Microsoft Security Essentials now available

[Bulldog]

It’s out of Beta!

Microsoft Security Essentials now available at this link:


http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/

 

[pro96]

Nice, but lately I have been using the Mac OS X side of my Laptop over Windows way more.. (dual boot lappy)
Will download once I decide to boot from Windows

 

[avg1joe]

Yikes.

• For Windows XP, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 500 MHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.
• For Windows Vista and Windows 7, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 1.0 GHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.

Compare that to avast:
Pentium class Processor, 64MB RAM (128MB recommended) and 100MB of free hard disk space.

 

[mike123abc]

Yikes.

• For Windows XP, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 500 MHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.
• For Windows Vista and Windows 7, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 1.0 GHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.

Compare that to avast:
Pentium class Processor, 64MB RAM (128MB recommended) and 100MB of free hard disk space.

I believe those are just the basic specs for XP and Vista.

 

[Foxbat]

I believe those are just the basic specs for XP and Vista.

I hope not! Most of our XP machines at work are 512 MB or less!

I loaded this on my son's PC last weekend. So far, so good. We had Windows One Care loaded on the Windows machines here, so this is kind of a step back since Security Essentials doesn't do back ups like One Care did. What do you want for nothing?

 

[Ramy]

1 gig of memory is really really cheap.

 

[meStevo]

Yikes.

• For Windows XP, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 500 MHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.
• For Windows Vista and Windows 7, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 1.0 GHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.

Compare that to avast:
Pentium class Processor, 64MB RAM (128MB recommended) and 100MB of free hard disk space.

Either the recommended stats to even run Windows, or those are recommended so it can do its thing in the background without degrading performance.

Avast probably doesn't care about the latter and bases it's requirements on if the program can initialize.

 

[avg1joe]

According to Microsoft, minimum stats to run XP:

• Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
• At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)

Avast probably doesn't care about the latter and bases it's requirements on if the program can initialize.

You ever try running XP on 64mb? IMO Microsoft doesn't tend to overstate its requirements. I wouldn't install avast on less than 256mb though and 256mb is just adequate in my experience.

I'd love to have a few identical machines to test antivirus programs on.

 

[diogen]

Morro's (i.e. Microsoft Security Essential) biggest advantages as I see them
- small footprint, hard drive and RAM;
- negligible effect on OS performance;
- doing virus and malware at the same time.

I think a thorough comparison with the competition would be nice and we'll probably see more than one soon...

Diogen.

 

[avg1joe]

Interesting. Apparently if you have Defender installed Essentials automatically disables it. It seems like it would make sense to uninstall Defender before installing this.

 

[mike123abc]

The biggest advantage of MS's AV will be that it is free and no one will really have an excuse not to have AV on their computers. This alone could cripple many viruses. Combined with the MS push to x64 standard, this could really help Windows reputation.

I know there are free AV programs out there, but most probably view it as too difficult to go find and install. Plus there is always the doubt that it is not really AV but a trojan...

 

[Davedirectv]

Thanks for the heads up on this program.

I will be using it.

 

[diogen]

The biggest advantage of MS's AV will be that it is free and no one will really have an excuse not to have AV on their computers.

Morro won't instal unless your OS is legit. About one in 4-5 is not.
MS offers one more incentive to get legit but most likely won't change much...

Diogen.

 

[avg1joe]

I wonder what this will do to the pay antivirus programs like mcafee and norton.

Both companies have failed to protect my computers in the past. The only thing worse than having an anti-virus program that doesn't work is paying for an anti-virus program that doesn't work.

 

[Davedirectv]

I wonder what this will do to the pay antivirus programs like mcafee and norton.

Both companies have failed to protect my computers in the past. The only thing worse than having an anti-virus program that doesn't work is paying for an anti-virus program that doesn't work.

I have experienced the same thing, and agree 100%.