Post by MikeA friend had a Trojan problem and wanted it sorted urgently. so he took it
to a local computer shop that he was happy with and had used in he past.
They wiped his hard drive and installed Microsoft 'Security Essentials' .
. he was surprised to say the least.
I would normally have installed free zone alarm and either avast or avg.
Is this Microsoft 'Security Essentials' any good?
Does it replace the above progs?
I have taken my eye off the IT game recently and so would be interested in
genuine answerers.
I am not interested in commercial software or wanting to start a flamewar
about free software and Micro$oft.
I recently replaced Avg with Microsoft Essentials. A few observations
based on my short experience so far... I can't really comment on its
relative effectiveness regarding virus/malware detection and removal,
since I have rarely had any infections. So far MS Essentials has found
nothing.
There is one significant difference with regard to detection--MS
Essentials does not check for tracking cookies. If that is important to
you, then you must supplement it with another scan such as Ad-Aware or
SpyBot Search & Destroy (and/or AVG).
Avg has a few convenient features not present in MSE. In AVG you can
pause a scan in progress; in MSE the only option is to cancel. You can
tell AVG to shut off the computer at the end of a scan. That can be
convenient if you want to start a scan when you are done for the day,
but don't want to leave the compute turned on all night. AVG keeps a
log of all scans and their results. MSE keeps a log only of detected
items, so there doesn't seem to be any way to see if and when scans ran
unless they found something suspicious. AVG displays more detailed
information about updates.
I think that MSE uses less resources running in the background. On the
other hand, if you want to get a scan to run as quickly as possible, AVG
lets you raise its priority. Also, from what I could tell, AVG is
capable of using available multiple CPU cores, whereas MSE does not seem
to do that.
AVG has functions not available in MSE, e.g., email scanning and marking
browser search results as to safety.
FWIW, MSE has slightly less restrictive licensing, primarily in that it
permits use in a home-based business and for multiple home computers.
AVG forbids all commercial use.
Based on my experience and on testing reported by others, it seems to me
that MSE is good basic virus/malware protection, but with somewhat
limited user flexibility and without some of the supplemental functions
of other programs like AVG.