In [url=http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/384394/microsoft-security-essentials-is-designed-to-be-bottom-of-the-antivirus-rankings]an interview with Dennis Protection Labs[/url], Holly Stewart, the senior program manager
of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, said that Microsoft Security Essentials was just
a “baseline” that’s designed to “always be on the bottom” of antivirus tests.
She said Microsoft sees MSE as a first layer of protection and advises Windows users to
use a third-party antivirus instead.
For average users — not geeks who can get by with the minimum protection — we’d recommend avast! Free Antivirus.
Does this also imply that Windows Defender is so minimalistic it is not worth running it.
I always performed the Windows Defender scan as an additional ritual, bur what is the use of that?
Pol, Windows Defender gets the same spyware definitions that are released for MSE so just comparing the spyware side of things they would be equal, also remember that Defender ( XP, Vista, Win7 ) has always been advised on this forum and others to delete or disable because of it’s poor detection rate and waste of resources.
My pleasure. I have quite a few people in Computer User Groups throughout this country who keep me informed of this type of news.
One of the nice byproducts of doing the Avast sponsored security presentations.
I just barely had my 1st and only … and very brief experience with MSE recently when I was having computer problems that seemingly pointed to avast. I tried MSE for only around 3 days. Wooooooo! Yes, it is noticeably slow in the regular course of things. But, in a manual FULL Scan, it was super, mega, ultra, ridiculously Ssssss SLOW!!! At the end of 30 minutes, as per where the progress bar was, I calculated that it looked like it was going to take 8 hours to complete at the rate it was going.
So, I aborted the Full Scan and uninstalled MSE right then and there.
Yadi Yadi Yada … after then not being able to even get Avira to install properly … I finally threw my hands up and desperately performed a Windows Reinstall System Recovery. My computer then worked properly again. Man oh man am I glad to be back to avast!
[QUOTE]Microsoft: Security Essentials is designed to be bottom of the antivirus rankings
[/quote]
;D We seriously need a ROFLMAO Emoticon to do that comment justice.
That reminded me of a guy way back in Electronics school. Since he wasn’t doing very well at all, he used to nonchalantly go, “Ehhh, I only shoot for 50% on the Tests.” We used to ask, "And what are you going to do about the 50% that you DON’T know? ;D
Hopefully Microsoft doesn’t up and declare one day that Windows is DESIGNED to be at the bottom of the OS rankings.
In recent press coverage, the value of using anti-malware products was brought into question. Here is our point of view and some facts.
At Microsoft, we always encourage our customers to use our anti-malware products to help protect them from online threats. We are highly confident in our AV engine and its ability to provide a high level of protection for consumers and large organizations alike. System Center Endpoint Protection (SCEP) and Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) share the same AV engine (as well as Windows Defender and Windows Intune). The most recent data highlighting our protection value, as well as how we measure the effectiveness of our engine each month, can be found here.
Microsoft is focused on providing great protection to our customers by prioritizing defense against the most prevalent malware and emerging threats; furthermore, we share our protection capabilities with our anti-malware partners. We believe a diverse anti-malware ecosystem ensures better protection of our global customers.
We are proud of the protection capability we provide, and are pleased with the significant adoption of SCEP and MSE with well over 100 million PCs around the world.
Jason Leznek
Director, Product Marketing
Microsoft
Bob, since many won’t read the article, it should be noted in your post, that the last quote you reference regarding the suggestion to use avast!, is from the author of the article, and not from a representative from Microsoft.
