Microsoft Security Essentials Rated Top Free Anti-Malware Solution
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UK magazine Computer Shopper have rated Microsoft’s new Security Essentials 1.0 anti-malware package as top-of-the-class with regard to free antivirus solutions. In the February 2010 edition of the magazine, which brings product news, computer help, tests and analyses new technologies, and runs competitions, Microsoft’s offering was awarded the Budget Buy award and rated with four stars; the same score as AVG 9.0. As we’ll go on to see further down, Microsoft’s product has a smaller footprint and is much more environment-friendly than AVG.
(You may wonder why it was given a budget buy award when it is free: Well free appears to me to be a decent budget!) Computer Shopper claim that their specialised anti-virus testing lab is one of the best in the world, and a member of AMTSO. (Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organisation.) They use viruses downloaded live from the internet as malware samples, rather than having a cumulative collection of virus-samples that may have mutated considerably since the sample was collected. In short; they test using XP Professional with the SP2 service-pack applied, and ensure that the anti-malware solution under test is updated with the very latest available malware definitions. The anti-malware solutions tested were both free and paid products. In the category of free products were: -
The lowest-scoring of these was Avira AntiVir Personal. In summary the magazine said that although it was easy to use, they were very disappointed at its poor web-threat-detection, as well as its unreliable automatic updates. Second from bottom, but yet in third place, came Alwil’s Avast! Home Edition, which has loads of features and provides a good all-round malware defence. – However others did a better job. AVG 9.0 was released while CS were testing, and despite having an unfair advantage in a number of ways, the product continued to hold its own among the best free security software available, coming in second-place out of the four. In first-place amongst the free-category was Microsoft’s Security Essentials 1.0. Computer Shopper’s summary verdict was that it was lightweight, easy-to-use, and accurate. They said that Security Essentials was the perfect choice if you’d rather not shell-out on a paid-for security suite. So although AVG had an herein-unspecified ‘unfair advantage’, it was nevertheless beaten back to second-place by the cream-of-the-crop from Microsoft. Why was this? Taking a look at the stated minimum hardware specifications required to run the 2 solutions might give us a clue as to at least a part of the reason: -
Unlike its resource-hungry rival, Security Essentials requires lower specs to operate, indicating that it has a much smaller footprint: It only needs a 500MHz processor, for instance, it only requires a minimum 250MB RAM, and will operate comfortably within 150MB disk-space.
Another thing CS stated about Security Essentials that gave it the edge was that it “rivalled the best of the paid-for anti-malware suites.” : It ended up with an overall-score of 18/19, having failed to protect against live-malware on just one occasion out of 19 attacks. The software didn’t interfere with or delay the running of any other software either.
Microsoft’s previous attempt at anti-malware; namely Windows Live One-Care, was rather lame; but this time round, the softies have done themselves proud. I myself have written a number of positive comments about Microsoft Security Essentials; one or two of them on this blog itself. Apparently it appears that everyone else is doing the same; which can only mean that Microsoft have yet again excelled themselves with an excellent product, worthy of the accolades bestowed upon it. |
A Geek’s Toolkit Supplement: Loaded USB Drive
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Being a geekette; that is a female computer designer/builder, as well as a blogger, I often get asked by my girlfriends (And some of their boyfriends too – Shh!) to pop over for a cuppa and attend to some problem they’re having with their computer. Most of these problems turn out to be software-related, so it’s always a good idea to come prepared – Although I can download most of what I need from the internet, sometimes their internet connection is not working for whatever reason, and more than one is on dial-up – Which can make downloading a program a 2-hour job in itself. To combat this I have a 1Gb USB flash drive with most of anything I might need on it; plus loads of links to anything useful on the internet itself that might be useful which I haven’t bothered to include because I probably won’t need it. |
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I pop the cord from which the USB stick hangs around my neck, and go to sort out their issues. I mainly have program installers in the form of .exe files on the USB drive: These are always useful. I also am able, in a worst-case scenario, to provide them with a temporary internet connection via my mobile device, for which I also carry a USB bluetooth dongle to plug into their computer on the rare occasions where it is necessary; such as an instance a year plus ago where a friend somehow lost the driver for their network interface device and was unable to communicate with their router as a result: I removed the old driver which was faulty but obviously didn’t have that particular driver on the USB device; so I set up a temporary internet connection via my mobile phone/bluetooth and downloaded a new driver, installed it – Target neutralised. The items I have on my USB drive are listed below: I’m sharing this with you as I’m assuming that as a geek you too get called out to similar situations; but being unable to fix it on the spot you end up taking their computer home, doing the work in your spare time, and returning their computer at a later date; which causes inconvenience to both parties. |
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The files I carry around on my USB device are as follows: 1. AVG Anti-virus.exe installer: You’d be mightily surprised how many people don’t run an anti-virus program! They might find that their computer slows down with use; and, not realising that it is caused by the registry getting cluttered with crap among other things, they start removing programs which they think are unnecessary in order to attempt to get the machine to speed up again, one of those “unnecessary” programs being their anti-virus program. 2.. A free anti-spyware program; such as AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy – For the reason stated above or that they didn’t even know what spyware was etc. The latest AVG antivirus has built-in spyware-protection, but that protection is not exhaustive, so it’s always a good idea to install extra spyware protection supplemental to that. 3. Free FTP clients in .exe installer format, such as WS-FTP-LE and FileZilla: They do occasionally come in handy. 4. Diagnostic programs; such as Core Temp.exe, Diskcheckup.exe… I know; rather than listing them all here I’ll show a picture of all the icons below and to save a lot of my time I’ll let you Google for them all. Obviously the folders are of my own making: Batch Files contains some useful batch files that I wrote or copied, Dragons Websites contains the URLs of the websites of the millionaire entrepreneurs from the BBC series “Dragon’s Den”, Glint(Program) contains the .exe file of the Glint System Monitor program, KK contains pictures which I use regarding Kustom Komputa; Suppliers, Parts, and Circuits contains URLs to suppliers of computer hardware components, plus a few electronic circuits, Web Shortcuts contains hundreds of various useful URLs, Websites contains copies of all my website files from some of my various sites, WP Plugins contains some useful WordPress plugins. Some of the files, such as DSC00* are photos from my mobile phone. aports.zip shouldn’t be on there as it’s a program that contains malware. OEM Exel and OEM INXP are folders containing branding files which I add to the OS to indicate that I am supplier, builder, and maintenance tech for a particular computer. The file “Kustom Komputa” is a copy of some files from my Kustom Komputa website. WP Themes contains WordPress themes. The Folder “Self-Installing Scr” contains a number of screensavers that I created and which automatically install on the computer upon activation of the .exe file thereof. (No malware involved.) The folder Paint.net contains the program Paint.net, and the folder “Sounds” contains some alternative Windows sound effects as spoken by the Daleks from the BBC TV series “Dr Who”. There are also a number of shortcuts which you don’t normally see on any Windows desktop. These shortcuts; such as “Sound Recorder“, “Volume Control“, “Command Prompt“, “Device Manager“, and “Sleep or Hibernate” are described on this site, including the method to create your very own icon(s).
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So that’s pretty much it: Carry this lot plus your own personal files around on a USB flash drive and you won’t go far wrong. HTH (‘Hope That Helps.) |
