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

I replaced on a PC (IBM P4, 2GHz, Xp SP3) Avira Free and PrevX Free with Microsoft Security Essentials. I feel the PC loads and runs faster. As an example, I've noticed on LOGMEIN icon, the red X on the icon goes OFF almost instant. With Avira and PrevX installed on my PC, it would take about 1minute to start LOGMEIN program. It doesn't interfere with other programs yet and it's silent (thats a big PLUS in my opinion, PC clean and quiet - mother in law is quiet and she doesn't have to call me every day).
For detection, protection and cleanning I'll wait for more tests, who knows we may have a big winner here.

Jedi_m

 

Review of MSE from pcmag.com.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2348998,00.asp

Review mentions that MSE is not so great. Anyway I installed in my PC and it did not find anything except the VNC stuffs (I know my PC was clean, scanned with many on-demand scanners for many times).

For the detected VNC stuffs, I selected the "Allow" option, and it took longer time for it.

Thanks,
Balaji.

 

I hope so also. I like MSE, but if I have to set up Windows Update to Automatic, it will be uninstalled. I've read in other places that WU does not have to be set to automatic for MSE to update the virus definitions. I hope this is true.

I manually downloaded the updates last night. I started up my computer about an hour ago, and MSE still shows the update from 6/24/2009, version 1.61.339.0. I won't manually update today. I want see how long it takes for the definitions to be installed automatically. Hopefully it will do it through the program itself.

 

Mine is indeed of the 25th when I look, but only from about 11AM. I guess the update is not fully up-to-speed, just like Symantec did when testing the 2009-products at first. Atleast it's seen that the Dynamic Signatures will kick in if MSE indeed does not have any information when malicious action occures, so I don't worry a big lot. It's been acting good for me and I've not been surfing anything really risky, so. Add on top of that that I've Avira as backup through On-Demand scans when I wish, and I don't find it throwing up anything yet, except a little FP. See the small review by Matt Rizos some pages back if you haven't already.

 

Okay then, let's lay out the facts... I'll quote: "Generally decent at removing and blocking malware." That's one. "Requires surprisingly large amount of disk space." - I don't consider 8-9 MBs as a large amount of diskspace, but let's go with that. "Less effective against rootkits ..." - According to the other test by AV-Test.org - no, and no mistakes in the FP-area. "... and scareware." - This is something Microsoft is getting more and more against, so you'll see this being improved as this is one of their goals. On another note, there's no scanner that can keep up with all of them. We all know that, and then it's also true that we at Wilders are not affected by rogues, so, uhm, yeah...

Last but not least, I promised myself I wouldn't go into the debate how trustworthy PCMag's sample sets really are. There's no dead horse to beat left, it's already pulverized.

Pretty much sums it up.

 

This is a quote from that review. Why rate it "GOOD", if not so great? Sure, not "spectacular", still, not that bad, at all, considering is still in beta.

 

pcmag says that the full installation takes about 110 MB. It is just the installation file which is about 7 MB.

Thanks,
Balaji.

 

Who really cares about the space? Even my crappy netbook has a 160GB HDD which is huge considering the size. 110MB is nothing.

 

I wouldnt place any value in that test - no large scale samples used so results are meaningless. Also -the page with the review is plastered with adverts saying "Im in love with Norton" etc - any site that gets funding by vendors to advertise their products cant be taken seriously when they run reviews.

 

... and you're wrong again. You want me to provide a screenshot for you? No wait - two screenshots. One from Add/Remove Programs, one from the properties of the folder where MSE is put. What did you think I meant? Oh wait, your post explains that...

 

Not only that - they are reviewing it when it's a beta product, which they DON'T do with Norton products (maybe I've actually seen one long ago, but this is in present time) - just to take an example... You can't compare a beta product to a fully developed one, or close to. Even when released as "final", it has to grow, being new.

 

Check your "Documents and Settings" folder. The MSE folder in "Program Files" just included the basic program, the engine and the database are stored in your "Documents and Settings" folder.

 

I installed in a virtual machine running Windows Vista, and there are the following folders:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Essentials\* - With a total size of 8,67 MB
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\* - With a total size of 267 KB
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Security Essentials\* - With a total size of 747 KB

I truly can't see more than this.

 

Fine, but as has been said already, who cares how much space it takes. All that really matters is performance.

 

I really enjoyed (like one enjoys root canals or hemorrhoids) the review by PCmag they presented an objective (sarcasm) view of MSE right next to the obnoxious Norton flashing ads.

 

.
We all know that pcmag.com advertises products, such as Norton Internet Security. If you feel their reviews are not credible why bother to read them?

 

However there are still people out there who blindly keep trusting their "reviews"...

 

Entertainment or maybe an alternative point of view, i guess. I meant no offense.

 

I caved in and installed MSE, currently running as on-demand only whilst I test it around a bit. I must say, I *love* the simplistic UI.

 

Touché! I should've seen that one coming - I actually thought about the possibility yesterday.

My apologies, pnbalaji.

 

These are also the only directories I have in Vista, but the folders take way more space, not that I care.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Essentials\* - With a total size of 8,67 MB
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\* - With a total size of 74.3MB
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Security Essentials\* - With a total size of 11.1MB

 

I guess that's because I haven't updated it!

Does it run smoothly in your system? Yes, the design is also very simplistic, which is a great thing.

 

The scan took a while since I have a lot of crap on my system, but I monitored the CPU usage whilst scanning and it has an average of 40 ish % rarely going above 50, so very good in my opinion (1.9Ghz dual core). Overall the performance is very good, didn't notice any instabilities.

I can't speak for real-time protection, since I'm still using nod for that, but it should pretty much be the same as an OD scan, just keeping it as OD until some test results come out.

 

The folder locations specified:

 

after clear the "Create a system restore point" option at advanced setting:
http://xs140.xs.to/xs140/09265/mse550.jpg