Microsoft Security Essentials

So just a little over 5 days ago; I said that I’d take a in-depth look through a couple trial runs of Microsoft Security Essentials; focusing on areas of: Virus Detection, Functionality, Performance and Features; from both the views of an end user and a power user. So strap yourselves in, this post’s going to be a long one.

I put Microsoft Security Essentials on my computer on Monday; trying to ignore Microsoft’s last few attempts at Security and anti-virus programs (Namely Windows Firewall and Windows Live One Care), and walk in without any biases in mind.

So lets’ start off with an end users perspective, shall we?

It’s a very clean interface. Navigation is simple and easy; as well as scanning for viruses and updating virus definitions. Scanning is as simple as “Tick quick scan then press Scan” or “Tick full scan and press Scan”. Updating is just a matter of switching to the “Update” tab and hitting the big Update button. Pretty simple eh?

Another really cool feature of Microsoft Security Essentials is the “History” tab, which is pretty much a simplified interface to view a log of viruses that have been detected then either deleted, quarantined or allowed. This is a really nice feature to have within an anti-virus; I’ve had to trudge through directories to find some neigh-incomprehensible log files from previous Anti-virus programs; and am personally glad such a simplified form exists within MSE.

One of the things I was disappointed with was the absence of a Jumplist or Areo launch feature in Windows 7 that would allow you to perform scans without opening the window. What was even more surprising was the absence of a “Scan” or “Update” in the right-click menu of MSE in the System Tray.

OK; So what’s in it for Power Users?

Real Time Protection is a more common thing now days; but lots of mainstream anti-virus programs don’t offer this service for free, but only offer it to people who buy the premium edition, instead of using the free edition. Real time protection is a very powerful part of MSE, and informs you if there is any programs that are trying to gain access to your computer, or attempting to install software without your permission. Real Time Protection can also be set to monitor file and program activity in case a program tries to run illicit scrips; and to scan all files that are downloaded to your computer.

Exclusions. This might seem kinda stupid to some people, but within the Real Time Protection you can set exclusions for specific folders, specific file extensions (.cmd, .bat etc.) or processes themselves.

Scanning Archive Files. Now this is a cool feature; and it’s not restricted to common archive files like .zip or .rar, but extends through pretty much any compressed format, all the way to Virtual Hard Drives. Yes, you read right; You can scan your Virtual Machines for Windows Virtual PC or VirtualBox from the host machine as easy as right-clicking and selecting “Scan with Microsoft Security Essentials”. Awesome? Yeah.

Updating is painless, and runs from the same servers as Microsoft Update Service. Scanning is painless and is VERY low resource intensive; Unlike some other anti-virus programs, the computer is still very functional while scanning.

That’s all well and good, but what about Virus detection?

A group of people from av-test.org that routinely publishes results of anti-virus stress tests ran Microsoft Security Essentials against 3,732 samples of malware in various forms that are currently infecting PC’s around the world, and found that MSE blocked all of them; Both when the samples were opened or accessed and when the malware was manually scanned.

Using Windows XP as a testing operating system (As ~60-80% of windows computers still run Windows XP); av-test dropped a bombshell of more than 545,000 current computer worms, viruses, backdoors, bots and Trojan horses and found that it was able to detect more than 98% of all the samples.

So, what Do I think? I’ve been using it for a week, and think it’s the best anti-virus program I’ve ever used for Windows. Simple interface makes it easy to use, Basic settings menu’s make it easy to configure and high virus detection makes it a safe choice. I’m going to be putting it on all my Windows based PC’s from now on!

David.
-Blaynos.

For this post and others, check out my blog Fractured Logic!