Free M$S Security

Since I'm having to keep 2 PCs at present we were taking stuff off the big desktop and sorting out security - as what was on had time expired

What are anyone's thoughts on the new "free" Microsoft anti-virus software that is to be released ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8095932.stm

In reply to a post by goldenoldie:

What are anyone's thoughts on the new "free" Microsoft anti-virus software that is to be released ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8095932.stm

If it gets released as I expect the EU to step in and demand it's withdrawal due to anti-compettive practices !

Also I expect ESET, Norton, McAfee won't be pleased as they offer paid for security products.

Suppose it depends how good it is?

In reply to a post by blfamily:

Suppose it depends how good it is?

Yes.

Microsoft can't win though as if it's dire then no one will bother with it and yet if it's good then it will be downloaded by the masses and other AV vendors will moan that they are losing business to Microsoft !

In reply to a post by CurlyWhirly:

If it gets released as I expect the EU to step in and demand it's withdrawal due to anti-compettive practices !

I was thinking about this just a few days ago. It'll be interesting to see whether this would invoke anti-trust investigations and charges under competition law. Microsoft successfully bundled their basic firewall with XP & Vista without the EU beginning a case, so who knows what will happen when Morro software is officially launched.

@ OP: It's a wait-and-see job. Who knows how effective it will be. It's basically being produced due to the failure of their Live OneCare and if that is anything to go by, it will not be up to scratch.

In reply to a post by cozumel:

I was thinking about this just a few days ago. It'll be interesting to see whether this would invoke anti-trust investigations and charges under competition law. Microsoft successfully bundled their basic firewall with XP & Vista without the EU beginning a case, so who knows what will happen when Morro software is officially launched.

That is, of course, true but the anti-virus market is much more lucrative than the firewall market besides most routers come with a (free) NAT hardware firewall built in which is enough for most people (although not me as I insist on using a software firewall as well)

In reply to a post by cozumel:

I was thinking about this just a few days ago. It'll be interesting to see whether this would invoke anti-trust investigations and charges under competition law.

I suppose it depends whether Microsoft bundle it in as standard with windows or encourage/force it through windows update.
If it is a free optional download then surely it will be viewed no differently than offering like AVG or Avast Personal.

Well, it has now been released, kind of, if you go to the dedicated site, it says you are not in a listed country, yet you are still able to download it from :
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/default...

If anyone has used it, I would be interested to hear what they have to say about it!

I dont like it. I tried it on a fresh install of XP sp3 in a virtual machine.

First time I installed it made my machine very slow. So I removed and re-installed. First install seem to get stuck on the update process when installing definitions. Second install seemed to go ok with a quick scan lasting about 10 minutes but still some lag on doing tasks and the SE window seemed slow to respond.

But on subsequent reboots the SE service failed to start automatically so the machine was "At risk" because the real time scanner had not started. Think this is a windows problem as some other programs have this problem but you would think MS would delay the icon until the SE service starts like Nod32 do.

Interesting, thanks Tim for responding.

I think I shall have to look at sometime myself because customers will ask !