)

Avast is free and I have no problems at all, and well maybe I use the right security settings on my box(es) so I dont have to worry about too much stuff, IE. host files, proxy, etc. etc. you get the point.

But I will actually try this out to see what it has to offer, albeit I probably wont use it indefeinitely.

i have been using avast for 3 yrs now...i live on torrent and hacker sites, have picked up supsicious files and viruses, and avast stopped them all (even stuff that slips right by avg, mcaffee, norton, and one that actually made it past kapersky)... i know it is not the highest ranked free antivirus, but it has been very reliable. ill try M$'s offering once i get a comparason review of it

and you are right about one thing, it is your opinion, and as misguided as it may be- you are entitled to that

While people can opine and anecdotalize about which is better, AV-comparatives regularly employ uniform tests to various security programs, free or otherwise.
Link
OneCare, which is what MSE is mostly based on, scored near the bottom (but that's still about 90%). However, MSE also has a new heuristics level for unidentified threats that might increase its performance.
In any case, combine MSE and Windows Firewall and Microsoft actually gives you decent protection against malware, a pretty big turnaround from just a few years ago when MS basically had no protection of its own for consumers. With a modern browser like Chrome, FF 3.5, or IE8 on top of that you should have pretty good protection against malware. MS could be doing more to address security, but they are making progress with the increased security of IE8 and the evolution of their other solutions (I consider Live OneCare to be a step in the wrong direction)
I'd still rather use Avast than MSE, personally. Low false-positives, high scanning throughput, and high detection rates, plus it's free.

Hey, I use Ubuntu as my OS but there isn't ANYTHING that is virus/malware proof. Many people have written linux viruses as proof of concept so its just as easy, just be a smart user and watch what you do. Also never run as an administrator on ANY type of os. Thats just asking for trouble! I know from xp, before I became knowledgeable about pc's I killed my install a few times =(

When I read the title I was thinking Defender.

I've used Avast and as far as free AV goes it's as good as it gets, and quite acceptable. As for all the pay ones go NOD32 is far and away the best AV you can get. Anyone who is touting Kaspersky simply hasn't used NOD32. It's by far the lightest, frequently updated, and effective AV, available today.

The malware/scumware/spyware is far more prevalent today than viruses. Useing Malwarebytes in conjunction with decent AV is still the best bet.

Nothing will find every virus but I use avira antivir and malwarebytes anti-malware. Everything else is fail except for Symantec SEP. Microsoft has done free antimalware in the past and my experience with it is after a few months they drop the whole entire project.

What technical users have said in the past is that M$ should do a full kernel update and just block out the malware completely as can be done with Linux. THE PROBLEM with that is you have to reinstall the entire operating system to do that. These linux users.... are crazy. Most people don't want to spend all that time rebuilding their machine. Most people just want to browse the web and send emails and aren't tech savvy.

You know i'm surprised Norton is getting as much negative comments now considering they have totally redone their software package. Norton Antivirus '09 and '10 uses some of the least amount of resources of any program out there now, period.
Not only that, but they consistently rank VERY well in detection and cleanup rates, often beating the favorites (Kaspersky, NOD32 and Avira). Not to mention it totally wipes the floor with the free alternatives.
Don't get me wrong, there are some really good free alternatives like Avira's and Avast's products, but they still can not compete fully with a paid-for-product. Also, don't forget that when you "buy" a product like Norton AV or others you are also paying for Technical Support if the need arises.
I use to use Kaspersky with Webroot, but have since switched to solely Norton for the fact that it is 1.) Extremely light on resources 2.) Smoking fast scan times AND updates 3.) Very good detection rates.

Finally, to all these people that say "I use Avast and I do this and that, blah blah...and I still do not have a virus...blah blah."
How do you know you have no infections? No one product is 100% so saying that you have no infections is untrue.

Just my two cents..

Even if this product was ten times more powerful than McAfee or Norton, there is nothing that they could do about it.

It is not included at installation and has to be downloaded to be installed. The fact it is free is irrelevant. I hope that MS eventually make it as strong as Norton, then it will force them to reduce the cost of their own product or even make it free as well.