Microsoft has released free software that people can use to protect computers against viruses, spyware and other malicious codes.

Microsoft Security Essentials is available for download at
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/

If you dont have any antivirus on your PC then go for it, but if you are already using some professionsl version of antivirus or planning to buy it then it is not that useful as said by Symantec :

Computer security specialty firm Symantec downplayed the Microsoft offering, saying it is lightweight and isn't tuned for new forms of attack being used by hackers. Symantec referred to Security Essentials as a stripped-down version of an old Microsoft OneCare product that got poor ratings.

Please share your views if you install it .

I recently switched from a commercial product to Avira, a highly recommended free anti-virus product. In recent tests of Free Antivirus Software by PC World it came up first, though by a tiny margin. I therefore see no need to exlpore the new Microsoft offering.

But remember, any antivirus tool is better than none!!!!

Hi,

I am pretty happy with Avira AntiVir Personal. I have never had a good experience with the Norton or Mcafee products. They always seemed to slow down the performance of the machine.

I am keeping an eye on the product and see when there are more reviews and real world stories out there.

Good to see Microsoft also offering a free anti virus solution. Really there is no excuse not to run something.

Have fun and surf safely

Martin

AVG Free seems to work pretty well for me. Seeing as MS can't keep most of their software free from flaws and loopholes that leave it vulnerable to attack, I see no reason why I should trust an antivirus by them.

Avast is another freebie that's excellent.

As mentioned above, better than nothing. I am sure that most people would feel more reassured with a complete programme.

This could only be used if you have genuine Microsoft software on your PC. I am sure that all Microsoft users do have genuine products

I agree, have used AVG Free for many years, works fine on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 x64. Never had a virus and AVG has never caused me issues unlike Norton or Kaspersky.

I'm using Comodo Internet Security since a few months, and I'm very happy with it.

MSE seems to be reasonable when compared to other free AVs. It has low overheads and does not annoy without reason (like AVG free [now bloatware] and Avira do with advertising when updating signature files).

If you have a pukker version of Windows, it's reasonable. I've switched (from Avira).

Best thing you could ever do, though, is not run with admin rights and kill JS and Flash.

So speaketh the Lord, William H Gates

Another vote for AVG here, got the free version on all my PCs and never had a problem. I've also heard good things about Avast and Avira though. Kapersky I actually found quite cumbersome.

+1 for Avast even for the free Home version.

Avira is the best freebie, and one of the best AV's, period. Avast! isn't quite up there with the big boys.

Even I started using avira when my lisenced version of McAfee expired and still happy with it...

Yesterday I found microsoft has launched free version and was available for download but now it says 'Not available in your country or region' (thought I downloaded it y'day)... Microsoft really sucks....

'When Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, it will be when they start making vacuum cleaners'

Brilliant quote!

Slightly controversial, but who doesn't use or believe in using anti-virus software?
Personally I've been an avid PC user for over 14 years and in that time I've only ever installed anti-virus software on perhaps one or two machines. And yet in all that time I don't think I've ever contracted a virus (or seen the manifestations of a viral attack).

By no means am I saying people shouldn't use them, but in my case I am very frugal with the software I install (MS Office Suite, Nero and perhaps a photo editor) and I have a phobia about opening attachments or runing exe's from anything other than a totally trusted source.

There are of course weaknesses to my logic e.g. what if your trusted source has been hijacked by a trojan and is spewing out infected emails or (b) How do you know you don't have a virus if you have no anti virus software to detect it? (c) you've never had a hard disk full of data trashed by a virus, so Shuttit Castro!!!

All True, but never-the-less I still think there is an ocean of hype over viruses. If you run a tidy ship, regularly download all Windows security fixes and take basic precautions then I don't see why you need AV bloatware bogging down your PC and bombarding you with false positives. At the end of the day, if it was so critical to the working of a PC,why isn't AV software integrated into the OS? After all Microsoft gives you free tools for error checking and defragging your HD.

puts hand up

my pc is sat behind a firewalled router, I don't visit dodgy website and download dodgy files, and I'm not stupid enough to click yes on every popup, never had a problem with virus's since my atari st days.

long gone are the days of sticking infected 3.5" floppys in your pc and getting caught out.

I have used avg in the past, and it killed my machine while it was doing the scans, so now I don't.

I have to agree on the false id's as well, I use a freeware overclocking app that has a little clickbox to donate to the author, avg identifies this as some sort of virus because of this.

My first contact with a Personal Computer was 1993. My father bought it to use it with 2D-Planning software, I used it for Doom

Since then I have almost never used AV Software. The last time I gave it a shot again was a few months ago. I think it was Avira.

Lasted two days.

Oh and let me add a comment to Symantec (we like to call them "the yellow pest / die gelbe Pest").

I have lost count for how many problems their software is known to cause problems with the OS and the different Roles.

Although other AV products are not much better, the pest has just a biggger spread...

Edit: Yeah i also had an Atari ST 1024 before that! Everybody had Amiga 500 and there were so many games for the Amiga, but not for the Atari. I remember Rick Dangerous though

OMG another disk sucking product from Microsoft .... thats means now I need another 160 GB HDD for this anitivirus updates.

it's actually smaller than mcafee, norton and does not use that much RAM when active

Ah but the ST has STOS so I wrote my own yes all you amiga fan boys I know it eventually came on the amiga, but by then I had discovered girls so couldn't have cared less