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clone
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Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 1:09 pm

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Flying Fox
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 1:31 pm

The detection rate has steadily dropped and it fell out of the top tier a while back. As for whether it is "garbage", it may be a matter of opinion.
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SoM
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 1:43 pm

i find nothing wrong about MSE, i visit questionable sites ALOT, and i have no problems with my PC, and my PC is on 24/7 since Sept 2009

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drsauced
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:10 pm

MSE is alright, and as the saying goes, it's better than nothing, I suppose. I run a small computer lab at work and while we were in between 'licenses' for SEP, I used MSE on them. The biggest problem were definition updates, which at that time (~2 years ago) were coming once a week at best. Now MSE updates several times a day.

The other question is, how effective? Not very, but not bad. It would do strange things like lock printers, and it used a preventive technique to prevent infection by just BSOD the machine. Crude, but pretty disruptive.

We're going to migrate the whole campus with ESET NOD32 sometime next year, which is much more effective at catching stuff that comes down via browser, and is pretty light on its feet, too.
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NovusBogus
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:16 pm

IMO it's good if you combine it with an antimalware application like MBAM, but not so great on its own. Being smart about where you surf makes a huge difference to malware risk.

I'm pessimistic about the utility of traditional AV programs. Supposedly NOD32 and Kaspersky aren't as useless as Norton/AVG/McAfee but I've never tried either myself, just enterprise dinosaurs and their free personal versions.
 
LostCat
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:22 pm

I find it good enough for casual use and appreciate not having to pay for it, if you're putting yourself in danger I'd use something more effective.

I do appreciate it doesn't register cookies as malware like some AVs do :roll:

I hear Kaspersky is the best out there, but every time I try it it doesn't find anything either. So I'm pretty sure I'm safe.
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UberGerbil
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:40 pm

clone wrote:
is it garbage or what? when I first started using it the reviews were positive and I love it's low resource using un-intrusive nature but if it's not working then of course what's the point of it.
I still use it, and periodically verify with other things like MBAM, and as far as those can tell it hasn't allowed anything nefarious onto my machine. Of course I probably adhere to smarter surfing practices than some users, though I've also put it on the machines of web-naive relatives and none of those have been infected either. A lot of potential infections can be mitigated through other means -- not running as admin, uninstalling Java and blocking Flash, etc.

And the line between "unobtrusive" and "not working" can be hard to detect. A lot of AV apps like to remind you about what a good job they claim they're doing, including flagging all sorts of things like cookies that aren't a threat.
 
The Swamp
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 2:51 pm

I've been infected twice while using it, both times requiring an OS reinstall. I've since switched to Avast and not had any further issues.
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clone
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sat Nov 02, 2013 3:01 pm

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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NovusBogus
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun Nov 03, 2013 1:24 am

UberGerbil wrote:
A lot of AV apps like to remind you about what a good job they claim they're doing, including flagging all sorts of things like cookies that aren't a threat.


AVG does this to me, which is hilarious given that in the ~5 years of using it the only time it ever detected anything was when a rogue AV downloaded some fake trojans that were supposed to be found (and naturally AVG did nothing about the puppetmaster, that required MBAM and some Windows deep magic). It also likes to complain that an old DX8.1 SDK example program contains a virus, comedy gold considering it came stright outta Redmond.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun Nov 03, 2013 1:43 am

I still install it (and MBAM) on Windows systems I maintain. It certainly seems to be less resource-intensive than the alternatives, but I do have some reservations regarding its efficacy. Sadly, AVG (which I used and recommend in the past) seems to have gone downhill. Avast is still an option, but more resource intensive than MSE. Beyond that you've got various paid options, towards which my attitude these days is pretty much "anything but McAfee".

As far as my own personal systems go, I generally don't bother with AV since I run Linux on all of them. While malware for Linux does exist, Linux is still (and will probably remain...) a small enough slice of the desktop market that it represents a fairly low value (and therefore low priority) target for malware authors.
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Flatland_Spider
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun Nov 03, 2013 2:59 pm

I run Kaspersky at my job, and I've been installing Bitdefender over MSE and Avira lately. Kaspersky has been good, but it can be a little aggressive. Bitdefender is rated as one of the better AV packages at the moment.
 
Blink
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun Nov 03, 2013 3:24 pm

I think if you Sandbox your browser you'll be fine with virtually any AV.
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LostCat
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:21 pm

Flatland_Spider wrote:
I run Kaspersky at my job, and I've been installing Bitdefender over MSE and Avira lately. Kaspersky has been good, but it can be a little aggressive. Bitdefender is rated as one of the better AV packages at the moment.

AV Comparatives rates Kaspersky 99% effective with no false positives IIRC. Bitdefender is close but not quite as good.

For me I switch off between MSE and Panda Cloud occasionally. The free stuff does the job for people who aren't using old OSes or out installing pirated software and shiz.
Meow.
 
Blink
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:28 pm

Savyg wrote:
Flatland_Spider wrote:
I run Kaspersky at my job, and I've been installing Bitdefender over MSE and Avira lately. Kaspersky has been good, but it can be a little aggressive. Bitdefender is rated as one of the better AV packages at the moment.

AV Comparatives rates Kaspersky 99% effective with no false positives IIRC. Bitdefender is close but not quite as good.

For me I switch off between MSE and Panda Cloud occasionally. The free stuff does the job for people who aren't using old OSes or out installing pirated software and shiz.


Bitdfender was rough on both my old desktop and my wife's laptop. Made them both feel sluggish. I run MSE on the desktop now and Avira on her laptop.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
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TwistedKestrel
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:34 pm

Aha! Funny this comes up now, because just last week MSE detected something on my father's laptop while I was in the room. He was suspicious of the popup and called me over, and I was kinda leery of it myself ... but it was actually MSE and not a fake warning.

I like MSE because at the bare minimum, it at least works. I can't count the number of times that I've looked at someone else's computer and Avast or AVG has stopped working because of some update that failed to download, or the user ignored the free registration popup, or whatever. Plus, I understand Avast has to make money, but the free version gets really obnoxious sometimes with the unnecessary popups and stuff.
 
Flatland_Spider
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Mon Nov 04, 2013 9:36 am

Savyg wrote:
AV Comparatives rates Kaspersky 99% effective with no false positives IIRC. Bitdefender is close but not quite as good.

For me I switch off between MSE and Panda Cloud occasionally. The free stuff does the job for people who aren't using old OSes or out installing pirated software and shiz.


Kaspersky isn't free though, and Bitdefender has a free option. I use Bitdefender when I'm going to pass off the computer to someone else, and it has to have Windows on it. Otherwise, I install Linux.

No false positives in their nicely regimented lab. Not so much in the real world.
 
Kougar
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Tue Nov 05, 2013 12:12 am

I still prefer MSE although I combine it with MBAM certainly. One of the original reasons I started using it was also the extremely low rate of false positives... something MSE is still good at even though the detection rate isn't as highly rated as it used to be.

Every single other free AV I've tried (3 or 4 of them) would detect false positives in Folding@home's work files, and lock the file. Even if I immediately cleared it, this would then corrupt the project in progress sometimes tossing a full day of crunching down the drain. Never once had this issue with MSE though.
 
nipure
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Re: Microsoft Security Essentials

Wed Nov 13, 2013 1:24 am

MSE maybe enough for casual usage. the best is to have a more powerful antivirus app to guard you computer. ESET NOD32 or AVAST can be trusted.

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