Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 Review

[donizme]

Source: PC MAG

Pros

Free. Small download. Clean, simple user interface. Starts working immediately.

Cons:

Poor protection against keyloggers, rootkits, and scareware. Just average protection against general malware. In testing, sometimes erroneously reported successful malware removal or blocking.

Bottom Line

Installing the free Microsoft Security Essentials will protect your system from malware—to a degree. But you'll get better protection from one of the other well-known free anti-malware products.

Testing Removal:

Malware Romoval:

Security Essentials scored 7.0 of 10 possible points for malware removal. That's just average, although it's only one full point below the top-scoring Norton Internet Security 2010. It detected 92 percent of the threats but left behind many executable files. A couple of threats were still running after it supposedly cleaned them up.

Keylogger Removal:

In a separate test using commercial keyloggers, it scored a dismal 1.6 points. Only Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.36 with 0.5 point and FortiClient Endpoint Security Standard Edition 4.1 with 0.7 have scored lower.

Rootkit Removal:

I analyzed the product's ability to detect and remove rootkits, drawing from both the malware and keylogger categories. Security Essentials boasts live kernel behavior monitoring and other features that should help against rootkits—they didn't. It only detected two-thirds of my rootkit samples. Two were still running and one still functioning as a rootkit after attempted removal. Its antirootkit score of 3.7 is way below average.

Rogue Software Removal:

Microsoft has publicly warned about the growing problem of rogue security software, called "scareware." I broke out a separate score specifically for scareware samples and found that Security Essentials scored just 4.5 points, another below-average result.

Testing Blocking:

Malware Blocking:

When I opened a folder containing predownloaded malware samples Security Essentials cleaned up 70 percent of them. It took quite a bit longer than Norton or ZoneAlarm Extreme Security 2010, yet Norton removed 95 percent of the threats on sight. And though these were static, never-launched samples, Security Essentials requested a reboot to complete the cleanup, which is odd.

It caught most of the remaining samples during the install process. A couple managed to place executable files on the system even so. Its score of 8.4 points is just a little above average. Norton owns this test, with 9.6 points. BitDefender Total Security 2010 and Prevx 3.0 aren't far behind, with 9.4.

Keylogger Blocking:

Security Essentials scored just 2.8 points in a test of its ability to block keylogger installation. It only detected 40 percent of the keylogger samples. One managed to install despite the tool's attempt to block it. Fortunately for Microsoft, I give much less weight to the keylogger test.

Rootkit Blocking:

Considering rootkits from both the malware and keylogger collections Security Essentials detected two-thirds of them and scored 5.9 points; the average score is 6.6. One sample installed and launched its rootkit technology despite the product's attempt to block it.

Rogue Software blocking:

Security Essentials scored way below average at preventing installation of scareware: 4.8 points.

Conclusion:

Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 is free, and it's better than no protection at all. But it's not a big improvement over the now-defunct OneCare as far as malware protection goes. Somehow I expected better. As it is, you'll get more protection from avast! antivirus 4.8 Home Edition or AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0—both of which are also free.

[Toshiro]

Great Review, no smooth talk,... Just some info we (I) need to know about the program.

Btw, Avira is also an AV that's 1 of the best. And its free ;)

Ohyea, MS kinda disappointed me, I thought that they'd do a better job than OneCare.. Guess we'll see that @ the Official tests...