Native Anti-virus, Malware No-brainer
By: Taylor Gillespie
Microsoft Security Essentials continues to win industry-backed, third-party security certifications. A good, comprehensive anti-virus is a must-have application in any Windows system. An anti-virus application that scans for up-to-date virus signatures, one that runs concurrently in the background for real-time protection, and also importantly, one that does not hog system-valuable resources during runtime is what a pro user desires whatever the cost. For years that personally has meant only one choice for me: using Kaspersky. Keeping up with yearly subscription costs of many anti-virus applications can be an expensive proposition, and its second-class citizen status on the Windows platform often means system performance degradation. In recent years, Microsoft has continued to improve Microsoft Security Essentials to the point where choosing anything else seems nonsensical.
With a tentative mistrust of native application’s robustness, many users approach Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) with trepidation. However, consistently, MSE has grown to achieve massive acceptance and proven ability. Testing against the industry-accepted “WildList” of active, wide-spread, common virus, MSE recently received both the AV-Test Certificate, and theAugust 2010 VB100 certification. This means that it successfully detected viruses at rates as strong as other commercial and non-commercial applications.
Not only is it as effective as traditionally sought after anti-virus solutions, but it is a Microsoft product that has all the benefits an in-house product providing tight integration with the Windows operating system. Its resource footprint is meager. Beyond the powerful detection, and the seamless Windows integration, is the low actual cost. MSE is a free download for licensed Windows users.
Microsoft Security Essentials is the go-to anti-virus application for Windows users. It provides industry-proven effective detection rates among the current WildList, Microsoft integration into Windows for a smaller footprint, and the buy-in for current Windows users is nothing; it’s free. The years of struggling to balance the cost-benefit of various anti-virus solutions seems to have one clear winner for the majority of windows users: MSE.