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Microsoft Security Essentials.

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  • S Septimus Hedgehog

    We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

    If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

    R Offline
    R Offline
    Roger Wright
    wrote on last edited by
    #6

    I haven't used anything else since it became free, and haven't had any problems at all. The real horrors out there are Norton and McAfee, as I've had many experiences of those products completely destroying a Windows machine. Unless something drastically changes, I won't be wasting money on AV products ever again. As someone else pointed out, the big players are, in fact, viruses themselves that manage somehow to convince victims to pay for them.

    Will Rogers never met me.

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    • S Septimus Hedgehog

      We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

      If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

      J Offline
      J Offline
      jeron1
      wrote on last edited by
      #7

      I'll jump on the bandwagon as well, never had a problem using MSE, Norton on the other hand was a complete fustercluck! X|

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      • S Septimus Hedgehog

        We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

        If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

        S Offline
        S Offline
        Single Step Debugger
        wrote on last edited by
        #8

        I combined MSE with SpyBot Search and Destroy and they go pretty good together. So far no problems.

        There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

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        • S Septimus Hedgehog

          We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

          If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

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          L Offline
          Lost User
          wrote on last edited by
          #9

          I use it on my lone remaining MS machine at home and MSE seems to work just fine. The other posts above give Norton a REALLY bad rap which is true of the SOHO versions to be sure. Here in the office we use Symantec Endpoint Protection and it works very well without any of the over-done, CPU hogging BS of Norton's SOHO products. Just trying to be fair...

          Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

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          • L Lost User

            I use it on my lone remaining MS machine at home and MSE seems to work just fine. The other posts above give Norton a REALLY bad rap which is true of the SOHO versions to be sure. Here in the office we use Symantec Endpoint Protection and it works very well without any of the over-done, CPU hogging BS of Norton's SOHO products. Just trying to be fair...

            Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

            S Offline
            S Offline
            Single Step Debugger
            wrote on last edited by
            #10

            McAfee also has hardware AV protection of entire networks that works perfectly. The problem is these things are expensive. Verry expensive for a home user.

            There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

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            • S Septimus Hedgehog

              We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

              If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

              M Offline
              M Offline
              Mark_Wallace
              wrote on last edited by
              #11

              I think you'll find that only about two in a hundred cases of virus infection are because of "inferior anti-virus products". Inferior brains and complete stupidity account for the rest.

              I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

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              • S Septimus Hedgehog

                We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                M Offline
                M Offline
                MikoTheTerrible
                wrote on last edited by
                #12

                MSE is only free in a business environment for up to 10 users. Anything more than that and you are violating the EULA. So while it may be "free", it's only up to a certain point.

                "The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?" -- Oracle CEO Larry Ellison

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                • S Septimus Hedgehog

                  We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                  If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                  OriginalGriff
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #13

                  I've been using MSE for three or four years, and it's pretty good. Norton (Symantec) started out very good, but turned into a bloated, resource hog that is a PITA to remove - which is the first thing that happens when I get faced with a new PC with it preinstalled. McAfee did very well, much better than Norton, but eventually turned to the Dark Side and because in itself a computer virus. That either of them actually charges you to install them is a crime in itself.

                  The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

                  "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                  "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

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                  • S Septimus Hedgehog

                    We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                    If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                    D Offline
                    D Offline
                    dan sh
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #14

                    I consider it as the best among others in the category. I am using it for more than 4 years now and it is simply amazing. I have tried many others at office and at home but I have never looked elsewhere after installing it. Mostly, I notice products with issues around: 1. False alerts and ignoring actual alerts. 2. On-access scan. 3. Resource utilization. This one simply stands out. I am a MS fanboi when it comes to MSE.

                    "Bastards encourage idiots to use Oracle Forms, Web Forms, Access and a number of other dinky web publishing tolls.", Mycroft Holmes[^]

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                    • S Septimus Hedgehog

                      We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                      If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

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                      C Offline
                      Clifford Nelson
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #15

                      Only heard about trouble with the virus protection you buy. Also, hate to pay for it, especially considering what I have heard. All I use is what MS provides. Of course, I tend to be able to clean up after the mess if something happens. Thank god for System Restore, but have found the only good solution is to rebuild. Sort of sucks. Of course recently had to replace a hard drive, and that has the same issue.

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                      • S Septimus Hedgehog

                        We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                        If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                        N Offline
                        N Offline
                        NickPace
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #16

                        I like MSE and have been using it for years. It does not seem to bog computers down as much as the other AV software out there. MSE has caught all kinds of trojan and malware programs over the years (this is the computer that my kids use to surf the web). However it is not perfect. Recently my kids somehow downloaded some ransomeware that totally locked the computer up (it was the FBI cybercrime ransomware -- very official looking but totally fake). MSE did not help a bit. I had to reboot into safe mode and restore the computer to the last restore point to fix it. An easy enough fix for someone who is good with computers, but not for my wife who was freaked out. Even so, I recommend MSE to my family and friends. As you said, the price is right, and it is effective against most of the malware out there.

                        -NP Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.

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                        • K Keith Barrow

                          I've had no problems, and I've been running it pretty much since it became free, which must be heading for 5 years or even over now.

