Microsoft Security Essentials or MSE is the name of the antivirus that Microsoft provides for Windows 7 and from which it has developed, in a much more advanced form, Windows Defender for Windows 8 and for Windows 10. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus for real-time protection from any virus and malware (it has the same effectiveness as Windows Defender), with excellent integration on Windows and, above all, light and space-saving from the point of view of the memory used. After trying it, let's see, now that it is officially released, how this antivirus behaves and if it is an effective real time protection or if it is another failed attempt in the security field by Microsoft.
The MSE Microsoft Security Essentials Download can be done directly from the Microsoft website.
The installer is incredibly small compared to its competitors, just 5 MB.
Inside there is antivirus, anti-malware protection, the possibility of receiving free updates and scheduled virus scanning .
The user interface, which has always been Microsoft's strong point, is well made and simple even for children and less expert users.
The general characteristics of a good antivirus are:
A fast and timely detection of viruses entering the computer, both known and unknown ones. At the same time, however, it must not slow down your computer when it is in the background and silently protect it from threats that can come at any time. The protection must be real time, that is, if a virus enters because an infected email has been downloaded, the antivirus must block it immediately before it can be executed and before it expands. Then when you do the manual virus scan, it should not take a day but a reasonable time that does not prevent me from working on the PC anyway. Finally, an excellent antivirus must not give false positives, that is, it must not block the execution of programs that have nothing to do with viruses.
As written in the previous article on the best free antivirus for PC, Kaspersky responds more or less to all these features and is certainly the best that you can download for free.
In the Microsoft Security Essentials interface there are not too many functions to confuse a basic computer user and there are 4 tabs .
The main one shows the evaluation of the current level of security through real-time monitoring and updates. On the right, the Scan Now button allows you to control your computer manually. The scan can be rapid, which only looks at a small number of critical system files and well-known places where viruses are usually stored, complete that analyzes all the files and personalized, which allows you to choose the path to be checked.
The update tab displays information about the signature of the database: creation date and version number. The 'Update' button on the right starts the automatic update process and the user no longer has to touch it.
The story presents potentially dangerous applications that have been discovered, quarantined or that have been manually allowed by the user.
The settings are used to modify the various parameters such as, the default actions when a malware is found, the exclusions for file types and the real-time scan options.
Regarding the results of the test we can say that:
On virus detection, MSE is very good because it managed to detect all "injected" virus tests as potential threats, and it was not at all obvious given that other celebrated programs were not up to discover them all.
A full scan took 25 minutes to scan around 250, 000 files. I would say that the MSE has a very good scan speed compared to the others, I don't know if it is the fastest, probably not, but it certainly doesn't take forever like a Norton.
The real-time protection went well because after putting a USB stick on the PC with the famous Autorun.inf virus, it was immediately blocked.
If you open a folder with a virus inside, in reality, MSE is a little slow to give the warning but as you press on that infected file to run it or open it, it is immediately recognized with the alarm window and there is no no possibility that the virus can act on the pc.
Actions such as the removal and disinfection of an infected object is perhaps a bit slow, but all in all we are a little picky if we criticize this factor.
As for the use of computer resources, MSE starts two processes in the task manager: MsMpEng.exe and msseces.exe but they really don't feel.
Let's say we stay on the 30 or 40 MB consumed in the background and maximum the CPU rises to 50% of use during a manual scan never more.
Last thought to say that if Microsoft has finally made its own antivirus, it means that after 10 years it has admitted that its operating system is not as secure as they wanted to believe. Another consideration leads me to reflect on how this product can kill security leaders such as Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky and Eset since it is completely free. If the European Commission is concerned about Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer, if Essentials as antivirus is already installed on the next Windows 7, there will be trouble for the IT security market.
To close I remember that the best free antivirus: MSE, Avira, Avast or AVG are compared on another page.
My final advice is to use MSE in Windows 7 unless there are particular needs for superior protection, because it is free and because, being Microsoft, there may be, in the future, the possibility of finding it often in front of it. Keep in mind, however, that in 2019 Windows 7 will end its life cycle so it is possible that MSE will also be withdrawn.
