Microsoft Security Essentials

When I bought my PC, it comes with a Norton antivirus software. Unfortunately, the software is only a trial version and it needs to be activated. After the trial period expires, it will no longer receive updates from Norton. I have pay them annually so I can continue to receive the much needed update.

There are plenty of free antivirus/anti-malware protection out there like Antivir, AVG, and Avast. I have tried almost all of them and they have slowed down my computer.

Last year, Microsoft has release a free antivirus/anti-malware program for users with genuine windows operating system. The program was codenamed Morro. Morro, of course, became known as Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), and is available to all genuine Windows XP, Vista, and 7 users, and will come in both 32-bit and 64-bit platform.

MSE was created to address the increasing problem of unprotected PCs. Most PC you buy in a store comes with a pre installed antivirus with a limited time security solutions. If the trial version expires, the program will stop updating and will leave the PC unprotected from the Internet’s harmful elements. These users have two choice, they can enter their credit card and pay up for an annual membership fee, or install those free versions from the net.

As of this moment, there are approximately 500 million people who download security updates from Microsoft. These 500 million users also sends Microsoft about the latest internet threats which they can identify and react to it aggressively. The program updates in real time.

MSE runs quietly in the background. It’s light and it will not hog your computer’s resources. And since it’s free, you won’t be seeing those annoying pop-up telling you if you wish to renew your subscription. When you install it, you can forget about it.

It works!

I was installing  software a while ago that I have just downloaded from the internet and before the installation has even begun, MSE has detected a potential threat. Since MSE has classified the threat as severe, it deleted it automatically.

This was the first time I saw MSE at work, and I was impressed.

You can download Microsoft Security Essentials here.

The installation is relatively easy. All you have to do is click the download now button on the security site and it will download a wizard that will confirm if your version of windows is genuine. After that, the suite will run and it will begin to download the latest virus definition from the server. The download will take about 4-6 minutes depending on your internet connection speed. If all goes well, you can leave MSE to worry about your PC’s security so you can focus more on what you need to do online.