Microsoft Security Essentials gets a high rating on AV-Comparatives
Ever since I wrote this post back in July: “Is WSE the antivirus you’ve been waiting for?” I, have been waiting for AV-Comparatives to give it a blessing. In the November 2009 Proactive/Retrospective test, the now called Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) got an Advance+ rating and tied for 5th place in the “ProActive Detection for new malware” test. Considering this is a free download from Microsoft; I think this is impressive. My field experience told me it was a good product and it has become my anti-virus of choice when I build machines for customers.
Two other anti-virus software that MSE compares with are also my favorites: Kaspersky and ESET NOD32. Both cost money and if you don’t mind the cost then they are good choice. The only other “free” anti-virus ranked higher on the test was AVIRA. I have some experience with AVIRA but unfortunately, it wasn’t pleasant and I will blog about that later. More telling is the anti-virus products that got a low ranking including Symantec (Norton), and McAfee for detecting malware. These products are certified bloatware crap and should be removed and replaced as far as I’m concerned.
Click here to read the report yourself.
Side Note: I use AV-Comparatives because I trust them. The main reason is because they dont seem to be “in-bed” with any of the anti-virus vendors. You wont find web advertisements promoting the products they test on their web site for instance and that goes a long way in showing their independence. There are other so called “independent reviews” and some of them are for real but most are not.
