Microsoft Essentials

[mspl]

I got a computer with microsoft essentials on it (have been wanting to try it) like it. I have subscription for Mcafee can put on 3 computers so would not cost me anything to put on but would rather go with essentials. Any opinions on essentials? Seems mostly positive searching online.

[RaisinCain]

I would go with Norton IMHO (if you have the option). Anything besides MSSE is better. Just haven't had too much luck with MSSE thus far.

[mspl]

What kind of issues have you had with essentials?

[YeOldeStonecat]

I use it on my own personal computers, on my computers at the office, for many of my smaller small business clients (MSE can be used for small businesses of up to 10x computers...no servers)...and for my friends (those that know I do computers for a living and want freebie help)..and family (same thing). Friends/neighbors/family...since I do those "favors" for free...I want to spend as little time on those as possible, I don't want them calling me. So I will put on there what works best for me (sounds selfish..but it's time consuming, and since I'm doing that work for free...that's how it is). If my experience didn't show me that MSE was good enough for that...I wouldn't use it. I've used all the other freebie ones for those cases, and even paid ones...and I got more calls to help them out. Switching to MSE reduced my calls to help them out, quite a bit. So guess what I'll keep using for them!

I have reseller licenses and NFR licenses for most every brand antivirus you can come up with, and have worked on practically all of them. So I can use whatever I want for free on my own rigs. We work on computers from businesses to home computers...and see it all, see them all, get to see what gets easily infected, and what doesn't. I'm talking insane numbers......so I see what works, and what doesn't.....the pure volume of what I see does the talking.

It's detection rates are pretty good....its cleaning rates are very good, and one of the lowest false/positive rates out there.
It does not give a big performance hit.
It has a very simple interface, does not confuse typical home users
It has no license to renew...so you can stick it on home users computers and not worry about it down the road.

Now, I do think that compared to other freebies out there, Avast and AntiVir have better detection rates...at times. But also higher false positive rates, update issues (hello Antivir), constant nags to upgrade to the pro versions, license renewal times, etc etc etc.

MSE has been getting much better with its detection of "real actual current malware".....I've seen it find and clean malware that has made it past Avast, Antivir, AVG (lol what doesn't make it past AVG), and lots of paid antivirus software also. Heck I've seen it find things after a rig was scanned with Malwarebytes and Spybot and SAS.

If you'd like to read up on antivirus software and find trustworthy comparisons, the only website I trust and believe in is http://www.av-comparatives.org

If you want the best antivirus software for detection, for a while now the leaders have been G-Data, and Panda. (we work a lot with Panda through N-Able...it is a little heavy, don't put it on older computers..but it is very good at current web based malware)
Eset and Kaspersky are also pretty good. (we work a lot with those)
Norton/Symantsuck have gotten rid of their bloat, and do quite well also.

McAfee..mccrapee...I hate it, I see more malware make it past that product than most.

The real key to keeping todays threats away is keeping up what I call your 3rd party web players. Adobe PDF readers (or any brand PDF reader), Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, and Java. Windows actually tightened up quite a bit, so malware writers have targeted those 3rd party products to hit your system. You need to keep those above products up to date..and make sure no older versions still exist on your system. And naturally Microsoft Updates too.

Browsers...Internet Explorer 8 got fairly secure, IE 9 is even more so. Firefox is OK..but you can still get infected through it, Chrome is VERY secured.

[mspl]

I like it, did wonder why updates took so long after looking at site saw it uses 50% max of CPU for updates and scanning. Is nice if you want to work while scanning or updating but would be nice if you could turn it up if you didn't.

[YeOldeStonecat]

50% max of CPU for updates and scanning. Is nice if you want to work while scanning or updating but would be nice if you could turn it up if you didn't.

Default setting is 50% CPU for scans...but you can configure that from 10 - 100 very easily in the drop down menu on the Settings tab page, down towards the bottom you'll see the config for "Limit CPU usage for scan to: ___".

[mspl]

Default setting is 50% CPU for scans...but you can configure that from 10 - 100 very easily in the drop down menu on the Settings tab page, down towards the bottom you'll see the config for "Limit CPU usage for scan to: ___".

Good thanks, I must have misread it saying was set to A max of 50 I saw as THE max. Will set to 100% and run a full scan have only done a quick and was actually quick at the 50% setting. How often should you run a full scan?

[YeOldeStonecat]

That's up to you and your typical computer use and risk. I rely on real time file protection, MSE defaults to a quickscan once a week on Sunday mornings. I don't run a full scan on a computer unless I suspect something.