MS antivirus
 

For those who rely on this product here is a warning that it may not be the best software to use. There are a number of members who advocate using this product, perhaps they may now wish to amend or comment on that recommendation.

Security Essentials fails latest AV-Test | Security & Privacy - CNET News

pm575

And their result for the one a lot of us use on here, Avast free version:

AV-TEST - The Independent IT-Security Institute: Test Reports[report_no]=123615

And if you re-order that table by protection/repair level, you will see Kaspersky and one or two other commercial products rank higher.

As with all these sorts of tests and reviews, it all depends on the scope of the tests, many AV testers will run a series of tests with different scopes and so you need to take an overall view across all scopes rather than just focusing on one.

You should also never depend on a single review/test to determine a products suitability, sure AV-Test.org are well known, but they're not the only respected and well established AV testers on the block.

Finally, you need to remember that Anti-Virus should form part of a layered security model. You should not rely on it exclusively for your protection.

Something substandard from M$ ?

I don't believe it. :rolleyes:

Marvellous?
I use MSE with no problems - so what have I been infected with that I am unaware of?
What do I do next?
Is there a simple solution rather than starting again with a different Anti Virus system?

Mike6567,

Two replies for the price of one ....

Honestly, how difficult is it to uninstall one piece of software and install another ? :ugh:

-or-

Yes. Do nothing, but watch the next 2-3 months of tests... if Microsoft are still lagging, then bite the bullet and change. It might just have been they had a bad month.

Unless you've noticed a fall off in performance, or strange things happening, then probably you've not been infected so don't worry about it, unless you visit nasty warex or porn sites a lot.

Witn Win8 there's no choice to be made - AV is built into the OS (as it should be).

No hopefully I keep away from dodgy sites but have to be careful with stuff sent by my friend who now lives in Thailand.

At least don't go there as an admin equivalent... ;)

SD

Nonsense.

Microsoft got into a lot of hot water with the competition regulators over the Internet Exploder bundling debacle. Just as IE is now an option, the bundled AV is also optional.

If the built-in AV shows third-party AV is installed, then it will deactivate itself and defer AV roles to the third-party AV.

I've just started using MSE on the laptop in preference to McAfee, following a catastrophic failure.

Sitting in a guest house room with a dodgy wifi connection in a third world country, McAfee decided it needed to upgrade itself. Part way through the network connection failed. McAfee cleverly decided that this meant that I never wanted to use the internet ever again, and screwed up the machine completely so that I couldn't connect again when the wifi came back.

I got back online (without McAfee) after a couple of days of fiddling around, but I'm not going to run any software that crap again if I can help it.

Look, the whole point of anti-virus stuff is to improve your uptime, yes? If it gives you guaranteed 100% downtime then it hasn't worked, has it, and I'd be better off with something that detected slightly fewer viruses but didn't render my machine useless, no?

Gertrude the Wombat,

Nobody to blame but yourself my dear.

You should have come on here before starting your McAfee crusade, even the most modestly computer literate here would have told you McAfee are a name to be avoided. I certainly would have.

While it's in the buffer from JB


BBC News - Fugitive John McAfee flees Belize for Guatemala

Yes there is - Dell. McAfee came with the laptop, and MSE didn't exist in those days. Before McAfee broke there was no particular reason to go to the trouble of changing.

Mind you Mr McAfee's in need of a bit more than anti-virus stuff at the mo, almost poetic justice. :cool:

Is anyone forcing you to use the OEM bundled software ?

Symantec Internet Security comes regularly bundled on laptops I see, its the first thing that gets uninstalled and either replaced with an alternative AV.

Hey ! Let's not leave Norton http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...lies/pukey.gif out of this.

Norton is a Symantec product.....

Norton IS and Symantec IS are the same thing
However there are additional Symantec business products which often are more effective than the Norton branded ones...

I've said it before many times. Avast is one of the most consisitent high scorers in the AV test stakes. If you also turn on the "PUP" screening and automate the action it takes upon finding a problem, then not a lot gets past it.
I tried lots of programmes over the years, and Avast is the only one where I've never had a customer come back to me afterwards with a reinfection



edit
PS - the Microsoft AV products are a total waste of time. I've seen them penetrated loads of times. The only case where the product may be useful is if you have an old granny who goes on the internet once a month to do her shopping from Tesco, and her computer doesn't have the guts to run anything more advanced

It seems Barclays are offering Kaspersky to some of their customers. I can't imagine a full version being free indefinitely.

Anyone taken advantage of this?

several people I know
doesn't seem to be a catch of any kind. Its in the banks interests for their clients computers to be secure to minimise the risk of bank fraud.

Kaspersky is pretty good, though the more recent iterations have got more resource intensive and harder to configure
Still a lot better than Norton or McAfee though

I don't bank with Barclays, but Kaspersky are a good name.

Guatemala don't want to install McAfee either

BBC News - John McAfee refused asylum by Guatemala