Microsoft Security Essentials: I feel naked and exposed, but all for a good cause.

Microsoft have released their free anti-virus software Microsoft Security Essentials. The current players in the market will use the old argument "you pay for what you get". But the reality is we've tested the leading anti-virus software packages that are generally available to consumers from retailers and we have to say we've been disappointed in all of them.

Is Microsoft Security Essentials good enough?

I support a lot of customers and for my own needs the question for me is: Is Microsoft Security Essentials better than what I'm currently using?" Should I stop paying my yearly subscription and move to Microsoft Security Essentials and save some money.

I decided the only way to answer this was to get naked and exposed, in a virtual sense. That is I disabled the anti-virus software on one of the mail servers, so I will now receive all potential malware threats that are sent to me. I receive the same emails into two different computers. One running Outlook and my current anti-virus software, the other running Outlook Express and Microsoft Security Essentials. The email client isn't important in this test. What is important is how each anti-virus product performs.

I've already received one email with malware attached and I can say the result totally surprised me.

Over the next week or so I will be evaluating Microsoft Security Essentials with the best approach I know how. That is a parallel test of two anti-virus software packages receiving the same emails and noting how they respond to malware.

If you are using other leading anti-virus software packages, I can assure you in many cases they won't catch the very latest malware. You are exposed. Is Microsoft Security Essentials any better? I hope to find out and share the information with clients. The result could be savings of thousands of dollars for those who know me.

If you are interested in my findings, I'll be posting the results in MyAnswers and update the MyAnswers solution as I find information to share. As I said, I am already surprised with the outcome and that's only with the first infected email I received.

I am also happy to parallel test Trend, Norton and McAfee and other anti-virus software if there is interest with paid support.

I would highly suggest that if you look after computer users, you also review Microsoft Security Essentials for yourself. Most of what you read in the media is without substance. The protection the anti-virus software companies say they provide is misleading, because the biggest threat is when you have anti-virus installed, are new viruses and in that area all the anti-virus software packages tend to perform poorly. 

If you are a computer user, the best thing you can do to protect yourself, is to learn some safe computing techniques as well as using anti-virus software. Using the low cost techniques I use to protect myself from malicious emails, I rarely receive email based malware into my computer.

So whilst I feel naked and exposed, I know it is a for a good cause. My customers will end up with the better outcome and for me that is worthwhile.

Kelvin