What do you all think of MSE?

I have had horrible experiences withit letting viruses pass through and doing an extremely poor job at removing anything.

One time I installed it on my little sister's computer, after a while, it detected that a few utilities I had copied in her software folder that are able to extract the Windows product keys for backup purposes and Office keys; it kept popping up a message that it found some viruses then when I clicked clean (I figured let it delete them I don't use them anyway), it kept popping up the message on and on again in an endless loop

If it wasn't able to delete such simple stuff, I have serious doubts against its effectiveness.

I also once saw a member here speak badly of it and how horrible the support is on their forums.

Another thing that concerns me, is that major Virus testing program I see don't even include it in the tests. This tells me they don't even consider it as a full blown antivirus?

So then how come 50% of the internet keep recommending it?

Every forums I see someone asking about what AV shall I use the MSE clowns pop up saying "MSE, I've never had any troubles with it and it's light! "

 

I assume people like it because it is free. I will install it on someone's machine if they are unwilling to pay for something. I am not a fan of it and will not run it myself for the reason you stated.

 

Ahh I think it was you who once said in a post that it sucks and their support sucks right?

 

I have not tried it, but my opinion is summed up as "overrated".

A lot of tech sites seem to champion it for free protection. It is certainly better than nothing, and yes will bring no conflicts with Windows, but there are much better programs for free, and independent tests confirm this.

 

But how do you respond to those millions of people on other forums to convince them that there are way better options than MSE? People seem to be brain washed with this crap.....are there any other proofs online that I can show them to make them get the point that the only reason they think its good is because they *think* they don't have a virus with it being there when they actually might have gotten a virus here or there slipped through?

 

Good Luck.

People don't always follow logic and reason.

People here routinely dismiss any result that does not fit their bias.

Even products that test horribly routinely (i.e. Superantispyware..) still have fans that swear by them.

I remember when some here in this forum claimed that individual testimonials of products had more weight for them than rigorous product testing

Test results are out there for people who care to look, listen, and evaluate.



-ftp

 

Oh, and while I think that MSE is still a work-in-progress... pair it up with Malwarebytes, Sandboxie, AppGuard or other security software that is free or only requires one payment -- and you have no-cost (going forward) and yet very good security.

 

If I'm working on a PC and time & or system resources are issues. Then 2 points stand out about MSE: It installs the quickest of any AV I've ever tried. And it'll run on very low spec PCs. Whereas other AVs will choke the B****.

Other than these scenarios I'll choose something else. At this point it's Roboscan.

 

As far as I can see, the major advantages of MSE are that it's free, it's fairly light, and it's the only free AV I can think of that doesn't have some kind of idiotic toolbar or other crapola bundled with it. Maybe that's why people use it... I don't know.

 

But avast doesn't have any toolbars or annoying messages other than the occasional popup advertising to upgrade which only happens once and that's it

 

I sometimes use it because it is extremely light. But what its weakness is is the slow scan speeds.

 

It's been a while since I used Avast. Doesn't it bundle Chrome and didn't some users have problems with it installing Chrome over existing installations of Chrome and messing things up somehow or other?

 

Ah Chrome, yes, No toolbars, it's the first thing you see when you launch setup but you simply need to uncheck the option to install Chrome, never had a problem with that personalleh

 

I could go into an explanation but I already did that in the MSE thread, you summed up well stating "I've never had any troubles with it and it's light"

 

Agree! Nailed it.

 

I think that majority of people who use MSE do it because it's from MS (the only vendor they trust ) and it's free.

 

Agreed, let me add something. MSE doesn't kill computers with bad definitions updates like some antiviruses do. The antivirus that the OP is using at the moment, has had 2 or 3 of those in the past three years, to avoid that kind of trouble it is why I prefer to install MSE in friends computers instead of anything else.

Usually, when I help a friend installing an antivirus, I also recommend Sandboxie. Once a user learns and uses SBIE constantly, it doesn't really matter what antivirus one uses as SBIE carries the load and the AV is there only for the raid. SBIE and MSE makes a perfect combo and they work well together with no need of tweaking this or changing that for both programs to get along well. To me, that is important and it is why, I would use MSE if I wanted to use an antivirus.

About using it because its free. I mention this little story before, I ll say it again here. Three months ago a friend of mine and myself purchased the same exact laptop. As a gift from the shop, we got a one year license for ESET antivirus. In my case, the license is going to waste because I don't use an antivirus. In my friends case, without hesitation, I installed MSE instead.

Bo

 

as there is already an ongoing thread on the subject, closing this one.