Microsoft Releases Security Essentials

Hello, everybody.  I’m back in Tucson after my six state adventure that lasted almost four weeks.  It was a great time with lots of new wilderness adventures, photographs and great memories.  Some of those photos will be showing up shortly on my “Postcards” blog. But, I must admit, I am delighted to be back in Tucson.

Frankly, I didn’t think about technology very much on this trip as I had no Wi-Fi access much of the time.  But, when I got back to civilization in the SF Bay Area, I found Microsoft had released its much anticipated FREE anti-malware software, appropriately named “Security Essentials.”

During its beta testing period, the software received excellent pre-release notices. The final version was much-anticipated and was released at the end of Sept. All the post-release reviews I read are also excellent and according to them, its malware detection rate during laboratory tests were terrific. 

But, the one review I really wanted to hear is from the security expert I rely on the most…Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation.  As I’ve mentioned here before, he discovered “spyware” and gave it its name. He is into computer security big time and is a fanatic on details.

Steve gave a semi-quick review on his “Security Now” podcast with Leo LaPorte (an in-depth review is coming in a few weeks). He also gave it a rave review saying it is now the one security software he now recommends. He pointed out it has a smaller footprint on your system than most other programs and uses less system resources. That is good. 

He did point out one thing that was interesting…the scan time is slower than other security packages. But, that is intentional as the method Microsoft chose to use pretty much eliminates any false-positive results that have plagued other programs. Personally I would prefer that method, even if it is slower.

I installed it on my XP laptop while on the road as I wanted to try it out right away. It’s clean and easy to install (make sure you remove your current anti-virus/spyware software first). It automatically gets the latest definitions then does a quick scan.  I did not notice the slower scan times that Steve Gibson mentioned. On my laptop, it found two Trojans that AVG missed.

Yesterday, my first day back, I installed it on Windows 7. It installed even easier than my XP laptop. The quick-scan revealed no issues, but I ran an in-depth scan overnight and it found one questionable item.  This weekend, I will install it on my desktop’s Windows XP partition.

Bottom line…I also give it a good review and it is now my security software of choice. Be sure to remove your old anti-virus/spyware software before installing Security Essentials…and be sure to run an in-depth scan ASAP (have it run overnight).

This is a major software release by Microsoft and should have other anti-virus/spyware software companies worrying about their future. Remember, it is free and is available on the Microsoft Web site.