Microsoft Security Essentials.
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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.
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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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
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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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.
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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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.
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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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.
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)
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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.
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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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.
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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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.
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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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)
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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.
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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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.
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 -
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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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
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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We use Sophus as well and I find it to be a memory hog (around 200MB) - have you had any issues with it?
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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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.
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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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.
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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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.
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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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.
I use Comodo personally, have had no issues yet :)
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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.
I've been using MSE for a few years now and I believe it works well. I, too, do NOT like to pay for things, so the freebies is always the route that I will take. I'll admit, even though I'm a developer, I'm a "beginner" when it comes to AV protection etc. So here's my question for you all. I've been running MSE for a few years, while also running Avast. It "appears" as though they are both running, but are they? Are they basically doing the exact same thing? What are people's preferences between the 2 products. What are the necessary [free] products to keep a computer running clean? I use MSE, Avast, SpyBot, used to run Sygate Personal Firewall, but not anymore. Malware Bytes, what are the other products that are also "essential" to have running on a machine?
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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.
I can say there is only one thing that I find disturbing about Microsoft Security Essentials. I had been using the product in it's paid form "One Care" for a year or so. This was about 3 years ago. I had it continually keep telling me I needed to take security checks to determine if my install of Windows was authentic - it was, I do not steal. I don't know about you guys, but how many times have you had to do that in the past? This used to pop up a lot on the MS developers site. I use Windows 7 64-bit. I guess there was a bug with "one" of the versions of the authentication checking module - that was XP based somewhere on the Microsoft site. Well I found it and it told me my version of Windows 7 was not authentic and then upon a reboot my partition was bricked. Calls to paid support lead nowhere in this case as it was an isolated problem - that was not supposed to happen as they said. They put me through the ringer to make sure I was not a software thief. I had all my receipts and bought my upgrade on the MS store. After that embarrassing few minutes, there was no solution. I lost some data and a 1TB Drive as well. When you start to mix other business interests with things that other AV software developers have no reason interest or need to delve in, that are not related to AV or Malware - things happen. All to often, although it IS better than it used to be - I hate getting the you have to re-install speech on a paid support call. I know the issue most likely does not exist anymore as this product has matured. The problem of Mixing things with the OS is no stranger to Windows. I use Norton :)
