The Lady Geek's Program of the Day: Microsoft Security Essentials

 Tales of the Lady Geek

Hello dear readers, as of this writing I am just returned from a trip to the local Radio Shack where I’ve spent a lovely afternoon chatting with one of the best techno minds I’ve ever encountered.  We were debating the merits and failings of various software and in particular Anti-virus programs, actually, we were getting pretty heated with our discussion because every tech has their favorite program, thus we were debating the many paid versions of Internet Security versus old fashioned virus removal and prevention software. 

After an hour spent throwing the merits of Panda, McAfee, Norton and Kaspersky back and forth, I left to go home and take care of the lovely family I have at home and not to obsess about how ‘right’ I was versus how ‘wrong’ he was.  I must admit that it became a pretty intense discussion and we just could not see eye to eye on the subject, which was slightly upsetting to me. 

After returning home, I changed from my business attire and into the most comfortable chenille PJ’s anyone could possibly own, all red and warm and soft and pretty, then I let my hair from its bun and as I was removing my makeup, it hit me. The best Security Suite of them all was right downstairs on my computer already and hadn’t been approached at all during that debate. So here is my review for you, dear readers.

The Lady Geek’s Favorite Program of the Day:

Microsoft Security Essentials

The description from Microsoft’s website says: “Microsoft Security Essentials is free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. It helps protect against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. Because Microsoft Security Essentials is available at no cost, there’s no registration process that requires billing or personal information collection. It installs after a quick download…and then stays automatically up-to-date with the latest protection technology and signature updates. Microsoft Security Essentials doesn’t get in your way. It runs quietly in the background and schedules a scan when your computer is most likely idle. You only see alerts when you need to take action.”

All of this is good, impressive advertising for a free offering, but when you’re looking for a reliable Security Suite it’s really all about experiencing the five aspects of protection: System Performance, Annoyance, Features, Pricing and Virus Detection.  Let me tell you, Microsoft Security Essentials hits all the marks in just the right notes for me.

System Performance:

As a power computer user, I care almost obsessively about what I install on my systems. Every single application that gets installed at home is measured in lag time, boot time and how it affects my system resource allocation. Let me tell you, a lot of other Internet Security programs can make you choose between regular maintenance and whatever else you might want to be doing on your system. In my early tech days, one particular Internet Security program refused to allow me to do so much as burn a disc while it ran.  Microsoft Security Essentials took up very little of my system resources.

While I burned a disc, copied six gigabytes of pictures to my external hard drive and watched a movie, it swiftly ran through all of the files and folders on my 700GB Hard drive in less than fifteen minutes without taking up unnecessary memory or processing time.

In addition to system performance, how fast the program scans is extremely important. In this day of multi-terabyte hard drives, a manual virus scan on sub quality Security software could take hours or days that I don’t need to waste.  Microsoft Security Essentials doesn’t so big plus there! 

Annoyance:

Face it, if you think you’ve been infected with malware you can become quite stressed (especially if you don’t follow the cardinal rule of Backup and Save) and who needs more stress from a program that isn’t configured to recognize certain programs as legitimate or that constantly pops up trying to up sell your protection before it will act to remove whatever it finds?

With Microsoft Security Essentials, because it’s free, there is none of that up selling, and because Microsoft hires good programmers, it recognizes all of my legitimate programs as well as saves my time by not investigating files on my system that hasn’t been altered.  Therefore, the annoyance factor is nonexistent for me.

Features:

The easier the program is to use, the more likely you are to have faith in the it and the easier it is to manage your computer’s anti-viral life. I find that in my Internet Security Suite, the fewer features that need my personal customization, the better. Quite simply, the fact that I save the time of learning what I want to customize and figuring out the proper way to play with the features in order to best maintain my computer, is a breath of fresh air.  I like the features that come rolled up in my program to be simple, streamlined and most importantly useful. Microsoft Security Essentials provides me with a simple interface, limited customizing necessary besides setting the day and time of my full scans, and I appreciate that in my hectic, Geeky life.  

Pricing:

Whatever amount that I spend on a product, whether it is time or money that I spend has to be worth the price. I find that “free” is a rather “hit or miss” category for me. Usually, I expect to get what I pay for, especially when it comes to me at no charge.  While I refuse to pour money into the ‘next great thing’ only to find out in the end it was mostly fluff and feathers instead of substance and value, I also refuse to pour time into a useless or mediocre product. Fortunately with Microsoft Security Essentials, I don’t have to feel like I’ve just done that. As a matter of fact, having been using it for over a year now, I sometimes feel as if I’m taking advantage of Microsoft’s good nature.

Virus Detection:

This is the bread and butter of what any Internet Security Suite is supposed to do. Therefore, it carries way more weight than any other category I’ve listed.  As a tech, I’m able to run a series of virtual malware tests on my system and then compare and contrast the detections of the limitations of the product before finally choosing the Internet Security that will work best with my requirements. That’s why I’m here, to help you avoid common mistakes non tech people fall into when it comes to purchasing the software needed to protect your computer through my real life experiences.

Final Thoughts:

Microsoft Security Essentials is the best Internet Security programs I’ve ever seen. It is light on system resources, integrates well (unsurprisingly) with Microsoft Windows and is unobtrusive. I cannot wait for the next edition to be finished with its Beta Test and launched fully into the world. So if you’re shopping around for a good Internet Security System, I suggest you look no further than Microsoft Security Essentials available from: http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/mse.aspx

Written by MaryAnn Paris