I'm not sure if that's a vague "We know you think we suck, but here's how we feel." or just a random blog post. I'm not going to bash them too much, because there for a while early on they were doing pretty decent, and I myself used MSE. But, whether their focus meshes with the AV test industry or not, they've got some work to do. The scores are getting lower and lower, and, wow, having your certification stripped of you, that may not mean much to those in the know, but it means a lot once word spreads to the general public and media. I think they can come back from it though. It's a free solution that is easy to maintain for users and quiet.
I've found that putting a horseshoe and four leaf clover on top of your machine gives better protection than MSE.
I'm the same way -- I always reinstall the latest trials after reading to forums to see if I've picked anything up. But I find adblock plus to be a far more effective antivirus than most anti-malware solutions out there. The only time I've ran into any kind of malware was when I visted a torrent site on my laptop without adblock installed, and even then, it just prompted me to download an exe. This was within five minutes of browsing without adblock, so who knows, objectively, how much I've dodged just by having it installed. I'm not even sure how necessary av technology is anymore, and I certainly don't feel like paying for it, at least for myself.
If MSE customers have to be infected BEFORE Microsoft adds a signature to prevent it, we better put the horse shoe and four-leaf clover in our pockets
That's pretty much what Microsoft is saying. Thanks for putting in one sentence what MS said in their misdirection/deflection of a thousand words.
Security essentials will not update past 1/19/2013 1.143.376.0 I'm getting this as well, it seems to be a server problem. Thank god for MBAM eh? Microsoft Community
Only Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) and Windows Defender (Vista/7) - home products are affected by this . Perhaps they decided to stop it for some maintenance, I don't know. Windows Defender on Windows 8 , as well as Microsoft business security products (Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010, Windows Intune, System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection, etc.) are not affected. Those who want or need to update - until Microsoft fixes the issue, can update manually from MMPC - regular 100% tested updates: http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/definitions/adl.aspx Pre-release signatures - tested but still not certified - against new malware -specific case - MMPC: http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/shared/prereleasesignatures.aspx Microsoft MVP and moderator Steve says MS should fix the issue in the next hours.
OK, thanks for the info. I can wait until they fix it I think. I managed to update to 1.143.383.0 about 10 minutes ago. The UI still claims that I am two days out of date though.
I thought it was just me! I even uninstalled and reinstalled MSE but couldn't get past the Jan. 19 update, so I ditched MSE tonight and went back to Avast 7.
Any company that won't or can't release timely updates is in effect showing their backside to their customers. I switched back in December when MSE went over thirty six hours without releasing any updates. Some of the MSE mavens didn't believe MS had been so careless, guess they may be reassessing things, eh? Might be why MSEs performance has gone south.
Glad I saw this! I thought something was wrong with my internet connection when I couldn't update MSE!
A few people tried fresh installs I think. It seems to have rectified itself now. It was just a server problem I believe.
I don't think that anyone's knickers getting into any kind of twists over anything as simple as a server problem really helps anything much. MSE updates at least three times a day. It very rarely has any problems, & this was quite a rarity in my experience of using MSE for over two & a half years. As for MSE's performance going in any specific geographical direction; even MS recommend that MSE be used as part of a layered set-up. A bit of browser hardening & a decent on-demand scanner have served me well for quite a while. Since I have been using MSE (on three separate computers) I have not had an infection.
Still won't update for me. I did the whole download last night and am now on 1.143.455.0 but I see I am behind again. It just keeps saying I am up to date. This is on XP and also a neighbours Win 7 64bit machine
I'm using MBAM Pro and am not arguing with you, but MBAM caused me a lot of misery over the weekend with their blocking of websites on a certain IP. It seems everyone can screw up at times!
This is one of the reasons that I prefer MBAM as an on-demand scanner. I'm very well aware of the controversy surrounding MSE at the moment, but I will have to say that, apart from BullGuard, it is the only AV that has never caused me any real trouble. Even this recent glitch is a rarity for it.
Everyone, meaning AV's and other software, is entitled to an occasional problem or screwup. It's natural, and just means that nothing is perfect. It's unreasonable to think that anything can go without issues indefinitely...
With respect to potential recent update issues: FYI: Aaron Hulett (ahulett, great guy!, from MS Malware Protection Center) has also posted at the DSLR thread http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27931923-Microsoft-Security-Essentials-Unable-To-Install
This is the second month in a row this same problem has cropped up. Started in or around Dec 19th, too.