{"id":9790,"date":"2009-07-22T09:15:00","date_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9790"},"modified":"2009-07-22T09:15:00","modified_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","slug":"microsoft-security-essentials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9790","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Security Essentials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally, someone gets it.\u00a0 Antivirus should be small, simple and not try to be all things to all people.\u00a0 It\u2019s when this software gets bloated that it becomes a hindrance.\u00a0 I\u2019ve installed Microsoft Security Essentials (test version) on my Windows 7 RC laptop.\u00a0 It\u2019s small and light; I barely know it\u2019s there.\u00a0 It\u2019s aimed at the home market but the SOHO\u2019s are just as likely to use it.\u00a0 It\u2019s very simple and small, accomplishing what Forefront Client Security tried to do \u2026 until it bundled\/required MOM 2005 so the management server became huge.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Combined with Windows Firewall (firewall, obviously) and Windows Defender (spyware) you have a nice free solution for Internet security without having to buy dodgy yellow-pack<\/a> software (you know who I mean) on a subscription basis.<\/p>\n

The beta is currently restricted to United States, Israel (English only), People’s Republic of China (Simplified Chinese only) and Brazil (Brazilian Portuguese only).\u00a0 19 markets are to be added to the beta in the coming months.\u00a0 There is a leaked copy out there but I’m not recommending anyone use it.<\/p>\n

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A nice simple summary that anyone can understand.\u00a0 You get the usual context menus in Explorer so you can also kick off a manual scan.<\/p>\n

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I can quickly trigger manual updates.\u00a0 Automatic updates will be via Windows Updates, i.e. silent.\u00a0 I’ve read that updates could be as often as 3 times a day.\u00a0 Updates to the program will also be via Windows Update; maybe once a month.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Here I can see things that have been detected.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s an alert I got when I downloaded Eicar, the test virus.<\/p>\n

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And here\u2019s the result of a clean task.<\/p>\n

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My history was updated.\u00a0 This is what it deleted: file:C:UsersAFinnAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet FilesLowContent.IE51E60T29Beicar[1].com.\u00a0 The file I was downloading never made it to the desktop where I was saving it to.<\/p>\n

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My laptop will do a scan in the morning while I\u2019m having breakfast \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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These are the actions when a threat is found.<\/p>\n

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Real-time protection is set up nicely by default.<\/p>\n

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You can exclude specific paths from the scan.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve added VM disk file extensions from the scan to improve their performance.<\/p>\n

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You can exclude certain processes, e.g. if you were running an MSDE.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s the advanced settings.\u00a0 I\u2019ve added the option to scan removable drives: I use USB drives quite a bit for photo storage and project work.\u00a0 I’ve seen some people commenting that an infeaction clean is slow.\u00a0 Yes, because it is preceded by a snapshot.\u00a0 This gives us a rollback in case of a false positive.\u00a0 For example, remember when a certain yellow-pack AV started removing Excel spreadsheets late one Friday night a few years ago?\u00a0 Imagine if it had taken a snapshot first … people wouldn’t have lost files.\u00a0 They could have restored them quite simply.<\/p>\n

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Finally this is how you feed back security information for MS to analyse.<\/p>\n

All in all, this is a very simple product.\u00a0 Notice that there aren\u2019t dozens of menu items with settings hidden all over the place?\u00a0 Notice it doesn\u2019t try to be my Net Nanny?\u00a0 Notice that some 3rd party firewall hasn\u2019t broken my home network?\u00a0 Sweet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finally, someone gets it.\u00a0 Antivirus should be small, simple and not try to be all things to all people.\u00a0 It\u2019s when this software gets bloated that it becomes a hindrance.\u00a0 I\u2019ve installed Microsoft Security Essentials (test version) on my Windows 7 RC laptop.\u00a0 It\u2019s small and light; I barely know it\u2019s there.\u00a0 It\u2019s aimed at … Continue reading “Microsoft Security Essentials”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t