Thread: Microsoft Security Essentials is a Free Antivirus Utility

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free utility that gives real-time protection to recognize and remove dangerous viruses and other malware from your PC. Here we look at how it do and the safety it has to offer.

Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is free Anti-Malware protection that substitutes their earlier “pay for” utility. It has left beta and version 1.0 was released to the public. Because with the beta we viewed you before, this gives real-time safety and runs softly in the background. It really runs a lot like the beta version and the user interface is the fundamentally same.



Before installation ensure that there is no other Antivirus or spyware running on PC. Though, you do not require to turn off Windows Defender, because MSE takes care of it .



You will have to authenticate your copy of Windows to enable install and make use of Security Essentials.



User interface is basic, simple, and easy to use. After installation it will update the virus definitions right away. After that it will update itself automatically in the background so once installed it truly is a “set it and forget it” procedure.



When database is updated PC status becomes green. There are 4 tabs that permit you to control different functions.

Under Settings you can select what actions it should take with malware based on its threat level.



By default Real-time protection is allowed but if you would like to disable it. The immediate protection is light on system resources and doesn’t slow down other functions.



It shows a green icon in the warning area letting you know your system is protected.



Progress is shown while a scan takes place and shows amount of time it takes. Scan times will differ between systems depends on amount of files and hardware performance.

It works like other Antivirus applications and allows you scan a every file.



If a threat is spotted a red attention screen shows in the Notification Area and you can clean the threat immediately based on your suggested actions or find out more detail about it.



For more details, they actually give a good amount of information on a threat. When in the details screen you can modify the recommend action if you want and clean it from there.



Throughout tests we tried to download an infected file, but MSE stopped it and wouldn’t permit the download to carry on unless manually picking to ignore it. This is nice so somebody doesn’t ignore the warnings, tick out of the screens, and attempt to download and install the application anyway.



For checking we ran this on the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium but it works with XP and Vista. It is light on system resources and runs gently without constantly popping up messages and annoying you. It does pop up a message when it matters. If a threat is found it will pop up a red alert to let you know about the malware and choose what actions to take. It’s good to have a free anti-malware utility that is easy to use and effective.