Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 (Morro MSE Free Anti-Virus)

Granted it's not a big deal but, in my opinion, MS is not exactly the vendor that I would choose for securing my computer

 

I disagree with the PCMAG test, the detection of the MS AV is very good, the generic detections are excellent. I guess PCMAG tested with a handful of samples, lol!

 

I'm using MSE with Windows XP SP3, and it did not change my Windows update automatically. My update is not set to fully automatic, and installing MSE changed nothing. FYI: The on-demand scanner is very fast.

 

@The Hammer
You probably heard wrong then Defender features quite a few very strong generic signatures witch are able to catch malware your AV misses.

@Stefan Kurtzhals
Agreed, the test results implicate a very limited sample set

 

I hope thats not true because i hate it when my PC automatically reboots in the middle of the night while its downloading stuff or it just shuts down my music that is playing through all the nights.

I prefer that Windows Update just notifies me so i can install updates when i want them to without ruining my usual stuff. I usually do that asap, usually in the morning or i check manually if i see any news about Windows updates in my feeds.

 

"www. Phoenix999" came out to the world of internet and they thought it's cool to use it freely but they pay still like the utility now.

Windows 7 thru Morro and Bing tries to come out again under the wheel of Karma.

{Gratuitous irrelevancy snipped - Blue}

Well, they now want to upgrade their Windows to their Gates for control.

 

From what I hear, MSE auto-update functionality is linked with Windows Update. Hence the force auto-mode if you set MSE to auto-download AV updates.

 

What the hell? Okay then, anyway, I WAS going to try this out as so far (besides the ever so useless "testing" done by PCGag..err, Mag), it is generally getting good reviews. BUT, I am not about to let that sucker change my updates to auto, no sir. Not only am I like RejZor and leave my PC running at night for the same reasons, but I sure as hell don't want to have the thing reboot on me in the middle of the day when I'm working and have just left the keyboard for a moment or two.

I'm a gamer and a writer by hobby, and I have a tendency to walk away a moment without saving things (yeah, I know, criticize away), and an auto-reboot would be the last thing I'd want to come back to my desk to see.

 

Dont think Morro will come automatically via automatic updates, more of a freely available tool, optional to download and use.

Else, MS will get its a$$$$$ sued for breaking competition laws, namely the EU.

 

MS already has such thing, it's called Forefront. I doubt they'd re-invent the wheel so to speak.

 

I agree.
What impressed me the most thow is MSE unpackers.
I am surprised that M$ will give it for free. What is the catch?

The only things that I didn't like are that it does not have a "pause scan" option and that it cannot be disabled(even temporary).

Panagiotis

 

Morro looks quite impressive, the recent AV Comparatives report states that it had less than 2 FPS and cool generic detection.

I pray that Morro will end the "monopoly" of Avira in the Free AV arena. It would be great if Morro manages to hit the sales of Kaspersky and Norton.

More competition...more innovation....

 

To talk about monopoly in the free AV arena is almost an oxymoron, don't you think to be popular and free is almost like working pro bono? Norton will certainly lose some of its undeserved market share, and the internet by and large will be a more secure environment, having such a conspicuous new free player.

 

I decided to try it out. Two processes that I can see, totaling about 40meg. I had hoped it would be lighter, closer to Avira, Norton, Comodo, etc... Other than that, it is running well.

 

Yea, this is really good news for customers.
If it has good detection rate and is light on resources, people can use it alongside Comodo Firewall and that's it, good protection for free-no crippled version or annoying pop ups.
And products like Mcafee will be forced to improve, just look at their support forum, so many users get infected and when they ask how to better protect themselves, they are told that no antivirus is 100% perfect. What is the use of paying for a product if it cannot deliver as it advertises?
Hopefully this will change for the better.

 

Well the catch (IMO) is that home users will be used as test subjects for new ForeFront engines/features. Once they are well baked they'll move it to *paid* forefront suite.

Also the (possibly large) home user base will ensure that the newest samples, signatures and population statistics are loaded to DSS. So that ForeFront users have great detection with no FPs.

And there is the loss of revenue for McAfee,Symantec and others. Along with brand awareness of MS security apps is the cherry on the cake. MSE is quite similar to free offering of AVG. Both expect to create brand awareness and lure users to buy more featured products from their stables.

 

.
Windows has slowly been incorporating features that were originally provided by 3rd parties. Basically the same criticisms were made when Microsoft incorporated Disk Defrag into Windows, such as it's not part of the operating system, it will put the utilities vendors out of business, etc. It didn't happen then and I don't believe it will happen now. The most important issue at the moment is to raise awareness of the malware threat and get all those people who currently cannot even be bothered to install a free AV to use something. Those people who are more aware and want better protection will seek out more sophisticated solutions.

 

I only see 2 possible processes totalling about 6.5mb. What are your processes? It seems to be using very little resources here. This is on Vista x64 btw.

Edit: Just checked again, I only see 1 process, using 3.3-5.7mb ram...... that's about it.

 

Windows 7 32 bit:
Microsoft Security Essentials user interface 8,032
Antimalware Service Executable 39,816

 

Ok, I found the service also, but I can't see how much ram it's using in task manager as it's under the services tab and I see no ram usage stats. The UI seems to be using 3.3mb here... and up to 5.7 at it's highest. Seems light on the system though...

Edit: Ok, I'm a bit slow today.... LOL.. I see it now. It's using another 61mb here on Vista x64, so total = about 64mb. Pretty heavy on ram, but performance-wise it feels very light. So I'm happy enough with it. The 2nd process is MsMpEng. I have 4 gigs ram so I don't much care how much it uses, as long as performance is good and it feels light.

 

You should use Process Explorer, as it appears to report memory usage more accurately, at least in my experience. The program shows a bit lighter if I look at it in Task Mgr.

 

I decided to try it out. Very nice. It doesn't have scanning logs, or any logs for that matter though. As far as I can see any way. I did a full system scan, when the scan finished, there was nothing to show what was scanned, how many files were scanned, etc.

 

Thanks, just went back to Avira for now. I will wait for final release and then have another look... not bad though.

 

This is very interesting development. Here are my thoughts.

1- Big players like norton and mcafee will get the most hit by it.

2- Once installed it will not need to be renewed, registered every year etc etc. Just install and forget. No nags. AVG, Avast and Antivir -- all free versions will get a tough competition.

I am almost sure, most ordinary users will be advised to use this free AV instead of AVG, Avast or Antivir in the forums or by geek friends etc.

3- Its Cloud-AV abilities will put it ahead of many other AVs. I guess most other vendors will be forced to add such techniques as well.

4- It might be a good target for malware writes( trying to bypass it due to some bugs, vulnerabilities).

5- I guess, some vendors might start recommending two AVs now. One real time and one on-demand as that will keep them in business more easily.

BTW I wish they change this ugly tray icon.

 

Well, for one thing, if it doesn't require annual registrations, i'd consider it for less knowledgeable users. I know only my cousin knows how and where to re-register avast!. And that's kinda annoying, not knowing if users will know how to renew even a free license.