Your Opinion on Microsoft Security Essentials: How is it?

Me | 8/14/10 | Don

[Born Conservative]

I like it. It picked up several infections that Avast missed.

[gswilder]

Norton was completely rewritten for the 2009 version (and now 2010). It is a completely new product and works great. IT installs in about 60 seconds. Has almost a zero impact on PC performance, and keeps your PC clean. I had given up on Norton 5-6 years ago. But they got tons of great reviews after the 2009 rewrite. So I gave it a go again. Have it on 5-6 PC’s for over a year now. Love it.

I also use MS Security Essentials on a couple of Win7 laptops I use. It seems to do the job just fine also.

[Big Giant Head]

I use it ONLY for the purpose of defeating the “Your computer may be at risk” pop-ups. I guess I need to modify my tagline, but I ran for TWO YEARS with ZERO anti-virus, waiting to get infected, and it didn’t happen. I’m simply behind a router.

On any given day in my house, there’s at least a half-dozen computers running, most on the internet, NO AV software on ‘em, NO infections.

But, I finally got tired of playing pop the balloon on every startup and put on the MS stuff. I never run scans, it’s a waste of time. MS was, as has been noted over and over, much lighter on resources than the others I’ve tried. Norton and McAfee have made me a lot of spare cash, “fixing” slow bogged down computers.

I realize this isn’t much of a recommendation for Microsoft Security Essentials, but hey, it’s free. Whatever.

[LOC1]

No, sorry. Only experience is with XP.

[raybbr]

Do you have any experience with MalwareBytes and Windows 7 64-bit?

In what way? I have it on this laptop and it works fine.

[Still Thinking]

I use it ONLY for the purpose of defeating the “Your computer may be at risk” pop-ups. I guess I need to modify my tagline, but I ran for TWO YEARS with ZERO anti-virus, waiting to get infected, and it didn’t happen. I’m simply behind a router.

You DO realize you can turn those off, right? Go to Control Panel -> Security Center -> "Change the way Security Center alerts me" (in the "Resources" box at the left), or it's a service and you can just turn off the whole thing. I think the name is "Alerter" IIRC.

[killermosquito]

I would like to install it with my Windows 7 64-bit and I would like to know someone with the same has used it without problems. Thanks.

[dayglored]

> I use it ONLY for the purpose of defeating the “Your computer may be at risk” pop-ups.

You can also defeat those warnings in the Security Center, by telling Windows that you have your own anti-virus and they don't have to monitor it.

[raybbr]

I would like to install it with my Windows 7 64-bit and I would like to know someone with the same has used it without problems. Thanks.

Oh, I forgot to post that I am running W7 64bit on my laptop. It runs fine and works well without causing any issues. I would recommend it.

[Red in Blue PA]

I’ve used Norton for years and it has been wonderful.

Cannot echo these sentiments.

[Big Giant Head]

Cool beans. I didn’t know that.

[rarestia]

I’m using MSE on 2 Win7 PCs and love it. Compared to Symantec from the XP/Vista days, MSE is very lightweight. I’m noticing, however, that cheap disk space and RAM are becoming so ubiquitous that having >4GB RAM and >500GB disk is the norm for Win7 users. Even the cheapest laptops have 4GB RAM where I was pining for 4GB on my ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe just a few years ago; and when I finally got it, it was lackluster.

Use MSE with regular MalwareBytes scans, and you’ll be fine. Just Google ‘MalwareBytes’ and enjoy. It’s a very comprehensive scanning utility.