                          PHS241 wrote:

                          The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                          The big hitters (Norton, McAffee) are the horror story in this case. Sucking up precious CPU cycles that could otherwise be used for Skyrim for little to no net benefit for the average user (over free AVs). I've McAffe/Norton described as "viruses with a novel distribution mechanism, namely a whole corporation with its attendant marketing and vendor lock-ins".

                          “Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
                          “One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”

                          Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)

                          R Offline
                          R Offline
                          RedDk
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #17

                          Not an intentional hijack, you understand, but ... have you tried "System Configuration" startup differential? If not, back to the thread answer, both Norton AND McAffee SAAS can be easily disabled during ... ahem ... skyrim play.

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                          • S Septimus Hedgehog

                            We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                            If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                            J Offline
                            J Offline
                            Jorgen Andersson
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #18

                            It's all in the last word of the name. No sugar coating added.

                            Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES! Abraham Lincoln

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                            • S Septimus Hedgehog

                              We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                              If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                              V Offline
                              V Offline
                              Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #19

                              PHS241 wrote:

                              is MSE a good product

                              Yes. As long as your computer/internet session does not meet any viruses. No sooner a virus gets downloaded, than Windows/Microsoft will sing a lullaby to your instance of MSE.

                              Vasudevan Deepak Kumar Personal Homepage BRAINWAVE/1.0 Status-Code: 404 Status-Text: The requested brain could not be found. It may have been deleted or never installed.
                              --Brisingr Aerowing

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                              • S Septimus Hedgehog

                                We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                                If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                                F Offline
                                F Offline
                                Fxxxit
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #20

                                Used it for years on Win 7 (and prior) and now it's build into Win 8 so never have to worry about it.

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                                • S Simon_Whale

                                  It hasn't let me down and I've used it for quite a few years now. I've had more trouble with MacAVirus. At work we use Sophos, but Its very expensive for a home user.

                                  Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence EAT BACON

                                  S Offline
                                  S Offline
                                  Samuel Cragg
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #21

                                  We use Sophus as well and I find it to be a memory hog (around 200MB) - have you had any issues with it?

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                                  • S Samuel Cragg

                                    We use Sophus as well and I find it to be a memory hog (around 200MB) - have you had any issues with it?

                                    S Offline
                                    S Offline
                                    Simon_Whale
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #22

                                    Not at all but we have changed the background scanning to be new or updated files only.

                                    Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence EAT BACON

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                                    • R RedDk

                                      Not an intentional hijack, you understand, but ... have you tried "System Configuration" startup differential? If not, back to the thread answer, both Norton AND McAffee SAAS can be easily disabled during ... ahem ... skyrim play.

                                      K Offline
                                      K Offline
                                      Keith Barrow
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #23

                                      Haven't had either Norton or McAffee on my system for so long that, the answer is no to your question. Prior to MSE becoming free, I used Avast for several years so we are talking about ~7/8 years since I've used a non-free product. It doesn't make sense to pay for something when there are free alternatives. I also don't want to support companies who get their software bundled on new machines, especially when their uninstallers don't properly uninstall the product and you need a removal tool to get rid of them completely. This is beyond most average users I would guess, so they'd end up stumping up cash for AV protection when the trial period ended, simply because sorting this out is beyond them.

                                      “Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed”
                                      “One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”

                                      Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535)

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                                      • S Septimus Hedgehog

                                        We use it at work and I have it running on my PC at home. The price is right, bang on the money, namely, free. I guess it won't rank up there in the top-drawer of AV products but it seems to do the job but how well some of you folks might know. Compared to paid for products, are you getting what pay for? The big-hitters in the AV marketplace would no doubt try and manipulate you with all sorts of horror stories that only a purchased product would protect you from, but is MSE a good product?

                                        If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                                        R Offline
                                        R Offline
                                        Rob Grainger
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #24

                                        Its fine as far as it goes, but has some limitations. For example, I believe (I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong) it only really works well at scanning web downloads etc if you download from IE - using Chrome or FF may mean you need to consider other tools as well.

                                        "If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.

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                                        • R Rob Grainger

                                          Its fine as far as it goes, but has some limitations. For example, I believe (I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong) it only really works well at scanning web downloads etc if you download from IE - using Chrome or FF may mean you need to consider other tools as well.

                                          "If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.

                                          L Offline
                                          L Offline
                                          Le Poete
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #25

                                          Rob Grainger wrote:

                                          it only really works well at scanning web downloads etc if you download from IE

                                          It's half wrong. What Microsoft refers to as their "Security Suite" includes Smartfilter in IE to prevent downloading from websites that are on their blacklist, but MSE will still scan files downloaded from other browsers as the file hits the HDD. So the scan occures a little later. IE would prevent the download, with other browsers it finds the infection after the download. I'm almost always in Firefox and I sometimes see an MSE message telling me it's cleaning something right at the moment I hit a download link on some sites. And now MSE is built-in Windows 8 Under the name Windows Defender, but if you prefer using another anti-virus, Defender will deactive itself when another recognized anti-virus software is installed.

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